Scottish rock band Arab Strap on trolls, touring and 'cynical' Taylor Swift

Then, the next night, do it all again. And the next night. Along the way, girls are perved over and pined for and an entire football match is missed in the zonked-out stupors of “The First Big Weekend” when Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton pour their young, snottery, debauched lives into Arab Strap’s debut single, released 28 summers ago.

Middleton is now 50 and Moffat has just turned 51. They can’t still be like that, can they? To find out I’m meeting them in Glasgow, whose fleshpots were once irresistible to the pair, and passing on the way what used to be the Arches, namechecked in the song, and also the boarded-up 13th Note, scene of early-days gigs when they “deliberately weren’t trying to make good music”.

But, unlike sadly so many of their old haunts, Arab Strap are still going. And the new album is better than good. Just the title alone - I’m totally fine with it don’t give a f**k anymore - suggests they’re as perverse and thrawn as they’ve ever been since first hailed as jockrock’s preeminent miserabilists.

They don’t even mind the tag anymore. “We embrace it,” says Middleton. “We’re happy making sad music.” Still, I say, that f-bomb will probably get them a warning sticker across the record in some southern US states. “Aye, in America they’ve always been horrified by our language,” says Moffat. “But swear words just roll off the tongue here, don’t they? Well, they do for us. My mum’s funny about this. ‘I don’t mind you singing about all the sex and the drugs,’ she’ll say, ‘but I just wish you wouldn’t use the c-word.’ I mean, that’s almost a term of endearment. ‘Ach, come and gie’s a wee cuddle ya c***.’ Australians are more relaxed. Anything goes over there.’”

Middleton, though, points out there are only a handful of expletives on the album. “The least sweary we’ve ever done,” confirms Moffat. “I always have to type out the lyrics for our label when records are finished. This time they were shocked. ‘Only three? What the hell’s wrong with you?’”

Moffat, who does most of the singing, will do most of the talking at the Monorail record store. Middleton, who provides the music’s interesting bleeps, chips in with pithy, pawky asides. Warming to the topic of albums which have scandalised, either by title or sleeve design, he remembers one from his youth which was a double whammy: “Blood, Guts and Pussy by Dwarves. Everyone in Falkirk bought it because of the cover. It’s a deeply offensive record and only 11 minutes long. But, you know, good fun.”

What about Roxy Music’s Country Life, two women emerging from undergrowth with presumably most of their clothing having been snagged on branches because they were being pursued by Benny Hill? “There was a copy in Falkirk Library - that one definitely had a sticker. I was intrigued, of course, but couldn’t have investigated. You see, my mum liked Roxy.”

Mothers will figure a few times in our conversation, Middleton remembering how, when he was young, his would write to the letters page of Woman’s Own with made-up precocious or funny remarks attributed to him. “She did that a lot. It was embarrassing when they were printed. ‘But Mum, I didn’t actually say that!’ They won her £5 each time.”

And earlier today, when Middleton phoned to tell his mother that he and Moffat were doing this interview, the response was: “Aw, that must be nice, son - back in the limelight again.” This, he laughs, is “her new way of annoying me”.

She’s right, though, as mums usually are. While the Arches may have fallen, Arab Strab are well into their comeback, having formed in 1995, reckoning after a decade they could go no further, only to reunite following a ten-year interregnum.

I have a theory about the latest release which I’m keen to explore. So, guys, this is your mid-life crisis album, yes? But I’m quickly shouted down. Moffat: “I don’t believe in that, to be honest, especially for musicians. In this job you don’t really need to grow up.”

Song lines stand out. “The body breaks, it disobeys/ The spirit wanes, the verve decays.” Then later: “My life’s lost its lust.” And: “If this was 20 years ago I’d do you here and now.” Then there’s “Safe and Well”, an entire track about being found by the neighbours, potted heid: “The gasman’s last warning … Bones and dust in pyjamas … Nobody missed me.”

Middleton admits to having a “wee bump” at reaching the half-century. “I remember in my twenties saying: ‘See if I’m still touring and staying in Travelodges when I’m 30? Please shoot me.’ I’m not usually bothered by birthdays but this time it was: ‘S**t, that’s the first 50 gone.’ Not that I expect there to be a second 50, you understand.”

Both are fathers now and Moffat, similarly conscious of time passing, seems in opening track “Allatonceness” to be yearning for a different life, a simpler one, to “forage for berries and buds”. Mind you, being Arab Strap, there’s also this: “I want to strip by a stream, feel my balls in the breeze/Slide my hand in your jeans and squeeze.” Moffat tried the country life down in Ayrshire but it was a disaster. He admits: “I do often wonder how much time might be left for me but I’m just not sure what it should be. Do I want to work, make more things, or do I want to just sit around and drink?”

