is a raconteur. A true punk, the Glasgow-born frontman has led through multiple iterations and evolutions, refusing to be hemmed in by expectations. For some fans, their peak came as the debauchery of the 90s collapsed into the paranoia of the Millennium, with a triptych of albums – ‘Vanishing Point’, ‘XTRMNTR’ and ‘Evil Heat’ – presenting the group at their most sonically and politically uncompromising.
Now, he’s taking a rare glimpse back. Spruced up for a lavish re-issue project and an accompanying nationwide tour, ‘The Bunker Trilogy’ – as band mate Andrew Innes terms this period – remains a bracing, inspired listen, a fusion of post-punk, jazz, club culture electronics, and revolutionary politics.
“The idea was: no rules,” he tells CLASH. “Those albums were all recorded in a particular way. We deconstructed the band after ‘Give Out But Don’t Give Up’ – we lost some members. Robert Young, the guitarist, stepped back, so we began to stop writing songs based around guitar riffs, and started writing songs based around rhythm and atmosphere and texture.”
“Andrew Innes and I would go into the studio five days a week. On ‘Give Out But Don’t Give Up’ we reverted to a traditional band structure, but with The Bunker Trilogy that was cast to the wind.”
The highlights rank not only with the band’s best work, but challenge any other group working in that time period. Songs like ‘Star’ and ‘Kowalski’ took daring musicianship and production into the charts, built from the ground up in their tiny London studio. “I had things I wanted to express that I couldn’t express before because I was too inarticulate with language, and maybe too inarticulate with sound and song structure,” Bobby explains, “but the experience that we gathered, meant that we were in a position where we could actually finally make a statement that we’d always wanted to make.”
“We were able to realise something we’d always dreamed of doing by that point because we had the know-how, the expertise, the knowledge, the confidence, and the attitude.”
It helps that the guest cast contains some of British music’s most potent names. maestro joins for ‘XTRMNTR’, while the collapse of Manchester icons saw bass player join the group for a decade-long stint.
“Mani was a great bassist, a great musician,” the frontman notes. “But he was also this life-affirming, fun-love character. And he was very, very smart. He was a Grammar School boy – he went to the same Grammar School as Anthony Burgess, the guy that wrote A Clockwork Orange.”
“Underneath that cheeky chappie Manc persona, Mani was a very smart guy. And we had so much fun, so many laughs… and he never played a bad gig.”
If the Bunker title is slightly tongue in cheek, it also reflects the band’s oppositional stance to British music at the time – the Britpop party was fading, stubbed out cigarettes were floating in glasses of flat champagne, and New Labour was firmly in power. “I think people like myself have been in opposition all our lives,” he says. “It was always this us and them attitude. That’s why we were punks when we were teenagers. We needed punk to articulate that, so we could realise we weren’t alone.”
“Britpop was very conservative music, so Primal Scream were definitely not part of that,” he says. “We just followed our hearts. We weren’t in competition with any other band.”
“We just had a different approach to every other band at the time,” he notes. “They were still writing and recording and producing records in the traditional manner that old rock groups did, but we deconstructed that and took a different approach.”
‘XTRMNTR’ lead single ‘Swastika Eyes’ wasn’t built for Radio 1 plays, as Bobby points out. “Radio stations weren’t going to play that song. We were being uncompromising, but that’s how we felt. It was what we wrote about, and if it’s unpalatable for daytime radio then so be it.”
“I kind of felt that at the end of the 90s you’d seen American bombers taking off from British airfields – because we’re kind of like an occupied country, aren’t we? We’re an aircraft carrier for the United States. The whole thing for me was, I think they’re gearing up for something bigger. This is just a dry run for something bigger.”
“And yes, that’s a dystopian view of the world, but I think it just came from the literature I was reading at the time, which was very paranoid. But I actually think I was on the money!”
That’s not to present this music as overly cerebral polemic – ‘Evil Heat’ in particular has moments of uplifting grace. Take angelic turn on a cover of ‘Some Velvet Morning’, for example. “We decided we were a track short,” he recalls, “so me and Andrew thought, let’s do a cover, and Kate can sing i.”
“Andrew wanted ‘Love Hurts’, the version by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. I went for ‘Some Velvet Morning’. It was dissolute supermodel meets dissolute rock singer… but with electronics.”
There’s even a cameo from Led Zeppelin icon , who plays harmonica. “We met him in a pub after finishing the session with Kate Moss,” Bobby recalls. “Me being me, I just went up to him! I just said look, we’ve got this song which is a mixture between Throbbing Gristle and Howlin’ Wolf, do you want to play on it? And he did!”
Looking back doesn’t come easily to Bobby Gillespie. For one, some of the people mentioned aren’t with us any more – passed away last year, for example. “I don’t sit about listening to old Primal Scream songs,” he points out during our chat. “I’m trying to write the newest Primal Scream song.”
“This re-issue gives me the chance to listen back to the albums, the B-sides… and I’ve got to say, I’m very proud of what we did. I think we wrote, produced, and released records with honour.”
“We did what a band is supposed to do: challenge themselves and challenge their audience.”
‘The Bunker trilogy’ is out now. Catch Primal Scream on the road this year.