Introducing Interview: Pronto Mama

Having played festivals such as Wickerman and T In The Park, and due to play the BBC 6 Music festival later this month, Glaswegian six piece Pronto Mama are now set to release their new album Any Joy in May.

We caught up with the band to talk vice, virtue and KFC…

Hi Pronto Mama, welcome to Gigslutz! How are you today?
Tender, like a rare steak, a steak seldom found.

Can you tell us a bit more about Pronto Mama?
Pronto Mama are a six piece KFC variety bucket of instrumentalists put together by a boy at the counter who has a complete disregard ‘the way of things’. The worker has gone rogue, he creates his own unique combinations of chicken types paying no heed to the restrictions of the menu.
We’ve been a band for five years and have been friends for a much shorter period of time than that. We care most about song-writing and arrangement, musically we tend to do our own thing. We usually take the most difficult route when it comes to our band, this usually results in either a success well earned or a complete pain in the arse. The ratio is hard to keep track of.

What’s the story behind your latest release ‘Arabesque’?
‘Arabesque’ is about a wumin, a fight that went nuclear and basking in the radioactive fallout left behind. The song’s built around a riff, with the instrumentation developing and changing throughout in line with the given musical definition of Arabesque as “a passage or composition with fanciful ornamentation of the melody”.

Can you tell us about your forthcoming album Any Joy?
Any Joy is a collection of songs about hope and hopelessness. Vice and virtue. The duality that has been present in Scottish cultural art since James Hogg and Stevensons’ Jeykll And Hyde. It is an album about love and friendship hand in hand with hate and jealousy.

I can see you’ve previously played at festivals such as T In The Park and Wickerman, but if you had the choice to play any festivals this year what would they be and why?
In a paradoxical universe I’d play Woodstock 1969, if it was happening this year, and that new trnsmtn festival at Glasgow Green so I could see Radiohead. That’s one of the best things about playing festivals, getting to see other bands you like for nought.

What’s the next step for Pronto Mama?
We’re going to tour the album and play it to as many people as we possibly can and then when we can play it no more we’ll write the next one.

Who would you say are your top three all time artist influences?
The Beatles, Talking Heads, Chopin.

And, finally, can you describe your sound in five words?
Eclectic, hectic, eccentric, thoughtful and unashamed.

Any Joy, the new album from Pronto Mama, is out 5 May via Electric Honey.