I’d initially assumed the “atrophied legs” in the same song was Arab Strap talking about their own advancing decrepitude. In fact these belong to the social media junkies who never get up from their laptops. The main theme of the album, if one exists, is online culture, particularly how it intensified through Covid. Trolling and conspiracy nutters, pile-ons and polarized politics are of course easy things to rage about, but there’s subtlety, and sympathy, in the way Arab Strap portray how we live in the digital age. For some, smartphone dependency is the only thing stopping them from going under.

Moffat again: “I don’t think this record is two grumpy old men shouting at the clouds. There’s this sense of a lack of control. Everyone’s feeling a bit manipulated and hopeless.” And Middleton reckons they can bring a unique perspective to debate about the internet, being from the young generation that grew up half without it, half with. So I take back my claim: there are no mid-life crises, these men are not flailing or faltering in their fifties. Come on, they’re called Arab Strap, not Arab Stairlift or Arab Saga Holidays or Arab Slip-ons-because-they-can’t-bend-down-anymore.

The story of how Moffat and Middleton met for the first time has, the latter says, about 20 different versions. They’ve had their fun exaggerating it but here’s Moffat on the truth: “It was in [Falkirk nightspot] the Maniqui. I was chatting up this girl, it was going well, so I went to buy her a drink. By the time I came back she was leaving with Malcolm.” Middleton adds: “Funnily enough, though, as I discovered later, she already had a boyfriend.” “Aye,” adds Moffat, “Falkirk back then had a very small pool of women.”

Still, this is an ideal milieu for songs, at least the kind Arab Strap wanted to write: bawdy tales of bag-offs and one-night stands and waking up the next morning in a WTF way. All recounted explicitly, such as the winsome ditty which began: “It was the biggest c**k you’d ever seen.” Who are our duo like? Maybe the French poet Rabelais and the equally clarty Chaucer, if these two had bonded on Falkirk’s Lower Braes while waiting for the slowcore revolution to start.

Have women they have known, however briefly, ever quizzed them: “Is that song about me?” Moffat again: “Put it this way, I don’t think anyone’s ever asked and been wrong. But I’m not specific. I don’t like songs that are, either mentioning by name or it being so obvious who the subject is. I want folk to relate to the songs. Perhaps they’ve been in similar situations. Although maybe bad luck if they have!”

Perhaps protagonists aren’t identified but Arab Strap do get specific about places and events and alcohol and foodstuffs and - yes - body parts, all of which give the songs their local colour and ribald humour. Moffat mentions, disparagingly, generic lyrics aimed at enormodome audiences: “They’re full of little phrases like ‘Don’t give up’ - meaningless s***e.” And then he mentions Taylor Swift, who he thinks cynical and exploitative.

The planet-devouring pop tyrantess is Scotland-bound when she will perform songs from a new album that, the whole world seems to know, picks over her relationship with ex-boyfriend Matty Healy. “It’s been like OK! magazine,” Moffat says of the tone of the coverage the record has garnered. “Even on Newsnight for f**k’s sake!

“This [post-mortem on a romance] was the story around the album and it’s not the first time for her. Her management and PR must have been like: ‘Fantastic!’ Maybe she was in on it all and I just find it tedious. Also manipulative. I think there’s a level of privacy that needs to be respected when you’re writing songs and I don’t think that’s happened here. It’s just a really, really cynical way for her to market herself and sell records.”

Middleton, smirking, has an idea. Remembering how Swift likes to re-record her albums, he suggests Arab Strap could do the same, this time inserting little clues about the songs’ provenance. Moffat: “Maybe first names: Scarlett, Salma, Beyonce … ” Middleton: “Check you out!” Moffat: “Okay, there wasn’t a Beyonce in Falkirk when we were tearing up the town. Bound to be one now, though!”

Earliest ambitions? “I wanted to be in Guns N’ Roses,” says Middleton. Moffat: “And I wanted to be a film-maker but when I should have been revising for my exams I was listening to John Peel’s radio show. I ended up failing everything and was kicked out of school.”

Moffat got a job in Sleeves, the town’s record shop. So was he an intimidating know-it-all? “Of course he was,” interjects Middleton. “Aidan’s always loved confrontation.” Their biggest in an Arab Strap context? “We had a fight in Portsmouth once. If a mistake is made in a song you should just carry on but Aidan’s got this annoying habit of starting again. Then there was that night in Melbourne when I was hit by a flying globule of spit.” Moffat: “I didn’t mean it, you know that!” There was no big fallout when they broke up, and after fruitful new collaborations, Moffat with jazzer Bill Wells and Middleton with visual artist David Shrigley, they eventually reconvened for more Arab Strap.

