Martin Bate is a
lucky man indeed. Not content with playing the best in new music every weekday on Xfm Scotland's
Music:Response show, he gets to
really let his mullet down and crank up the Sunday night volume with the
Rock Show. Given that Martin has played in a few bands himself this should come as no surprise, and neither should his love of
Iron Maiden and
Public Enemy and noisy flashy blockbuster films, or his misspent teenage years in Glasgow’s rock clubs. But our very own rock monster conceals a dark side -
a love of obscure Japanese books, grainy monochrome flicks, and, er, a childhood shaped by the
New Romantics? Or that he had to make the choice between being a doctor or a beach bum?
To find out which path Martin followed (like you couldn’t guess), read on...
It’s 3pm and Martin Bate apologies for eating 'lunch’ - a bag of crisps - as we chat. He’s just finished his morning show which covers Xfm’s unique mix of today's coolest music rock and indie... but is taking time off while he prepares his weekend Rock Show.
As he settles down I spot what I think is a familiar pattern on his Tshirt - surely the logo of Glasgow indie-metal act Aerogramme?
“Even better mate..... a Kate Bush T-shirt!!!!!” he laughs.
Somehow that seems... well, less predictable.
“It either makes me super-cool or a sad bastard, but hey, if she's good enough for the Futureheads!”
It seems his love of rock goes back some way....
“My dad had quite cool music tastes,” he recalls, “I remember listening to a Jimi Hendrix single and it and thinking it was a bit weird, but I was quite fortunate growing up at a time when pop music in was pretty left-field. Adam & the Ants was my first passion, I can hear why I ended up into so much indie rock stuff, it wasn’t bland throwaway pop music like Stock Aitken & Waterman.
His tastes progressed, though the theme of warpaint perhaps remained constant. “When I was 15 or so one of my older cousins let me hear an Iron Maiden record - the covers had obviously caught my eye - and that was what got me into metal. ”However, years of hanging around Glasgow’s student unions and the Cathouse broadened his tastes further. “I never listened to hip hop until years later with Public Enemy, and that was the best of both worlds, it was noisier, it appealed to this 17 year old who was into Metallica.”
And things have come full circle, in a sense.
“Now I DJ in the Cathouse and in the QM - so I went from hanging around there, to, 10 years later, DJing there, which is kind of cool. If you’d told me that at the time...” he tails off, smiling contentedly.
And, of course, he’s DJing on Scotland‘s top alternative radio station, where the playlist could have been written for him. “To me it’s just about credible music,” he enthuses. “Most people can spot a fake a mile off, it’s knowing the first time you heard Busted you knew they weren’t really up there with Blink 182 and Green Day.” And for music fans like himself Xfm suits him down to the ground. “Even the dance guys at the weekend are an alternative to what everyone else is doing - it’s not the bland rubbishy house music you’ll hear on some radio stations, it’s stuff that’s happening in the cool dance clubs in Scotland.”
Indeed, the clubs where Martin himself would hang out of a weekend... well, mostly. “I use to be on air at 10 on Monday mornings (before getting moved to the Music:Response slot), there'd be no chance of going to Optimo!” he laughs. He does get out and about plenty though. “I maybe don’t know the Edinburgh scene now as well as I should, but we used to go through to the great drum ’n’ bass nights like Manga, and Bomb; and Evol’s been an institution for so many years. Glasgow’s good in that there’s a melting pot of people going to all sorts of club nights - the Art School has broken down barriers a bit, upstairs they might be playing Motown, downstairs might be hard trance, but you’ve got Franz and Killers fans floating around between them.”
But with all this music, is it not possible to reach ‘overload’?
“I love my job, and being surrounded by music all day - I still go out and buy tons of stuff, on small independent labels, imports I don’t want to wait for 2 months until it’s released here - there’s this nagging suspicion that your favourite band is out there but you haven’t found them yet.”
However, he does, on occasion, tune out and drop off. “Going for a night in a club can be a bit of a busman’s holiday,” Martin admits. “What you really want to do is sit in and watch telly and catch up on DVDs, or books, or trying to catch up with al the music press...” So what’s on the Bate bedside table at present? Already a flurry of enthusiasm, he moves up a gear. “Everyone should check out Hirokimu Hukami... ok, that’ll sound like real anorak stuff, but it’s written in English so don’t worry! Anyone who likes David Lynch films or Donnie Darko should go read this guy’s books.”
And on the DVD player? “My girlfriend always jokes I’ll like anything that’s black and white with French subtitles, but this year my favourite’s been Mission Impossible 3 - you can’t beat explosions and skyscrapers!”
Which brings us back to music, in a sense.
“Much though I love going to see some wee band in the 13th Note or The Venue (Ed: RIP), there’s something to be said for anything that’s got pyros in it!”
Oddly enough, Martin played in wee bands at The Venue and the Note. Stupid Acting Smart were the rockier of the two, but Peeps Into Fairyland - who played T in the Park and Reading and some of whose members are now working with Idlewild - were pretty far removed from Iron Maiden. “The people in the band had varied musical tastes, he explains. “I was listening to hardcore and metal but absolutely loved quiet bands like Smog and Will Oldham, so playing that sort of music was almost punk rock - pissing people off by playing really quietly!” And another ambition fulfilled? “If you’d asked me at 12 or 13 what I really wanted to do I’d have said be on the radio and be in a band, so I’m absolutely blessed that I’ve had the chance to do both to any level at all.”
Neither band quite reached the stage of touring the world, but Martin has managed some foreign travel under his own steam.
“I left uni and they said ‘Do you want to do a PhD?’ and before I could say ‘no’ they said ‘in Australia’ so that turned a no into a yes. It’s totally different from going on holiday - going and be a stranger somewhere and fending for yourself is something I’d recommend to anyone, you’ll learn a lot about yourself.”
So, if he ever finds time for a break, where’s the number one holiday destination for Martin Bate?
“I'm a city boy, if I go and lie on a beach for a week I’m bored after a day and a half,” he admits. “I like Paris and New York, I even considered living in London for a while.” However, he’s decided that there’s no place like home. “I just like places where there’s stuff going on, and Scotland’s good for that, you don’t have to go far outside the city to get a bit of peace and quiet. There’s not many cities outside London that have as cool a scene as Edinburgh and Glasgow do for touring bands and clubs, so we maybe take it a bit for granted sometimes.”
So it’s that old cliché about the grass being greener?
“Yup. I’ve seen the other side of the world, and can tell you Scotland’s a cool place to live. Bloody cold though!”
Martin Bate hosts the Music:Response show on Xfm Scotland, weekdays from 7pm, and The Rock Show on Sunday nights, 10pm - 1am.
- XFM SCOTLAND
