Forget Oasis, this band was Britpop’s finest. Who knew?

I play in three bands in Perth. One of them is Star Sign, a tribute to Teenage Fanclub. “A tribute to who?” people ask. And I’ll tell them. Formed in Glasgow in 1989. At least three of their albums from the ’90s are indie rock classics. Kurt Cobain adored them. And at the height of Oasis’ fame, Liam Gallagher, never the most modest of men, called them “the second-best band in the world”.

I’ve weighed into online arguments that pose the eternal question “Who won the Britpop wars – Oasis or Blur?” And I type into the comments: “Neither of them. Teenage Fanclub did.”

There are Britpop cover bands on seemingly every corner in Perth, and although the likes of The Verve, James and Supergrass often feature in their sets alongside the obligatory Wonderwall and Song 2, you won’t hear a single Teenage Fanclub song.

We decided to remedy this. I found three other guys who adore the Fannies (as Fanclub fans call them) as much as I did and we formed a band that plays nothing but Teenage Fanclub. We’ve even recorded a tribute compilation album of B-sides and rarities that is being released out of the UK later this year.

I relate all this to singer-guitarist Norman Blake before asking him a single question, just so he knows what he’s dealing with here. He’s no doubt used to coping with fawning man-fans of a certain age, but he’s realistic about the band’s commercial reach and name recognition.

Speaking from his home in the Clyde Valley, south of Glasgow, he says: “Ninety-nine per cent of the world’s population don’t know who we are. We never had the success of Oasis or Blur. But we also never broke up and we kept touring and releasing new records, so we have continuity. So, yes, we had less commercial success, but we also had no internal pressures. It’s been pretty smooth sailing.”

The sailing did get a little bumpy in 2018, when bass player Gerry Love – one of the band’s three songwriters and lead singers, and the man behind many of the group’s most beloved songs – departed after a stand-off over not wanting to undertake a long tour without a new album to promote.

Teenage Fanclub, from left, Raymond McGinley, Norman Blake, Francis Macdonald, Dave McGowan and Euros Childs.

Blake says there was no thought of calling it a day. Dave McGowan, who had been playing keyboards with the group since 2004, shifted to his primary instrument, the bass, while Euros Childs, of Welsh band Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, joined as keyboardist.

“It was a great band with Gerry, and it’s a great band with Dave and Euros too,” says Blake. “It’s just different. When anything changes in a band there’s a transitional period. But we’ve done almost 200 gigs with this line-up and made two albums.”

The band’s previous album, Endless Arcade, was released in the jaws of the pandemic, meaning they couldn’t promote it with a tour. It was a somewhat sombre, melancholy record, as Blake’s songs were written as he was separating from his Canadian wife of 24 years.

“It was a traumatic experience and it wasn’t fun, but writing those songs did help me get through that period,” he says. “But when I play those songs now, they don’t bring me down emotionally. My ex-wife and I are friends now and it’s all good, so the songs don’t have the same meaning they did back then.”

Following the end of his marriage, after living for a decade in Ontario, Blake shifted back to Glasgow and found himself living with his parents for a few years before buying his Clyde Valley house this year.

The new Fanclub album, Nothing Lasts Forever, has four songs with the word “light” in the title, and it’s a decidedly more hopeful affair. “There’s a fair amount of optimism in this record, and light is a good metaphor for hope.”

There was much talk in Fanclub fan circles when the album title was announced. Blake and Raymond McGinley, the band’s lead guitarist, co-lead singer and co-founder, are in their late 50s and they formed the band in 1989. Was Nothing Lasts Forever a harbinger of doom? Were they calling it a day?

“Oh, we’ve got no plans to wrap it up any time soon,” says Blake. “That title was a bit ironic. Apart from people like yourself, most people are probably thinking, ‘Nothing Lasts Forever? F—’s sake, are those guys still around? Can’t seem to get rid of them’.”

Nothing Lasts Forever is out now. Teenage Fanclub tour Australia in March. teenagefanclub.com/live

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