Roddy Campbell - Vocals
Tom Davis - Guitar and Vocals
Michael Thorpe - Bass
Simon Hofer - Drums

The album you are currently holding in your hands is the product of two long years of toil, tinkering and perfecting. 'Land Of The Rough' has had quite a journey - from its humble beginnings in a Glaswegian studio, recorded on a cobbled-together budget, to its redux at the hands of producer Mark Williams, leading to its status as one of 2005's finest debut albums, a swirling, psychedelic blues-punk masterpiece - but we're already getting ahead of ourselves here. Better start at the beginning.

Dead Fly Buchowski's genesis lies in Glasgow's open mic scene, where Tom Davis - recently arrived from Northern Ireland – and Roddy Campbell - a Glaswegian native possessed of what Davis calls "A fucking insane beast-man voice" - were regulars. The pair spent years performing separately in Glasgow bars like Nice N' Sleazy's and The Queen Margaret Union before the intervention of Simon Hofer- recently arrived from Austria to sample the Glaswegian music scene - who turned up in Sleazy's one night way back in 2001, announced himself to be a drummer and demanded that the three unite to form a band. Simon's flatmate, Londoner Michael Thorpe later completed the line-up on bass, and a name was decided upon after Tom misheard a drunkard's inebriated slur in a pub one evening. "One of the main benefits of the name when we were starting out," explains Tom, "Is that it's a lot longer than most other band's names, so it takes up more space on the flyer, which means that even if you're not headlining, it looks as though you are!"

Soon enough, however, they were a headlining act in their own right in their adopted hometown. The band's sound gradually evolved from an acoustic blues sound to the raw, primal howl it is today and with it grew the band's reputation as a devastatingly powerful live act - mainly due to frontman Roddy Campbell's unique, thunderous vocals and Tom's crunching Telecaster sound. "Roddy's singing is utterly unique," says Tom. "It's pure raw power, mostly fuelled by alcohol and fags, it has to be said! No-one in Britain sings like Roddy Campbell does. Even from when we started out, we've always been able to get good reactions from audiences. If Roddy's singing, you could play a one-stringed banjo behind him and get a clap."

Dead Fly Buchowksi originally recorded 'Land Of The Rough' (the title came from Simon's father's affectionate name for Scotland), over two days in Spring 2003 with local producer Chris Gordon, independently and for a relatively miniscule amount. The record took about 6 months to complete, and was finally released in January 2004. Touching on everything from basic blues, to full-on 70's rock n' soul, to psychedelia to three-chord punk-rock, those lucky enough to hear it in its original form were intrigued by their inability to pigeonhole it. As Tom explains, "We never sat down, lit a joint, put on an album and nodded our heads saying 'Yeah man, this is what I want to sound like'. Mostly we get compared to a lot of 60's and 70's rock bands - Hawkwind, Black Sabbath, Dr. Feelgood, The Pixies, too, but I see us as a fresh take on these older things. We're five elements - two voices, a guitar, a bass and a drumkit – trying to conjure power. We have classic influences, but we're timeless too."

From 'The Way She Goes's tumbling, distorted blues riff and its tale of a disillusioned soul whose "Troubles and worries are like an ocean with no shore" to 'Ground Nero's startling depiction of the sacking of the city of Delphi in 273 BC by the tribes of the North, it's clear that lyrically, as well as musically, 'Land Of The Rough' is no ordinary album, despite its semi-improvised nature. "We usually start writing a song by jamming on something, then Roddy will come in and improvise lyrics over it once he gets the groove," explains Tom. "He likes to think of himself as a bit of a philosopher, so that's how our lyrics end up the way they do. We take a long time to write songs though, because we always improvise them. Even now, when we play live, Roddy's constantly making slight changes to the lyrics, or Michael will play something different on the bass." However, it soon became apparent that for the band to realise their ambition, 'The Land Of The Rough' would have to secure a full national release. "Glasgow has been good to us," says Tom, "It's made us the band we are, and we have more friends than enemies here, but we're a band that needs to be out there, knocking on doors and playing to new people. We wanted as many people as possible to hear the album, and not be one of those Glasgow-centric bands, but we knew we'd never be able to get our arses in gear and release it properly ourselves."

After sending out "Ten or twenty" copies of the album to labels whose rosters and pedigrees appealed to them, 'Land Of The Rough' landed on the desk of Beggars Banquet boss Roger Trust, who immediately trekked from London to the outer reaches of deepest, darkest Scotland (well, Motherwell), to catch the band live. "We knew when we sent the album out," says Tom, "that the label who listened to it from beginning to end would be the label that we signed to.

We didn't pay attention to the standard three-song-demo A&R rule. We knew we had a complete product that we'd made all on our own, and that not much work had to be done to it, and we knew that anyone who took the time to listen to it properly would eventually appreciate it. We're a difficult bunch to get a hold of. We're not much of a 'Look' band - someone once told us we had haircuts like 70's footballers!" Beggars felt the album was basically complete, but felt a few minor tweaks could be made. The album was remixed by producer Mark Williams in late 2004, and given an extra, final sheen, with a couple of tracks - 'Hope Is Treasure', 'Overcast' - taken out, and a few new ones - new single 'Russian Doll', 'Pandemonium' and the ear-blistering 'Blacker Than Blue' - added in. Opening with 'Russian Doll's' slashing, minimalist punk rock guitars and ending with 'The Sun Song', a nine-minute epic that begins as a doe-eyed, stoned strum, and ends in an insane two-note jam, with Roddy urging us to "Let the current take you under/ And pull the rings right off your fingers/ If you're lucky, maybe linger", it's an album that's cinematic in scope and depth, equally at home on drunken Friday night dance floors or dimly-lit bedrooms at God-knows-what hour of the morning. "It's an album that's good on acid, so I've been told!" laughs Tom, "But it's taken two years to come together fully, and while it's fresh for most people, the ultimate goal for us now is to make the second album."

The band released debut single 'Blackout' in late 2004 to universal acclaim, and will release 'Russian Doll' on April 11th, with the final, finished version of 'Land Of The Rough' following on May 9th. Its release should see Dead Fly Buchowski finally achieve the recognition they undoubtedly deserve, and cement Glasgow's reputation as Britain's most exciting musical city. Evidently, it won't be too long before a whole new generation sits down, lights a joint and decides they want to sound like Dead Fly Buchowski.

by Barry Nicolson