Emily Gulla
Two years since last releasing a record, British pop rock band Scouting For Girls are back with their fifth studio album Ten Add Ten: The Very Best of Scouting For Girls, which includes ten greatest hits plus ten brand new tracks. The first new single from the album, “Dancing In the Daylight” has already been a hit with fans. We caught up with the band’s guitarist Greg Churchouse on the album release day to chat touring, new music and rekindling their old sound.
It’s been two years since you last released an album. What have you been doing for the past two years? Has it been nice having a bit of time away?
Do you know what, it’s really weird because we’re actually pretty much constantly busy all the time. But it’s more of a part time job because we generally tend to be out on the road Thursday through Sunday. We literally gig every weekend at little festivals, corporate gigs, we’ve been doing some freshers’ nights, been doing some summer balls. We’re always out and about, just not necessarily in the public eye.
Is that part of it something that you really love then? Touring and gigging all the time?
Yeah, touring is just the best fun you could ever have. It’s essentially – Roy always likes to describe it as – like going on a stag do but you get paid for it.
Let’s talk about the new single “Dancing in the Daylight”. I absolutely love it, it goes back to your classic sound that people grew up with. I love this description: someone on Twitter described the song as being “eaten by a sexy tsunami of nostalgia.” What do you think about that?
That is amazing. That is brilliant. It’s not often that you actually listen to your own record. Roy sat down and listened to the first record and thought: what is it that people really kind of like? And it was that up-tempo happiness, I think definitely, was one of the keys to why that first album was so successful. This one, “Dancing in the Daylight”, it’s faster than anything we’ve written in a long time. And I think it definitely pays off because it has that energy and that kind of liveliness that I think people really like about our stuff.
Definitely, it is a style that’s lasted for over ten years and people still love it.
It’s been crazy, doing these university shows, 18-year-olds know all the words to all the songs and it’s just staggering. I think, thanks to streaming and Spotify and Apple Music, it’s kind of helped to pass music down, so people of all ages have started rekindling their Scouting love.
To be honest, most of the people I told I was going to do this interview, the one thing they said was “omg Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, ‘She’s So Lovely!'” That song has become so iconic, even though it was ten years ago now. That’s still on their radar.
It’s great. I was chatting to someone the other day and she was saying her 8-year-old niece was going “you’ve got to check out this band, Scouting For Girls” and she was like “yeah, I know all about them.” But like she’d obviously found us on Spotify or like watching a film. It’s amazing, the power that music has to, erm, keep us off the streets and with a job.
What’s the writing process like for a song like this?
Basically Roy starts off; he’s such a prolific songwriter, he’ll sit there all day tinkling on a piano or playing on a guitar. He has the idea for the hook and the melody and then we sit down in the studio and play it for hours on end and add our own little bits to it, and then after a while you get this fully crafted song that comes out and pops. It’s down to Roy, he’s such an amazing songwriter. He comes up with the lyrics and the melody and then we just sprinkle on our own little tiny contributions.
I wanted to talk about the music video for this song. You’re not really in it but it’s two people dancing. It got me thinking, would any of you consider Strictly Come Dancing or I’m A Celebrity, or anything like that?
It’s quite funny, I’m actually sitting in the Television Centre on Wood Lane, we’re just about to do a bit on Strictly: It Takes Two, the sister programme. Do you know, I don’t know if any of us would? I would love to send Roy on I’m A Celebrity, just for the hell of it. It would be amazingly good fun to watch him do that. Strictly would be far too difficult to do.
Everyone thinks that when they start and they end up being quite good.
You should see us dancing, it’s absolutely abysmal. That’s why we had to hire them to do the video.
The album Ten Add Ten. It’s 10 old songs and 10 new songs, which is such a great idea. You’ve had some huge hits over the years. Do you think any of these new songs could rival the success of “Elvis Ain’t Dead” and “She’s So Lovely” etc.?
Do you know, I don’t know if they could rival them. I’d love to think that they could. But the music industry’s such a different place now. Even though we still get away with doing what we’re doing, it’s a different ball game. But I reckon if any song could do it it’d be “Dancing In the Daylight”, or possibly “Kids At Christmas”, the new Christmas song.
Have you got a favourite on the album?
I think “One Woman” is my actual favourite on the album. It’s a bit more melodic than “Dancing”. So that’s my personal favourite. “Summertime” is a really good one as well. That’s really upbeat. But yeah, I love a Christmas song. Trying to break into that Christmas market, I think it would be a dream come true for us.
You haven’t got any collaborations on this album at all but is there anyone you would like to collaborate with?
I think the question would more be who would ever work with us? I don’t know necessarily if anyone would. But you know it’d be great to work with a mass producer or do something with Ed Sheeran because then you’re just jumping off into amazing success. But I think we’re just happy to plod along and do what we do best.
I’ve got a few questions from fans on Twitter. Do you go on Twitter a lot? Do you read a lot of what’s said about you online?
Yeah bits and bobs. I remember when we first started, you take the critique quite seriously on social media, but now it’s just kind of ah, you know. We are kind of a marmite band; you either love us or you hate us.
This is from Lauren on Twitter; she says “would you ever allow Wolfcubs to appear in a music video with you?” Wolfcubs is the old fan club you had on MySpace, isn’t it?
It depends how much they charged.
I’m sure they’d do it for free.
We’ve actually got a competition for “Dancing In the Daylight”. I don’t know if it’s been released yet. We’re going to be getting people to video themselves dancing along to the song and then we’ll try and make a montage of everyone doing it.
[Management then mumble something about how the competition hasn’t been announced yet, so watch this space!].
We’re out of time. Thank you for talking to us! Have a great rest of the day.
Cheers, and you!
Scouting for Girls’ new album Ten Add Ten: The Very Best of Scouting For Girls is out now.
Tickets for their 2017/18 headline tour are also available.
Are you loving the new album as much as we are? Let us know with a tweet over at @CelebMix.
