Introducing Interview: United Fruit

Glasgow four-piece United Fruit deliver energy-fuelled riffs, thrashing beats and discordant melodies, creating their own uptempo brand of alt rock.

Having received acclaim from the likes of The 405 and Stereogum, the band have now released a brand new album. We caught up with them to find out more…

United Fruit – please introduce yourselves!
Hello! We are United Fruit from Glasgow. Iskandar Stewart – vox/guitar, Stuart Galbraith – guitar/vox, Marco Panagopoulos – bass, Dean Inglis – drums. We play alternative noise-pop tunes!

For anyone not in the know, you’ve been around for a while now, but tell us where and when it all started.
We got together in 2008. We all had friends in a lot of post-hardcore bands in Glasgow, so we decided to from our own.

How does your second album Eternal Return differ from what you’ve done before?
I think it’s a lot more to the point than our first couple of releases. We’ve always had a pretty clear idea of what we want to do and on our first EP and album we really wanted a nasty discordant sound with an element of melody and pop. For Eternal Return, we’ve kind of swapped the dynamic. The songs are more straightforward and follow more standard structures, but we’ve still keep the noise elements that we like, although it’s a little more restrained on this record.

Are there any ongoing themes running throughout Eternal Return?
Lost love seems to be something that ties a lot of the songs together. It’s hard to say though because I think most people will come to their own conclusions about the themes and what the songs are about.

How do you feel about alternative rock today – is it easier, or more difficult, for a band like United Fruit to make their mark?
There are so many bands. Maybe there aren’t any more than there used to be, but it’s so easy for anyone to put out their song or album now that it can sometimes feel over-saturated. It’s healthy though. There’s more competition out there so you up your game a bit. I think if you’re dedicated enough and the music is good, you’ll make your mark somehow.

Where do you see United Fruit progressing after this album?
We’ve started writing the next album already, so once we have a few more songs together we’ll have a better idea about the way we’re going to sound in the future. We really just want to carry on making the music we want to make and play shows to as many people as possible.

Where can we see you live next?
We are on tour in the UK in May.

Huge thanks for United Fruit for answering our questions!

Eternal Return is out now.