Funky sound of APB

APB singer and bassist Iain Slater sounds delighted.

"Things keep happening this year!" the Ellon man said, all the way from his base in Hastings.

"A neighbour’s dog’s just jumped in my car."

But it’s not as exciting as a New York publishing company contacting the band to see about working their back catalogue.

Nor the documentary that is being made about the band and this summer's dates - possibly including filming at the Inverness gig.

But though the band once impressed legendary Radio 1’s John Peel and played tours in the US for nine years, it sounds as if Iain still has his feet firmly on the ground.

"As long as we have all got our health, we will be fine!"

He remembered some of the dates played in Inverness over 20 years ago.

"We supported The Clash at the Ice Rink. The guy first on that night, Sid Ozalid, is playing with us in Aberdeen," said Iain.

"That must have been 1981, when Combat Rock came out and Joe Strummer went missing for a while and came back with a Mohican in Inverness, when Rock The Casbah came out. And we also played the Railway Club, which is where we met Donald McColl who is promoting us again for this New Funk City night."

John Peel, then the king of indie new music at Radio 1 liked the band.

Iain said: "We did two John Peel sessions - there is a Radio One session CD out as well. When you do a session it’s in the studio in Maida Vale and John was never there. But we did meet him, though. We went to BBC Broadcasting House."

The band – which is now Iain, drummer George Cheyne and guitarist Glenn Roberts – have got back together as they will shortly have a new album out Jaguar which will also take them to America.

Iain explained: "The new record has two new tracks I wrote with the singer Jim Shepherd from the Jasmine Minks this year. We wrote over the internet. I wrote the music and sent it on an MP3. Jim sang and sent it back and I pieced it together. Welcome to the new world! There are also five tracks we didn’t put on our last LP.

"The Jasmine Minks were an Aberdeen band. I produced their full-lentgh record in my bedroom in Ellon.

"I used to do their sound as well.

"Their first gig in 25 years is the same day as our one in Aberdeen. They are playing the Borderline in London. And I would have been doing their sound if it wasn't for our gig.

"We’re starting to get excited about it now as reality has kicked in. I’ve booked the flight to America."

Iain now does the sound for Pete Doherty as a nine to five job.

But APB never died, the way Iain tells it.

"We got back together in 2006 did an album and it was all early stuff we had never recorded. Then we thought why don’t we go to America in early 2006 and did some gigs that were really well attended. Then we thought we would do it again, so we’re going out again in August. Our old agent got in touch and we arranged some stuff.

"The band is the three originals me, Glenn and George and a chum of mine from Hastings who used to be the lead singer in the Lo-Fidelity All-Stars, now The Candys, Del Guapo.

"This is his first gig, but we’ve got an extra guitarist which means we can do more songs."

As for the original APB sound?

"It was George Clintony funk, more Funkadelic. They were not trendy then, but I was just obsessd with them and it made its way into the punk rock leanings.

Basically we were little white guys trying to play that not very well, so we ended up sounding the way we did!"

APB play the Ironworks, Inverness, New Funk City night on Friday.

* APB made five albums, Something To Believe In (Link Records 1985), Cure For The Blues (Link Records 1986), Something To Believe In: 20th Anniversary Edition (Young American Recordings 2006), The Radio 1 Sessions (Young American Recordings 2006), Three (Red River Records 2007) and will officialy release their latest, Jaguar, on Oatcake Records in September.

They released nine singles between 1981 and 1986 – Chain Reaction, I’d Like To Shoot You Down which made number 6 in the Indie chart, Palace Filled With Love, Rainy Day, One Day, What Kind of Girl, Summer Love, Something to Believe In and Open Your Eyes.