Becky chats to ex Heavy Pettin’ drummer Gary Moat. Heavy Pettin’ were an Scottish hard rock band that roared onto the scene in the 80s and toured with the likes of Ozzy, Kiss, Motley Crue and AC/DC. Not content to grow old gracefully Gary has swapped his sticks for a plectrum and microphone to form new band Mother’s Ruin.
Hi Gary, Nice to meet you. How would you say the scene has changed over the years as someone who’s been around (ahem) a while?
Yes, yes, I’m ancient! It’s just the same except there are less people at gigs these days. The world doesn’t have enough money. If you do, you’re middle aged, not much evidence of teenagers at gigs. I guess they are all at home with their playstations and tins (4packs).
We recently ran a story about how HMV are banning their staff from having visible tattoos and long hair. What’s your take on that?
In these days of no money it’s really crazy, everyone is cutting back and everyone’s downloading music for 99p so banning people with tattoos is going to annoy people and surely that’s the last thing you should do. Everyone has a tattoo these days, except me! But I really want one. I’m thinking of maybe a cool Medusa one but I don’t know.
Do you think that having previously played drums and now moved onto guitar that you have a greater understanding when you’re writing your own music?
Obviously I started playing drums, when I was 13 or 14, but Gordon (Bonnar) and I always wrote the songs together. I picked up a few things on guitar from him too. The transition wasn’t difficult, it came naturally. I’ve always wanted to sing, never wanted to be the lead singer but you have in your head how you want it to sound and sometimes it’s easier to do it yourself you know?
Have there been any stand out gigs so far for Mother’s Ruin?
Our first gig, that was in Manchester in March, it was a great gig! We did Hard Rock Hell Road Trip to Ibizia in the summer, really good fun, great crowd and a good atmosphere.
A metal gig in Ibiza, bet that’s a bit strange?
It was, it’s in a bar, and its very hot. We were walking down with our guitar cases and things and there were all these clubbers wondering who the hell we were!
Have you come across any interesting new bands on our travels?
Well, my heroes are AC/DC – we try to sound like that, bluesy rock, no nonsense, bang it out and there we are…nothing fancy! I like that kinda music, I don’t like anything ‘noisey’, all that scream stuff. I was never a big punk. There’s this band called The Treatment, they sound a bit like Motley Crue, they are amazing, a great sound. They sound a bit like us but 30 years younger! Also this band BlackWolf that played after or before us in the Glasgow HRH gig, they were good.
Have you played Wales yet? Any plans to?
I’ve only ever played Wales once in my life, in ’81-’82 before Heavy Pettin’ were signed. It was a working mans club. We’d love to play now though!
Do you have any big gigs coming up?
We are playing Ivory Blacks (Glasgow rock venue) on Nov 10th, first time I’ve played there since the mid 80’s so I’m looking forward to that.
So why have you chosen now to come back with Mother’s Ruin?
I’ve always felt like doing it. Heavy Pettin’ split up in ’89 so that’s when I stopped playing drums. About 2 years ago I played in a few local bands and it got me thinking I really miss this. By coincidence people started saying to me, you’ve got all these great songs you’ve written why don’t you do something with them. So I did.
Can we expect anything big from you in the next year?
I hope so. We hopefully have an album out by next year. There is something exciting in the pipeline but I can’t say anything about it yet.
Thanks for talking to us Gary and we look forward to seeing you at gig soon, and maybe seeing that tattoo!
Find out more about Mother’s Ruin here:
http://www.mothers-ruin.co.uk/
By: Becky Beynon-Lewis
Blue and New 