Student! Student!
No, Al Lorraine has long since finished with his studies; but he still enjoys the bohemian lifestyle – up till all hours, coming home on the milk cart. Except rather than partying, he’s doing all this for you, dear listener (assuming you’re either insomniac or on shifts).
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Al Lorraine seems remarkably bright, for someone who’s only been up a couple of hours. Dragged into the studio at 5pm, he has the excuse that he got home at 5am, but the long lie is forgivable. He’s on the 1-3am slot after all.
Fortunately, perhaps to make his nights a little easier, he’s just bought a flat, five minutes from the Xfm Scotland studios. Indeed, he offered to do this interview there, but the threat of being co-opted into painting his walls meant that Four Winds Pavilion seemed a much more sensible venue.
When not ensconced in home decorating, Al’s day is one which starts at… 2pm? “That makes me sound like a lazy student!” he exclaims, mock-offended. “But after you finish, put records away and leave, you’re crossing over with Marissa coming in to get the news ready for the Breakfast Show!” Living on New York time is just something that comes with the territory for any night owl DJ. “The idea is to shift from 9-5 by four hours, so I get in, have a beer, stick on an album and wind down before going to bed.”
Handily, the late shift is just late enough for Al to catch a gig pretty much anywhere and still make it back to the studio in time for the show. Even if there’s an encore. “Encores are rubbish,” he states, “I just hate them!” he vents. “If a gig has been blinding, and the crowd couldn’t live without more, and the band are on a high then go for it. But when it’s written on the setlist and the hit single is still to come…then sod it. No-one needs an ego boost like that anymore”.
Things were different before of course, where living in a relatively music-free area – Ayrshire – meant a late musical development for our Al. Which may excuse his first album bought – Roxette’s ‘Joyrider’. “It had guitars in it so it seemed ok!” he protests.
His first gig, however, boosted his street cred – a rare festival in Irvine which saw the likes of BMX Bandits and Kurt Cobain’s favourite band Eugenius play from a trailer to a bunch of “pissed 14 year olds”.
It was this trip, combined with his elder brother Ian’s record collection, which ‘saved’ Al from Swedish cod-rock, picking up on Nevermind a couple of years after its release. “Ian was into the ‘Reading’ bands – Nirvana, and Mega City Four, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin…” And then, Britpop. “I was into Metallica, had all the albums up to the Black album, but got into Bluetones, Oasis, The Stone Roses.”
Music opportunities were still limited, to a weekly excursion out of West Kilbride. “You’d have a fiver to get train, a burger, and a CD single or a T-shirt or whatever – I’d be up at Pie in the Sky on Argyle Street every weekend, buying Guns’n’Roses T-shirts and crap I didn’t need”
This meagre diet of music was to come on tenfold when he moved to Edinburgh to study for a career which was never to happen. However, Xfm Scotland’s loss might have been Chemical Engineering’s gain. “A manically depressed chemical engineer, that’s what I’d have been,” he jokes. “I’d have probably gone onto something else – I’d still be going to the same gigs but shoplifting CDs instead!”
It does seem that Al had a narrow escape.
“A lot of mates do it and earn a fortune, but I made a decision ages ago to be happy and skint instead.” So all in all, it is (this cliche again) his dream job. “I listen to the station all the time. You find about brand new bands, it’s entertaining, and you get the Smiths once in a while”, he says, warming to his subject. “It’s not a proper job – here’s a soundbite for you – it’s a lifestyle job – say if you’re a photographer then you’re immersed in it and don’t turn off.”
Happily, a seemingly inevitable march to the rat race was prevented by a friend who had already started on the student radio station in Edinburgh. “He ruined my studying!” he laughs. And, it seems, set him onto the road to fame, freebie CDs, and irregular sleep patterns.
“Yes, I got the call for the 4am show to entertain the three people listening.”
And from there to Radio Forth, the common starting point of work experience paying off with – rather than presenting – a behind-the-scenes job. “I ended up producing the football show, despite knowing S.F.A. about football!” he confesses with a smile.