The band’s name? Moffat again: “Long before we started making music I was reading this dirty book and spotted an ad for a thing called an arab strap [kinky, pre-Viagra contraption for maintaining a man’s hydraulics in the bedroom]. When you sent off for one it came with a VHS of the film Naked Werewolf Woman.” Fellow schlocky horror aficionado Middleton adds: “That’s an even better name. When we re-do our albums, we’re coming back as Naked Werewolf Woman.”

The name still causes mild alarm such as when Middleton had to stop his optician from typing it into her work computer, in case she pulled up images of the sex aid. And there was another close shave when he took his guitar to his son’s primary school, performed the only song he could risk with no swearing, then when the teacher suggested the class get their mums and dads to find more of Arab Strap’s oeuvre on Spotify, had to quickly intervene: “Ach, don’t bother, kids. Here, I’ve got some plectrums for you … ”

At first the songs were only meant to be heard by their pals, Moffat intoning in mournful monotone because he couldn’t really sing. “Peel played us and we thought: ‘It can’t get better. Best to retire now.’ Then our label said: ‘You need to do a gig.’ We were like: ‘Eh? What? … ’” And before long, in their home town, Arab Strap were notorious.

“We made a flippant comment to a London journalist about Falkirk and it just blew up,” remembers Middleton. The criticism - drab, with nothing for young folk - irked the provost. TV news stationed outside Marks & Spencer quizzed little old ladies about the outrage. It is not known if they replied: “How do you wear an arab strap?” He adds: “One of the band had a tooth knocked out by a guy in a pub shouting: ‘Why are you saying Falkirk’s full of violent alcoholics?’ That kind of defeated his argument.” Moffat laughs as he recalls a confrontation bordering on the sacrilegious: “Someone threw a kebab at me. In Falkirk no one ever wastes them!”

While Moffat lives in Glasgow now and Middleton is Anstruther-based, the latter enjoys trips back to the old place to visit his mum and enthuses about a multicultural vibe. “I actually think the town should be proud of us. We’ve spread its name worldwide.” Nevertheless, the duo have had their fun at the provost’s expense with his biteback - “These guys have had a swipe at Falkirk, calling us run-down and boring!” - being set to music for the start of their shows.

Politically, Arab Strap were for independence only to end up disillusioned, not least by Nicola Sturgeon’s demise. Says Moffat: “I thought she was great. She held herself to a higher standard but has let everyone down. That shouldn’t have happened. I find myself becoming more left-wing as I get older rather than going the other way. I still believe in independence ideologically but there’s not a lot of hope right now and we probably need a revolution. Growing up in the 1980s I expected life to have got better. But governments are so transparently corrupt and it’s a very unstable world.”

Into this world come the junior Strappers, one for Middleton and two for Moffat who says: “Children are the only thing guaranteed to bring you joy while also leaving you absolutely f****n’ terrified about them having to grow up in this complete hellhole and what their futures will be.”

With a shudder he remembers how his future, as predicted by his elders, appeared non-existent. “Because of the threat of nuclear war, and Falkirk’s proximity to [the petrochemical plant at] Grangemouth, our modern studies teacher used to say: ‘There’s no hope for us - we’ll all be gone within ten seconds.’ And because of the threat of Aids, and being frightened that sex could kill me, I didn’t lose my virginity until I was 18.”

Moffat’s son is 15 and his daughter ten, one year younger than Middleton’s boy. For slightly older yoof, our heroes contrast then with now. All the malarkey in “First Big Weekend” was true and took a whole weekend to unfold. “Today that would be a TikTok clip,” says Middleton. Moffat adds: “With no mobile phones you had to turn up at the appointed hour or you missed out. Even if you were part of those weekends you often couldn’t remember what happened. That’s why me and my friend Matthew - he’s passed away now - would always meet up at Burger King in the High Street, four o’clock every Sunday afternoon, to try and jog each other’s blitzed minds over chicken royales.”

What do they think those apparently abstemious millennials would make of Arab Strap? “That we were two old sleazebags,” laughs Moffat.

“Or maybe,” adds Middleton, “they’d hear our old records and form a wee cult. ‘Check out these guys: in their day they swapped sweat, saliva and whatever - not just digital pings like in ours.’”

I’m totally fine with it don’t give a f**k anymore (Rock Action) is out now. Arab Strap are touring and play a series of Scottish dates in September. Tickets: www.arabstrap.scot