Despite releasing just one single and a short collection of home demos, the Spook School (Adam, Anna, Naomi and Niall) have created a few waves in their home town of Edinburgh.

Performing a brand of cheery lo-fi pop, they’ve attracted the attention of 17 Seconds and Edinburgh Man, and we’re delighted to add the Tidal Wave of Indifference to their list of fans.

So much so that we’ve asked them to play The Tidal Wave of Indifference Presents: Numero Trois later this month alongside the Bad Books, Loch Awe and the New Fabian Society at the Wee Red Bar. Their intelligent hooks and fine choruses are a perfect fit for what’s shaping up to be a very exciting night of guitar pop.

We decided to find out what makes them tick and caught a word with singer/guitarist Adam this week.

So who the hell are you?

We’re The Spook School, and there’s four of us.

Describe your sound in ten words or less!

Inept pop.

How did you guys get together?

Naomi and I are siblings and have been attempting to write songs ever since Naomi got a guitar. Then I went to uni and met Anna and Niall while attempting to do some silly student comedy. We thought it would be fun to try and make some noise together even though three quarters of us have no idea how to work these things. Miraculously some people seem to be enjoying it.

Interesting band name – how did you happen upon it?

It’s the name of Charles Mackintosh’s wee gang of artist pals. Well, people used to call them that to slag them off. We thought it would be quite cool to re-capture it and kind of change it a bit. Also, I really likes Mackintosh. To the point that I decided to study architecture for a bit at uni, but then they just kept going on about pyramids, and pyramids are boooorriiiing. They’re just big triangles.

Bloggers as gig promoters – discuss!!

Yes please! Some of the best gigs we’ve done have been for bloggers. They’re generally people who actually care about music and in turn want to put on a really good show while also supporting the bands they like. It’s really great. We’ve been lucky not to have any bad experiences with promoters (yet!), but it seems like a really good idea for bloggers to put on stuff just cause they really like music. That should be the only reason anyone puts on gigs really.

What can we expect from your live show?

We sound better live. More of a ramshackle punchy noise. A nice bit of feedback and some singing and shouting. Sometimes we dress up. Sometimes we cover ourselves in glitter. I have a bad habit of bleeding all over my guitar, and Niall will probably get naked. But you can ignore that if you like.

Can we expect to see a full length release soon?

Nope. We’re not ready really. We’re still learning a lot. We do have a very exciting release coming up though. We can’t really believe it’s happening.

If there was such a thing as an ACTUAL Spook School, which famous dead folk would make the best teachers?

Oh wow! Bert Jansch, Marc Bolan, John Lennon, Poly Styrene and Tchaikovsky could do music lessons. That seems like a good mix. Bolan could also teach fashion (cos it would be a hip school that did that kind of thing). Suppose The Four would have to do art & design since the school’s named after them. Picasso could help them out. He seemed like a cool guy. Einstein would do science. Kafka and Oscar Wilde literature classes. And Buster Keaton would do PE. There would be no sports, just falling over, running away from things. This sounds pretty good.

The Spook School play Edinburgh’s Wee Red Bar on June 23 alongside The Bad Books, Loch Awe and The New Fabian Society. You can get tickets HERE and there are Facebook-y things HERE. They probably have some other gigs too, but we’re sure you can forgive us for not being desperately interested in those at the minute. Head over to their website for more info if you’re so inclined, though!