The Tenementals

We start with a story. It’s all about the Carlton Weavers, Scotland’s first working class martyrs. 

“Shall I do that?” asks lead singer David. 

“You’ve got a way with these stories,” Bob replies. 

“In the summer of 1787, a group of striking weavers were marching through Glasgow, marching against the 25% cut in their wages. Six of them were shot dead by the British army. In the aftermath of the massacre, the local authorities awarded the freedom of the city to the people who ordered the massacre.

“The weavers laid the foundation for the beginnings of the Labour movement in Scotland. It’s the most important industrial support in the history of Scottish trade unions, so in the midst of that dispute came something better. 

They wanted to tell this story for the first single off their new album, ‘The Broken Stones of the Carlton Weavers’, which is out now: “The story of the Carlton Weavers is not well known,” David says. “We went down to the burial ground where three of the weavers lie dead. There are older stones which are worn as old memorial stones do, but there were two more modern stones, a few decades old, and one was on the wall secured, and the other half discarded on the ground, the stones broken. It seemed to us that this was indicative of the way that event is not remembered in history.

“The song also speaks to the statues of three Tory MPs in Glasgow. We say at one point, ‘what choice do you have but to look up to them?’

The Tenementals started not as a band, but as a research project. All but one of the members are lecturers at universities across Glasgow, and realised the power of telling history not through another fusty academic journal or conference speech, but through music instead. 

“It grew out of another project called Glasgow Glam Rock Dialogues,” Tom says, when the lecturers dressed in eyeliner, feather bows, platforms and hats. “It was crazy, frenetic, a lot of energy going into that. That project ended, as all projects come and go. From that, we had begun to write songs, and though it dealt with theoretical, historical themes, it was also rooted in Glasgow. 

“One of the dialogues was about the history of the students union. Everybody had played there - Nirvana, Queen. We did this big hour long celebration concert marking the 50th anniversary of the building. What we were doing was presenting the history of a building in an hour and I thought, that’s almost like a research question: how do you tell the history of a building in an hour? We flipped that into: how do you tell the history of a city? What would it look like, sound like, feel like? Ultimately, that’s the research question. In academic terms, it’s a transmedia history. It’s the songs, it’s the videos we make, it’s the talks we do at university events, that contextualise the songs.

“We did a gig at the annual conference for the association of popular music where we said ‘we’re not here to entertain you, we’re here to present our research findings, and they come in word, because we speak in between the songs, and through the songs themselves.”

Tom describes their music as “auto-thereotical”. 

The next song set for release is about the women executed in Glasgow who were accused of being witches. “It’s about feminist liberation, and I had to do a bit of research into medieval Glasgow. It’s a song inspired by a historical event but writes an alternative future, so it reaches towards utopian futures”. 

The Tenementals’ backgrounds are remarkably varied. Ronan can compose classical music. Andy’s been in rock bands and loves death metal. Simon’s a punk rocker. Bob plays in a jazz band. Mark’s in an Americana band. Olivia plays the cello and is studying at a conservatoire. Therese is doing a thing with Stevie Jackson from Belle and Sebastian. And I’m the new boy! I’ve never been in a band. It’s all new to me, which is good, to be the innocent, because the innocent doesn’t know and asks the silly question, and sometimes the silly questions are quite useful.”

Bob adds: “There’s a lot of input from everyone else, quite slowly, in the recording influence, as the song develops. It’s very organic.”

The band set out with a goal: to make those listening to their music ask questions about it, but what questions have Mark and the others discovered while conducting their own research?

“I talk about The Tenementals posing questions that we don’t often answer, and the benefits of the unanswered question as an intellectual project.”

So there we have it. What’s his favourite unanswered question?

The Broken Stones of the Carlton Weavers is out now, wherever you get your music, with the new Tenementals album due for release over the coming months. Keep your eyes peeled: it’s essential.