We Were Promised Jetpacks are a young Scottish band with a lot to look forward to. Last October they signed with Fat Cat Records, home to fellow Scots The Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit, and now they’re hoping to bring their energizing indie-rock to a wider audience. 
While WWPJ have made a name for themselves in Glasgow, they actually formed at High School in Edinburgh. Singer/guitarist Adam and guitarist Mike have known each other since primary school, and when Adam met bassist Sean in his third year computing class he was introduced to drummer Darren. They then spent a summer in Darren’s attic honing their sound, before playing their first gig at their school. “Our earlier songs had a lot more jagged guitar and the singing was a bit higher-pitched” says Adam.
We Were Promised Jetpack’s debut is due for release in June and is currently being mixed by Peter Katis, who has worked on albums by The National, The Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit.“It’s a bit stressful waiting for it to be mixed ” admits Adam. “You’ve only got one ‘first album’ and you want it to turn out right.”
In order to capture the energy of the band’s performances, the album was recorded live. “We all just played together in a room without wearing any headphones, and they just recorded the instruments separately” explains Adam. “So, on my guitar part, for example, you can also hear a bit of the other instruments, which helps gives the sound different layers. We want it to sound live, but also quite polished.”
The Jetpacks got their first taste of a proper UK tour last September with their friends Frightened Rabbit and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. “It was great to get an introduction to touring from people that we know and like” Adam notes. In addition they recently shot a video for their forthcoming single ‘Quiet Little Voices’. “We were told we needed a video for the single so we decided to make one with one of our friends” says Adam. “We shot it in a wood in Corstorphine but unfortunately it didn’t end-up being the best quality. However our manager knew someone in Dublin who could shoot a video for us with proper HD cameras and stuff, so we ended-up doing it over there instead.”
In some ways the singing to Fat Cat has come at an awkward time for the band, as three of the four are in their last year of university. “It’s a bit of a hassle having to go down to gigs in London in-between classes” Adam admits. “I don’t really want to do uni stuff at the moment, I just want to do stuff with the band, but I don’t think my parents would be best pleased if I dropped-out in my last year! At the moment we’re just doing a few shows here and there but hopefully once we graduate we can tour the UK properly and go to Europe and the States.”
The album was initially scheduled for an April release but was pushed back to July because the mixing was taking longer than expected. “It’s a blessing in disguise” says Adam. “If they’d released it earlier it would have been right in the middle of exam time!”
The band will get the chance to play a couple of stateside shows in March, as they have received funding from the Scottish Arts Council to attend the influential South By Southwest festival in Texas. They will be playing as the first act on a bill which includes The Proclaimers, Glasvegas and headliners Primal Scream. Not only that, but Seattle radio station KEXP have organised a show for the band in The Bowery Ballroom in New York. “It means we can have a four day holiday in New York before we go to Texas, which is pretty fun for us!” says Adam.
So, with a seemingly bright future ahead, how is Adam enjoying life as a Jetpack? “It’s really exciting at the moment, there’s news coming through about the band every day” he says. “I can’t wait until uni’s finished so that I can travel with my friends for a year and play music. Hopefully if the album doesn’t bomb then we’ll get to do it for a bit longer than that!”
Adam probably shouldn’t worry too much. The reputation WWPJ have built-up on their home turf is spreading not only south of the border, but to the other side of the Atlantic as well. Let’s hope there’s plenty of fuel in those Jetpacks, because they might be scaling some dizzy heights in the future!
We Were Promised Jetpacks play Glasgow’s Oran Mor on 8th of March with Over the Wall and Ross Clark.
www.myspace.com/wewerepromisedjetpacks