In their two-and-a-half years together, FABULOUS have earned their reputation as one of Scotland's most talented and ambitious unsigned bands. Dougie Adam met them at The Cathouse in Glasgow.

Fabulous

Within months of forming in late 1995, Glasgow's Fabulous got themselves established playing in venues where few other Christian bands get invited to play. King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, Nice And Sleazy, 13th Note and now the Cathouse, the venue where Oasis cut their famous live version of "I Am The Walrus". Fabulous have also recorded two EPs, 'Bliss' and 'Learn2Live', released on their own Solomon label.

We kick off by trying to get to the root of their musical style. Stephen begins, "Modern rock, but not Van Halen or Bon Jovi." "We're not Britpop or anything like that. The four of us would all listen to basically different stuff," adds lead singer and chief lyricist Nigel. Then drummer, George, cautiously mentions the most common comparison, Radiohead. "As soon as you say that everyone instantly says 'Oh, they're copying Radiohead,' but they're just one band we really like listening to." Finally Stephen achieves a consensus. "Probably the big influence, and not even just from a musical point of view, but from a whole life point of view, would be early U2. The stuff that is passionate, the stuff that is clearly about God, and the stuff that is about what this means to them in their lives. It's just so full of spirit and so full of passion and that is what we would like to achieve and surpass. When the Holy Spirit is in the music it's got something that other music just doesn't have. When I listen to early U2 it does something for me that no other music does."

What subjects do you tackle in your lyrics, I ask. Nigel jumps in, "Everything is totally 'believe God' inspired. It's basically just about living as a Christian and what it is like. Sometimes the songs are about the days when you are banging your head on a brick wall like in some of the Psalms where David is like, 'This is crap, where are you God?' Some of the songs are a bit like that, but they all have a positive edge to them. Some of the songs are cries to the people who come and see us about 'When are you gonna listen to God?'" George adds, "A song like 'Learn2Live' is very much directed to us. Sometimes as Christians we need to stop and learn how to live again." Stephen offers, "We are an evangelical band. We want to see people come to know God. We want to see people realise how good life can be, but the lyrics themselves probably aren't what you would call obviously evangelical."

"Cascade", the closing song on their second EP, is almost like a worship song although it doesn't sound like praise and worship music. "That's exactly right. It's just our way of worshipping God," Nigel enthuses. Stephen adds, "'Bliss' was just worship, about how lovely Jesus is and how good it is to be with him."

Most of the gigs I've seen advertised have been for secular venues. Do Fabulous ever do church gigs, or do they feel led to concentrate on playing places where non-Christians go? "Although we are totally evangelical, and totally passionate about God and what he's done for us, we believe we have to go out to the dark places. The perfect example, tonight, was when we were sound checking. The stage manager, who's built like the side of a house and pretty mental, came up and said, 'I hear you guys are Christians,' and we were like, 'Yeah' (enthusiastically), and he said, 'That's 'effing' cool. All you get in here is satanic music and it's nice to get something a bit different, it's like a breath of fresh air.' We see ourselves as being a light in the darkness. We are at our finest when we're in a place where Satan's music is played, like this, and we go in and say, 'No. Our God says this and we're coming here to do it!"

Fabulous have released two EPs on their own label. I ask if they are aiming to get signed by a bigger record company? Nigel responds first, "Initially for the first year we had loads of record company interest and then it tailed off, so we wrote a better EP which was categorically much better than the first one in every department. The media loved it. Newspapers, magazines, everyone raved about it, but there wasn't one iota of record company interest. Something we do, which is more important than any of that, is we trust God, and when God's timing is right for us to be signed, we'll be signed. Whether it's to an American label, British label or Christian label, we just take it one day at a time." Stephen chips in, "We certainly see it going full time. So the obvious thing is to be signed by a record company and we would see that being a secular company. But like Nigel says, we're very open to what God wants. We're old enough Christians to know that God knows better than us, so we're happy to leave it to him." George concludes, "We've got to see God's hand in the fact that it's never gone any further than record companies sounding interested. We know that when the time comes, it will be to the right label, it won't just be to the first label or any label. There's nothing that will ever beat being in the will of God."