Roots Of Our Youth – Martin Robbie (interview)

Roots Of Our Youth – Martin Robbie (interview)

One of the very few positives of lockdown is that a lot of us have had some spare time on our hands.

Some have used it to relax. Others have learned new skills. For a trio of old friends, however – Martin Robbie, Kristian Sator, and Ross Tanbini – reflection has been the name of the game. They’ve been casting their minds back to when their love of all those lovely loud and heavy noises began. That may sound a little shrouded in mist. Let’s blow away the fog of time with our opening inquiry;

What is Roots Of Our Youth?

Martin Robbie (guitar/bass): Simply put, it’s three guys recapturing the joy of playing music together, and reminiscing about our formative years. Roots Of Our Youth is a project focused on revisiting songs that take us back to our teen years, and recording our own version of them. The three of us have a strong shared history, as we grew up in the same village, and played together in our first ever band (Scud) from 1999 through to 2006. This concept has given us a great reason to finally play some music together again.

Martin Robbie – Roots Of Our Youth

That makes it fifteen years since the trio last worked together. So what was the impetus behind getting together now?

MR: We finally reconnected in person in 2019, when we went to see Machine Head perform Burn My Eyes – an album that we listened to a lot! We spoke about maybe doing some music together, but we didn’t know quite what that’d be. Many months later, and with lockdown in place due to coronavirus, I was seeing a lot of videos popping up online from bands performing songs remotely.

That started me thinking “what if we did something like that?”.

I asked Ross and Kristian what they thought of the idea, and they were both really into it! In the 6 or so years that we played together in Scud, we never once performed a cover live, as we were always focused on creating and playing our own music. That is another reason why this is something that we are finding a lot of excitement in; it is totally fresh and new for us to experience covering a song together.

We’ve all been busy over the years with various bands, music projects, and also just life in general! After I left Scud, Ross and Kristian continued to play together in Aorta, and then later again with their band Tanator. Ross released an excellent solo album last year – under the moniker of Perfumed Tar – called Wavering, does session work, drum tuition, and also has an online platform where he does Nirvana covers.

Kristian also played in a number of local groups, but his main focus was playing guitar in Tanator, as well as playing bass in Perfumed Tar for gigs. I’ve played in quite a few bands over the years including In Tongues, Anchor, City Keys and most recently Mass Worship (Swedish metal on Century Media Records). I now have a new band based in Glasgow, but it is still in its infancy. And of course, as you know, Ross and Kristian have both been playing in Threshold Sicks for a good while now too!

Scud circa 2004

So much water passing under the bridge. Many would worry that it would be impossible to find that same groove. After spending so much time apart, working on other projects, was it difficult to recapture the vibe?

MR: As cliché as it is to say, it just felt completely natural from the get-go.

All those years of playing music, and hanging out together on a daily basis, laid a very solid foundation that I think will always be there. Not once have we ever had an argument or a falling out. We’ve always been on the same page when it comes to focusing on music, and thankfully there are no egos to contend with.

If anything, it is even easier working together now, as we’ve all brought in new skills, knowledge, and ideas, thanks to our respective years of experience, and musical growth. Another aspect is the insanely inspirational level of Ross’s drumming. I’ve been lucky enough to play with a lot of really talented drummers over the years, and Ross remains one of the best I’ve played with. That certainly contributed to the vibe we have together, and inspires us to keep standards high!

And indeed, standards will have to be maintained if they are going to be covering tracks of a certain calibre. We already have the first song today – Sepultura’s Roots Bloody Roots (see the video below). But what other tracks can people expect to hear now, and why have they chosen them?

MR: The majority of the songs we’ve chosen so far were prominent features in our teen years. Not necessarily ones released in that era, but they are from albums that we can all remember listening to together while hanging out, playing Tony Hawk, Tekken etc. There’s a lot of nostalgia tied to this project, and we feel like other people may also be able to relate to that. As for specific songs, we don’t want to give too much away, but we already have a number of tracks that we’re really excited about doing.

Think about the bands you’d expect to see in Metal Hammer circa late 90s/early 00s, and that’ll give you a general idea of what’s to come, maybe with the odd surprise in there too!

Naturally, there will be some who would really like to know if any of the collective’s own material will make it into this new project. Slow Dragon Music included. Will there be any originals on the cards? Perhaps a re-recorded Scud track?

MR: You can never say never, but I think it is pretty unlikely, as we already have a fairly big list of songs we’d love to do for this project. Maybe if we had endless amounts of time then it could be a possibility, but we all have other commitments, so we’re focusing our energy, and available time on, hopefully, doing justice to these songs from our youth! Plus, these days you’re more likely to find Kacey Musgraves or Sturgill Simpson on my playlist, so I’m not sure how well that’d translate into a new Scud song!