Glasgow-based band to play 'biggest gig' as they release first EP

The Shambolics, which consists of Darren Forbes (vocals/guitar), Lewis McDonald (vocals/guitar), Ben Sharp (bass), Jake Bain (drums/backing vocals) and Scotty Paws (keyboard/backing vocals), will perform at The Garage on April 15, the day after they release their first EP with Scruff of the Neck Records.

The Shambolics released their first single, Living in Shadows, from their new EP at the beginning of this year.

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A guitar-led gentle ballad, the track seeks to raise awareness for the mental health struggles many people face in the winter.

“It’s a song about if you’re in a struggle just keeping positive,” Darren said.

“We’ve all had struggles and that before but we’ve seen a couple of mates that have really had it quite bad as well.

“We didn’t want to go too deep with it and stuff but at the same time we thought it will be good to write a song to give people a bit of hope and hopefully inspire them to look up when times are tough.”

The song was written during lockdown, with Darren saying writing music helped the band with their own struggles during the pandemic.

It was played live once before the band’s current tour during a charity livestream in lockdown where it “went down really well” with the audience. 

The track is part of the band’s six-track EP, called U Serious Boi?, which will be released on April 14. 

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Darren explained: “With this EP, we tried to make every single a bit different, so every song’s kind of got its own style, we wanted to have a bit of variety in our songs, and we wanted to see what people like the most out of all the songs.”

The band, who are originally from Fife, moved to Glasgow a few years ago and Darren said fans in the city have been “really supportive” of the group.

Darren said: “It’s definitely the best crowd, it’s just the maddest crowd all the time and people seem to have taken us in as one of their own here, even though our accents show we’re not Glaswegian.

“But it’s become like our hometown shows whenever we play Glasgow now, and it’s the only Scottish date on the tour because we wanted to really step it up here.

“It’s going to be class.”

Darren said the band have tried to “step it up” with each performance, and said it “feels good” to be performing at The Garage.

“It will be the first time playing in that room,” he explained.

“We’ve been to a few gigs in there before watching people and we’ve always wanted to play a venue of that capacity so I’m really looking forward to it, it’s going to be good.

“When we first started we played small venues like Broadcast, we played them loads of times, and stepped it up to King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, sold that out a few times, we just kept stepping it up and we’ve played St Luke’s and sold that out.

“It’s been on a gradual build here for a wee while now but every time we play here it’s always been amazing.”

The Shambolics will be at The Garage on Saturday, April 15.