Exclusive:Glasgow band which supported The Clash after approaching them outside hotel record new album after 40 years

Now The Resurrection Club, which originally performed in the late 1970s as The Plastic Flies, is back together 40 years later - to record an album remotely from across three countries.

Made up of school friends from Glasgow’s Hutcheson’s Grammar - Martin McLeish, Morris Fraser, Mike Paterson and Paul Gilroy - the band supported the iconic punk band headed by Joe Strummer twice when they were playing in Scotland. They also had an album which was critically acclaimed by Radio One DJ John Peel as “probably the best of the lot” of his selection that day when he played their music on his show.

“Not the best name for a band, but a great single, I think,” said Peel at the time.

Now, McLeish, Fraser and Paterson, under the name of the Resurrection Club, has released an album of new music, produced by the same team in a Spanish recording studio as award winning performer Rosalia and DJ Robin Twelftree, the former producer of the Prodigy.

The album, Survival, was recorded between Edinburgh, Barcelona, Spain and Melbourne, Australia, where the three band members are based. It is now available on vinyl and digital, with the first 120 vinyl orders also receiving an original 1982 seven inch single from The Plastic Flies.

McLeish says: “As three guys from Glasgow and spread across the world, our back story is intriguing to say the least.

“This album has been recorded between three countries. We have not shared a studio together since 1983. What we do share is a love of music and its power to provoke thought.”

The band performed from 1979 to 1983 and had generated interest from a London record label.

They were hired to support The Clash after waiting outside their Glasgow hotel the night before they were due to play at The Apollo in October 1981.

“We just approached them and said, ‘Look we have a brilliant band, we’re better than you and we’d love to play with you - do you want to listen to us?” says Morris Fraser, who after leaving the band, battled alcohol addiction for seven years and now works in drug and alcohol policy at the Scottish Government.

“[Frontman] Joe Strummer said ‘I don’t care if you sound like three f***ing monkeys - you’re playing.”

However, after supporting The Clash again at the Irvine Magnum in July 1982 - they broke up.

“I think we blew it,” says Paterson, who now lives in Australia. “We had it all set up in front of us, to take the next step - and we didn’t. We just stopped at that point.”

“A lot of the dilemma came from the fact there were mixed levels of ambition,” said McLeish.

Drummer Gilroy had wanted to study to become a lawyer and later went on to become a barrister. He declined to be involved in the reunion album.

“Paul has obviously achieved his career ambitions now, as have I,” says McLeish, who works in Spain running a distribution company for Tennent’s beer and Magners cider. “But I never stopped thinking that we had something to do in music still.”

He and Mr Fraser met up in Scotland in 2018 and come up with the idea of a reunion.

“We just met up and said, ‘Why don't we work again?’,” says McLeish. “It's a little itch that needed to be scratched.

“The reviews we’ve received so far are very encouraging of what we’ve done.”

They initially worked on some new material, but were inspired to write more when the Covid pandemic hit.

The album, mainly written over the Covid lockdown and in the aftermath of the pandemic, deals with both personal and global issues.

Fraser’s health conditions mean he is generally unable to travel, resulting in the band recording their songs remotely.

“I’ve been quite open about the fact I have mental health issues that strictly and severely limit my ability to travel,” he says.

“People say that must really limit you, you can’t enjoy life. But I just think the connectivity now has just been a godsend.”

The band says the album has been well received by those who have heard it.

“What it turned into was us developing together a couple of tracks with a sound and a feel that was very much the Resurrection Club,” says McLeish, who is now 64. “We moved on making work that reflected personal triumphs, personal turmoil and observations of the world, this mad world we’re living in.

“But at the end of the album is optimism, belief that you can survive unbelievable challenges and however bad it is, the album is a testament to that.

“Some songs were hard to even sing. There were tears in the studio, but also laughter. That’s what survival sounds like.”

He adds: “The Resurrection Club project was very much a chance to look back and fix what you didn’t do in life.

“If somebody was to ask me what I survived, I would say I survived today’s world.”