“Like the majority of people I know who are enthusiastic about music, most of my earliest musical memories were created by my parents. My dad is a huge music fan—he was the person who introduced me to bands like Mogwai, Nirvana, and anything that wasn’t Take That (sorry mum). He was also the person who introduced me to vinyl.”
“I always remember the huge music system sitting in our living room with an equally large shelving unit housing a mass amount of records ranging from early ’70s jazz to Simple Minds’ entire discography.
When my dad thought I was old enough to be shown the ropes of playing records the first thing I did was try to scratch it, like some sort of aspiring DJ Lethal. Safe to say this privilege was taken away quickly.
Fast forward a few years and I’m at a Frightened Rabbit gig. The only thing I thought was worth buying at the merch stand was The Midnight Organ Fight on record. I remember getting home after the gig and asking my dad for permission to use the record player (which by this point had been relegated to the spare room). I sat down, put the record on and listened to the entire thing from start to finish.
I remember it being a completely different experience to how I had listened to music before then. There was a certain intimacy, a connection and a sense of excitement when it came to sitting down with a record. It also makes you appreciate an album in its entirety, how it was meant to be heard by the artist who created it. You will listen to the tracks you maybe didn’t like at first, you’ll hear things you might not have heard before, and get even more excited about your favourite songs when they come on.
I inherited my dad’s record player after I moved away from home and since then I’ve began building a record collection. Along with being a very personal experience, I’ve found that having a record collection and being a vinyl fan is a very social activity too.
One of my good friends who is a Glasgow based DJ also shares the same passion as me. He will come up to my flat regularly with a case of vinyl and we will sit all night taking turns putting records on and acting like kids comparing each other collections like football stickers.
My band, Bear Arms, are releasing our debut album Strength and Conviction on vinyl through Glasgow based label and our good friends Struggletown Records. I hope that people will be happy to put it in with their own record collections and get the same feelings I do when listening to a vinyl.
I know it will be a significant day in my life as soon as I have one in my hands.”
—Keiran Hird
Bear Arms’ Strength and Conviction arrives in stores 20th October 2014 via Struggletown Records.
