The 1:21s
The 1:21’s are a Dundee mod band consisting of Nick Shane, Neil Stewart, Peter Nowell and Gavin Steel. They were formed by original members Shane & Steel, after Shane was asked to perform at The Barrowlands, Glasgow for an anti-bullying gig in November 2016, due to Shane’s extensive political/LGBT activism. Since then, the band have played a number of gigs/festivals throughout the UK and are in the process of releasing their debut album,‘Soul TV’. We caught up with Nick Shane to quiz him about the band and their upcoming music.
You have released music with The NSA, also as Nick Shane and now The 1:21’s, is the music, or approach to making the music for this band different than what you’ve done before?
It’s a very different experience from my previous albums, as a lot of the work previously was done myself, the writing, a lot of the instruments, and the general planning was done myself. With The 1:21s, we’re throwing ideas about between the 4 of us, and even though I write the songs, we’re all putting our won input into it. Planning gigs and PR can be a whole lot easier sometimes too.
The new album “Soul TV” is out in February, what can the fans expect?
This album touches on a few different genres which I’ve looked at over the years, from heavy mod/Britpop guitar tracks, to acoustic “folky” singer-songwriter tunes, to piano ballads. ‘Soul TV’ has been a working title I’ve had on the shelf since I was about 17. It’s had many different track lists with many different bands, so I’m happy it’s finally coming to life..........
The tracks which are appearing on this album come from many corners of my songwriting career, including "One in a Million’" (which I wrote at a piano in Perth Music College in 2008), "She’s a Lover" (written about my daughter Olivia in 2011), all the way up to ‘"Tear It Up" & "Annie" '(which were both written in the past 12 months).
With the new materials, you released a new video in December for “Tear It Up” and for “One in a Million” a week or so ago, was it difficult to choose which songs to bring out first?
They’re the only two videos we’ve done so far, as ‘Tear It Up’ was the first we track we started playing as a band, so that seemed like the best one to go with. ‘One in a Million’ is a track I’ve been playing around with for years, and at around March 2018, I did some arty filming
