The weather in Glasgow is, according to mogwai guitarist Stuart Braithwaite, ‘a wee bit shitty’, but, well, that’s Scotland for you. Since the release of their new album Mr. Beast, mogwai have been doing what they do best – playing shows.

“We’ve played a lot since this new record came out,” Stuart confirms, “and the shows have been really well attended, and people have clapped.”

If he had a choice between making records and simply playing live all the time, he admits that the performance aspect of the mogwai experience would win out every time. “It’s more immediate and it’s definitely more satisfying,” he agrees. “I’m really pleased with the record but the actual process of writing and recording them I never quite realise what a pain in the arse it is.”

Making records is somewhat of a means to an end for mogwai, so that they can keep performing around the world. After all, it’s in the live setting that mogwai are at their best. “I think that it’s something really good and worth doing,” Stuart says of the record-making experience. “I think the actual record is an artefact, and piece of history – it’s very important. It’s just that making them isn’t a lot of fun, whereas on stage you can laugh and go on with it.”

It’s a lot more tedious to make a record, and mogwai aren’t the sort of act that you necessarily think of sitting down and playing things to a set criteria – you imagine it as a very intuitive process, going with the feeling. But, as Stuart explains, a great deal of thought goes into it as well. “There’s a lot of thinking about whether something’s going to work or not going to work. It just takes a while to get there.”

One of the best albums by the band is Government Sessions, a compilation of sessions from their BBC recordings, and as such something of a ‘live’ record. Putting something together like that, especially in the wake of John Peel’s death, may have been difficult, but Stuart says that he was actually still alive when mogwai put the album together. “It was actually really unfortunate, as he died the week after we got it mastered, so the whole thing with him introducing the start of it we thought would be really funny because he would play it and after he’d have to say of course they’re not here; that’s from their new record,” Stuart says. “But sadly he died. After he died we wanted to keep it there because he meant a lot to the band and he helped us a lot, not just with our music but through the years – the music he’d play personally over the air that we’d hear.”

It was important for mogwai to have a champion for the band. “We’re really pleased with what we’ve done but we’re not the sort of people to say ‘we’re the best’ or anything like that,” he agrees, “so having it in the back of your mind to know that you’re going to have someone who you really respect supporting you is great.”

It’s been ten years now since the Scottish group first started making waves, and since those early days, when the band would pump out a release every six to eight months, mogwai seem to be stagger things these days. “Also that has a lot to do with us having a lot more touring commitments as well; when we had our first album we only did a couple of weeks in America and a couple of weeks in Europe, and that was it. Now there are a lot of different places to go.”

He agrees that playing festivals can be might different to playing one’s own shows, as there’s a lot of people who don’t know the music, and you don’t get a soundcheck either. “You get paid more money, so it has its ups and downs!” Stuart says with a laugh. “To be honest, we’ve had some really good festival performances – I don’t think we’ve every gone really badly. I think if you’re a good band then people are going to take notice of that.”

There seems to have been a real revival of post-rock sound going on at the moment, particularly in Melbourne, with bands emulating Shellac and the harder aspect of that post-rock sound; music move in cycles. “I think a lot of it comes to people hearing records and learning how to play,” Stuart guesses. “Maybe these are kids who get into a lot of those bands 5 years ago, and now it’s them getting good enough to be able to play music themselves. Maybe people are getting into their big brothers and sisters record collections.”

Is that how you started listening to the likes of Slint and Codeine?

“I didn’t actually hear Slint until we started the band,” he says, debunking that myth from the get-go. “Codeine were a band that we really liked, and Sonic Youth and Tortoise and that kind of thing.”

Bands can be influential, and you can see the progression of that influence over the following decade. Then it goes away for a while, and another wave ‘rediscover’ it and reinterpret it in their own style. “I often think that a band like Sonic Youth could do a stadium tour simply because people really love nostalgia,” Stuart states. So will mogwai do that? “No, hopefully we’ll just keep going.”

So maybe mogwai are going to be the Rolling Stones of the 1990s. “No, we’ll probably be the Sonic Youth of the 2000s!” Stuart guffaws.

Even better, then.

Mogwai play Splendour in the Grass on Saturday in the Grant McLennan Theatre, 8.15-9.15pm. Whilst here, they’ve also got other dates in July:
Thursday 20th: Metro, Sydney
Friday 21st: The Zoo, Brisbane
Tuesday 25th: Corner Hotel, Melbourne