Hottest old act in town

FORGET SACRIFICING CREDIBILITY OR tarnishing the myth - most bands will reform if the price is right. But at least the Pixies have now proved - to about half a million people across North America and the United Kingdom - that it is possible to grow old and fat yet still sound young and lean.

In January this year a much more select bunch of friends, fans and veteran scenesters converged on two Scottish venues to witness the temporary rebirth of one of Scotland’s most enigmatic cult bands, the Fire Engines, who had agreed to reform especially to support their heroes, the Magic Band.

Their return to a stage after more than 22 years had to do with neither money nor demand, and everything to do with fun and intrigue. "It would have been churlish to turn it down," remarks Fire Engines frontman, Davey Henderson. They played for 15 minutes, with Henderson resplendent in a dress.

They were as cacophonous yet poppy, angular yet funky, and as vital and virile as when they first screeched out of Edinburgh’s post-punk scene. Back then they made the cover of the NME and were dubbed "The Sound of Young Scotland", along with the Postcard Records roster - Josef K in Edinburgh, Orange Juice and Aztec Camera in Glasgow - before splitting abruptly.

When word filtered out that the Fire Engines were back, there were immediate offers to play with other bands, but only one that the group have accepted - supporting confirmed Fire Engines fans and kindred musical spirits Franz Ferdinand in concert at the SECC.

"That one was unputdownable," says Henderson. "Doing the SECC though ... the Fire Engines are a club band. It’s pretty scary but we’re honoured to be asked by the biggest band in the world at this time. There is a super-generosity of spirit and we’re on the receiving end of that."

The 5,000-capacity gig will be the biggest of the Fire Engines’ career. "By a cosmic mile," quips Henderson. "We’ve possibly played to 5,000 people if you add up all the gigs we’ve ever done."

This homecoming marks the culmination of Franz Ferdinand’s year-long world tour. To mark the occasion, fans at the show can get their hands on an exclusive seven-inch single. On one side, Franz Ferdinand tender their rendition of the Fire Engines’ debut single Get Up and Use Me; on the flipside, the Fire Engines tackle Jacqueline.

"I thought we could do a Fall job on the chorus," says Henderson, who was unfamiliar with everyone else’s favourite new band until recently. "I liked their posters and I’d heard that they were namechecking our scene. They’ve obviously sourced a lot of their stuff from the time that we were active. There’s some riffs that remind me of Josef K. There was one riff that reminded me of [Henderson’s current band] the Nectarine No.9, but I stole the riff in the first place."

Henderson recently heard Franz’s cover for the first time. "It was very bizarre listening to their version of something that I’d recorded naively as a child," he says. "In one afternoon in Fife we recorded our whole set - which was eight songs - twice, for £30. Get Up and Use Me was the one that all our friends, including the members of Josef K, disliked. So we chose that for our first single, and it kind of took off. That was when we were good at making the right decision, before we had external influences."

The Fire Engines were deliberately perverse and accidentally iconoclastic. Their debut album, Lubricate Your Living Room, was, at the suggestion of their label boss Bob Last, an instrumental album of "muzak". "We thought this was a revolutionary concept," recalls Henderson, "and the novelty aspect appealed to us."

"It was an absolutely brilliant time," he continues. "We were like this gang. The Fire Engines lived together, literally. I used to share a bed with Rusty [drummer Russell Burn] in wintertime. We had this great flat in Canonmills. It was like a university of music, with the dole being our grant support. We had a rehearsal room in a fantastic converted schoolhouse - that’s where the Fire Engines were made. We ate everything musically, but we never learned to play. We were just listening.

"I know exactly where we stole every single song from - it’s fashionably called "sourcing" but I like to call it "shoplifting" because of the Slits’ song. We stole off [New York DIY funk outfit] James White & the Blacks, and the Contortions. We wanted to be the Subway Sect or The Fall. I didn’t feel we were regurgitating at all."

The Fire Engines’s influence as an audacious underground pop band has endured, but has particular currency right now in the spiky danceability of Franz Ferdinand and New York punk-funk bands such as the Rapture and Radio 4.

"Maybe our collage ability is pertinent now," muses Henderson. "It’s probably because we’ve still not learned to play our instruments. We’re in this beautiful crystallised stagnation. Even though we don’t sleep in the same bed anymore, it really feels like it used to - just slower, that’s all. We used to play so fast - and it was nothing to do with amphetamines. It was just pure adrenalin."

Post-Fire Engines, guitarist Murray Slade became an architect in Glasgow, while bassist G, according to Henderson, was "drawn to employment with uniforms". Burn joined Henderson in Win, another briefly but brightly burning left-field pop band, and then in the Nectarine No.9, where Henderson has continued to make his guitar sound like no-one else’s.

"What I can do physically on the guitar is very limited," he says. "It’s an almost autistic, riff-centric way of playing, although I work with people who are much more eloquent on their instrument than I am. It’s still coming from a DIY concept and if you do it yourself I suppose it’s got your own signature on it and it becomes really recognisable - but I wish a few more people would recognise it!"

Ironically, Henderson feels that what recognition the Fire Engines did garner hastened their demise.

"We lost our way a bit," he says. "We’d become frustrated with our lack of ability. We wanted to be Sly & Robbie, or James Brown, and we couldn’t be. With me, there’s quite a lot of regrets about the Fire Engines, because it was my decision to split us up and that stayed in my consciousness. I always felt I really let the others down by blowing it away."

He is making some reparation now but, equally, the Fire Engines are not tempted to outstay their welcome. There will be one final fling with Sons & Daughters as part of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations which, in a satisfying twist, marks the anniversary of the Fire Engines’ original split on 31 December, 1981, bringing their story full circle.

Henderson is not sure what comes next. The Nectarine No.9 were "relieved" of their contract with Beggars Banquet a couple of weeks ago. He talks about renaming the group - the Sexual Objects, perhaps, or the Obliterations, because he’s always wanted to sound like an old Jamaican ska band. Wherever his idiosyncratic sound takes him, he is adamant that this will be the last of what he calls the "one-off novelty reformations" for the Fire Engines. "Unless," he adds, "somebody offers to fly us on Concorde to New York City to play with Richard Hell & The Voidoids."

• The Fire Engines perform alongside Franz Ferdinand at the SECC, Glasgow on 18 December and with Sons & Daughters at the Liquid Room, Edinburgh, on 30 December.