BIOG

Even off duty, Dante Gizzi looks like a rock star. Admittedly, a rock star from another era, or perhaps another planet. The brightly coloured, custom-made suits, kipper ties and polished brogues, teamed with a magnificent moustache, recall a cross between Prince and Captain Beefheart. Or as some have already suggested, a blend of Che Guevara and Colombian drug dealer.

“My style icon is actually Prince,” says El Presidente’s founder and frontman, with a grin and a Glaswegian accent. “I love dressing up and I think all bands should make an effort with their appearance. Too many these days just stroll on stage in jeans and t-shirts. Not us. We want to put on fantastic live shows and that means looking as exciting as we sound.”

El Presidente’s hi-octane glamour certainly suits their songs. Musically, the Glasgow-based quintet poach from artists as diverse as The Beach Boys and The Bee Gees, Led Zeppelin and T-Rex, Prince, Parliament, Dr Dre and Funkadelic. Dante even admits to being a fan of Barbara Streisand. If El Presidente have a musical agenda, it’s that if it sounds good, keep it in.

“When I was writing for this album,” says Dante of El Presidente¹s eponymous debut album, “the only rule was that there were no rules. I had no single musical style in mind and I didn¹t want one. If every song sounded different, that was okay. As long as they were fresh, fun and funky, they stayed.”

The result is a gloriously diverse, refreshingly feelgood debut that melds pop melodies to frisky funk, glam rock, electro grooves and glitterball disco. There are harmonies, high-pitched vocals, stomping beats, catchy choruses and a sexy, sleazy party vibe that has led some to dub them Scotland’s Scissor Sisters.

Dante winces at the comparison – “It¹s a compliment, but I don’t see it,” he says. “I think it has more to do with having girls in the band.” Either way, this is not an album you’d expect from a man who spent eight years playing bass with Glaswegian rockers Gun. Or is it?

“People seem surprised that I was in Gun,” says Dante, “but it was a great band and a great time. I look back at video footage of us on stage and we got up to some seriously silly stuff. I joined when I was 16 and I still couldn’t think of a better reason for leaving school.”

Dante had just left the band when he started writing songs for El Presidente and still playing bass when he got a taste for being frontman. “A lot of my songs didn¹t suit Gun. I was always in to funk - stuff like early Parliament and Funkadelic - and I had got in to rap and hip hop. I knew I wanted to do something more radical, it just took a while to get it together.”

While Dante was honing El Presidente’s striking sound, he opened a bistro in Glasgow with his brother Guiliano, and sister Carmen.

On his days off, he recorded at home on a sampler and during his shifts, he watched customers for lyrical inspiration.

“I didn’t have a computer at the time,” says Dante, “Most of the album was recorded on an old sampler with not much memory. That’s why some of the songs have only three chords.

It couldn’t handle any more. But that’s what made it so exciting. It was the same with the vocals. A lot of them I laid down only once. There¹s a spontaneity to doing something for the first time you can¹t recreate. I didn¹t want the songs to sound overworked or overproduced. I wanted them to be fresh.”

Lyrically, the debut album deals largely with strange relationships and love affairs gone wrong.

“You see a lot of life working in a bistro,” explains Dante. “I used to watch all these couple come and go and try to work out what was going on between them. I saw amazing arguments and illicit affairs. I could tell when something was wrong between people - and that was before one of them stood up, walked out and left the other to pay the bill.”

There are also straightforward party songs like early single Rocket, while album closer Come On Now is darker, more sinister, stalker-inspired song.

“Rocket is basically about a drug binge,” says Dante. “Almost everyone does drugs now, so I think people will understand it. Come On Now I wrote after the Jill Dando murder. I read about her being shot in the street by a Freddie Mercury lookalike. It was so freaky. It made me think about spending your life infatuated with someone who doesn¹t even know you exist.”

It was Rocket that became El Presidente¹s calling card. Released at the start of this year as a limited-edition, vinyl-only release, it saw El Presidente hailed Britain¹s most exciting new band. By then, Dante had gathered a group of musicians who looked as good as they sounded.

Singapore-born drummer Dawn Zhu had been playing in punk bands and was the first to join, taking time out from a course at art school (which included a period studying at the prestigious Parsons Art School NY). Bassist Johnny McGlynn had moved from Ireland to Glasgow after the demise of his own band, The Marbles, and bassist Thomas McNeice was spotted by Dante¹s brother playing with a heavy metal act at Kings Tuts Wah Wah Hut. Classically-trained teenager Laura Marks, who joined the Scottish National Opera Company at only 9 years old, completed the line-up on backing vocals and keyboards.

After only eight gigs, El Presidente were one of the first bands asked to play at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. There have also been support slots with Kasabian and Soulwax. Before El Presidente had even released their limited-edition, second single 100 MPH in May - an instant sell-out which made the charts - Oasis had been on the phone asking the band to support them in Scotland and Duran Duran had invited them on tour.

“I¹m taken aback at the speed it¹s all happened,” says Dante, grinning again. “A few months ago, I was at home writing songs, wondering if anyone was going to want to hear them. Now, we’re playing to thousands of people and I¹ve had Liam Gallagher tap me on the shoulder and tell me he thinks we¹re fantastic. It’s been a brilliant ride already. The best bit is, we know it’s about to get a whole lot better.”

Lisa Verrico