Interview With Scanners

Scanners formed five years ago when Sarah Daly and Mat Mole got bored of playing for other people and started writing songs together. They performed for about a year armed solely with a guitar, tambourine and drum machine but when the latter eventually left them at the end of 2005 (presumably citing musical differences) they vowed to never again delegate responsibilities to machines and asked Amina Bates to takeover on keyboards and guitar and Tom Hutt to look after drums.

By now Sarah and Mat had a large collection of songs and put together what was to be their first album (Violence Is Golden). The album was self-produced with a little help from Sarah’s boss Stephen Hague who has conveniently previously produced New Order, Blur, James and Pet Shop Boys (amongst others). By a strange twist of fate LA-based Dim Mak Records boss Steve Aoki heard one of the tracks and arranged to meet up with the band on a trip to London. After a visit to a rehearsal session he declared his desire to release Violence Is Golden in the States and so Scanners spent several months touring the West Coast supporting bands like Datarock, Forward Russia, The Horrors and The Rakes. Violence Is Golden was released this side of the puddle over the next few years and Scanners toured Europe both as headliners and supporting the likes of Devo, Air, The Charlatans and Juliette Lewis. Their wierdest gig was one of their first when they played to an audience consisting solely of Tim Burton and several of his friends.

In 2008 they started recording their second album (Submarine) in between tours. They asked Stephen Hague to share the production work this time to help them develop their sound. He got them into Real World Studios to record the drums and then it was back to the bedroom and shed at the bottom of his garden for everything else. Finally at the beginning of 2009 the LP was mixed and mastered and was finally released in the US of Stateside in early 2010. On the back of this Scanners signed a publishing deal with Bug Music and are now holed up in East London writing songs for album number three.

Until their next long-player drops (butter-side up and piping hot) check out these photos and download Salvation to see both what you’ve been missing out on thus far, and as a little hint at what’s to come.