Despite some cool assignments, such as the MTV Awards, this was freelance work and a permanent job beckoned – in Aberdeen! Producing double-glazing adverts for the radio kept him going for a while, getting innuendo and the occasional swear word in there for amusement, but when the indie show (originally started by Jim Gellatly) was brought back to the air, he was in his element. “There’s no competition up there apart from Radio One, so if Franz Ferdinand or Oasis were in town, it was me that got the exclusive (shoddy) interview!” he laughs.
And so to Xfm Scotland and the task of presenting. Which means that it’s not just the easy life of the three-hour day that people often imagine our broadcasters have. As well as “doing the talking bit” Al produces his own show too – “presenters at other stations walk in before the news, get handed a piece of paper and read the script (adopts DJ voice) “this band are brilliant, they’re called The Killers”. Here, for example, Dominic puts in loads of work with Scott into the Breakfast Show, and it’s the same throughout the day.
“Al reckons he’ll spend closer to six hours working on each two hour show. “You can do as much as you want time-wise off-air,” he points out. “But though the playlist will be good with ‘Monster’ and The Fratellis, on it, it’s good to find something new every day.”
And something old too, perhaps?
“I love going to Oxfam Music in Byres Rd – you can find all sorts, I suppose people’s parents say ‘he doesn’t need these records any more!’.”
Al is one of that new breed of music fans who we’re told are boosting the new vinyl revolution.
“I’m not a vinyl collector – I don’t buy to sell on at enormous profit – but I do like special editions – I got The View’s pink vinyl and Larrikin Love’s single.” Someday soon he’ll get to play them! “I don’t have a record player, that’s what mp3s are for!” he laughs. “It’s like collecting stamps, no-one’ll never look at them. I might get a record deck now I have the new flat – or I might put them on the wall !”
Ah yes, the flat.
“Apart from all the problems with it…” (which the whole internet doesn’t have room for us to detail here) “the living room’s this size,” (gestures around him, around the size of an Xfm Scotland office) and another wee bit where there was a dining table. Of course, that’s going to have the guitars, Playstation, telly, and CDs.”
And he’s rediscovering music as he moves. “The View’s demo I played last year, but I just found the CD again.” There’s an early KT Tunstall demo in there – somewhere. “I never get rid of any, never sell them, and the folks are ‘now you’ve got your own place…’, so the entire collection will be piled onto non-brand specific Swedish furniture.”
Perhaps it’s this threat of decorating that means Al’s not spending too much time in the flat.
“I enjoy books and putting on a brand new CD and zoning out, but it’s good to take a daytrip somewhere – we used to go to Millport when we were kids, we’d cycle round a few times.”
Though a more recent trip was more sedentary.
“We went to the pub this time!” he laughs. “But even if it’s the pictures, going to see a film you might not like, it it beats sitting on your arse and watching telly.”
But going out is more likely to be gig-going. Or, back to club DJing, Al’s favourite club slots were the indie sets in Aberdeen, contrasting with “cheesy nonsense” in Edinburgh.
‘There’s this new indie night I’m doing called ‘Friday Nite Live’ at TigerTiger in Glasgow’s Gallowgate – bands from 9 and me until 2.”
It’s something of a style bar, so will this be an unusual gig for him?
“For regulars and for the station it’ll be good,” he enthuses. “We’re in this bubble here, we know the inside secrets, but you can forget that people turn on for five minutes going to the supermarket and hear this crazy new band called Blur, so it’ll be great for them to come down and get a whole night of Xfm Scotland, but in the pub.”
So his late nights and early mornings may just collide. “It can be weird working weekends,” he admits, “you can go out but, it’s not the same as you have to be compos mentis next day. Not that I’d complain – getting paid for playing records… !”
Al Lorraine is on Xfm Scotland, Mon – Wed, 01.00-03.00, plus 15.00 – 19.00 on Saturdays & 13.00 – 16.00 Sundays