Scottish rock five-piece Acrylic released their latest single Money From Home last month via Scottish Fiction and now they're touring across Great Britain over the course of the Spring. They spoke out recently about how upbringings in certain cities will always affect popularity, among other things in a new interview.

AcrylicAcrylic, 2019

For those who may be new to your music, how best would you describe your sound?

Our music is very much guitar-oriented rock, filled with hooks and attractive melodies. Instrumentally, our songs are often bright and catchy, but a darker, more brooding undertone is conveyed through our lyrics and their delivery.

What challenges have you faced in the music industry so far?

Over the last few years we've often found it difficult to gain or sustain momentum when it comes to releases and shows. Our debut EP 'All I Am' was received well by music blogs and promoters last year, and on the back of it we managed to sell out our headline show at King Tut's in March. This helped us to reach a larger audience, but in the past we have struggled to broadcast our music on a wider scale.

How difficult would you say this career path is in terms of making a name for yourself?

I suppose it depends on the kind of music you're making, and where you're based. In a city like Glasgow it's easier as there is a deep-rooted musical community, unlike in Edinburgh where four of the five of us grew up. Having said that, it can often feel like your work is falling on deaf ears here. We've found that the best way to combat this is planning a PR campaign for each release to ensure it's heard by a lot of people.

How important is it for you to have creative control over the work you produce?

It's very important, but it's not something we've ever had an issue with. For the last year or so we've been working with Paul Savage, a producer at Chem19 studios in Blantyre. We'll always send him a demo of a track before starting work on it, so that he can get a feel for it and make any suggestions before we go in to record. This way the recording process becomes more collaborative. But that only works if you have a lot of faith in the producer. At the moment, because we're unsigned, we haven't had any issues with being told what and how to write, which is quite liberating.

Where do you draw influence and inspiration from for your work?

Mostly other musicians. When we're writing music, we often reference other bands and songs when making decisions regarding the structure of the song, for example, or guitar tones,or melody. Some staple influences are The National, Interpol, Foals and Radiohead. It's Ross, Jack and me who write the lyrics, and again we usually look to other songwriters for inspiration. I think you can tell from each of our writing styles who each of us is influenced by. Ross' writing has suggestions of Ben Howard and Justin Vernon to it. Jack and I are more drawn to poems for inspiration. I  often borrow lines from writers like C.P Cavafy, T.S Eliot, and Jim Morrison.

If you could collaborate with anybody going forward, who would you choose and why?

SZA. We love her.

Tell us a random, funny fact about you that not many people know.

We were driving down to London once for OnBlackheath festival when we crashed into a cow. Big old Guernsey she was. Anyway, the motor was a write-off but the cow was alright so we loaded our gear onto her and she took us the rest of the way.

Do you have definitive aims or goals for your career?

We'd like to release an album in the next year or two. A UK and European tour would be nice as well. At the moment it would just be great to get to the stage where the music is paying for itself so that Ruairidh can finally stop being a lifeguard.

Where do you hope to be this time next year?

Hopefully having achieved some of the goals I mentioned above. But more generally, playing bigger shows to bigger audiences in new cities. Our songwriting and live performance is getting better and better so I'm excited to see where we'll be in a year's time. We're also hoping that Ruairidh has been promoted to Operations Manager at the pool by then. Fingers crossed.

What should we expect from you in the coming weeks and months?

More class tunes and a string of high power shows. Exciting stuff ahead.