Sacred Paws on discovering choruses and sadness

Guitarist Ray Aggs and drummer Eilidh Rodgers burst out laughing when I ask. Then they hand down their first and only commandment: thou shalt not overthink.

“Nothing we do is serious,” says Rodgers.

“It was a joke, just because we’re called ‘Sacred,’” Aggs explains. “It’s from a time when we didn’t think anyone was going to listen, but it’s still there. People might actually not be able to find our music because it’s tagged as religious.”

The days when the duo’s Bandcamp posts could go unnoticed passed some time in the last decade. Aggs and Rodgers formed Sacred Paws in 2013 and soon after signed with Rock Action Records (run by fellow Glaswegians Mogwai). From there, they beat out a series of increasingly listened-to releases: the Six Songs EP in 2015, their first full-length, Strike A Match, in 2017, and their second, Run Around the Sun, in 2019. Inspired by a love of indie rock and afropop, the two built a bright, rhythmic sound brimming with horns that lift spirits even if they aren’t strictly spiritual. Sacred Paws’ third album, Jump Into Life, will arrive this spring after almost six years, the duo’s longest break by far – not that they mind the gap.

“It’s like a friendship,” Rodgers says. “Maybe you don’t see your friend for two months, and then you meet up… it’s not like, ‘Well, what have you done in the last two months? Have you been a good friend to me?’”

Though they’ve been out of the press cycle, Sacred Paws never went away (“I think we’re just really bad at social media,” says Rodgers). COVID-19 forced them to slow down for a couple years, and once they got to work on Jump Into Life, they just took their time getting everything right. In 2023, after some less-than-successful writing sessions in Rodgers’ kitchen, Mogwai offered the duo a week in their practice space, and the tunes started flowing in earnest. If you’ve ever listened to Sacred Paws, it won’t surprise you to hear they count sunshine as an essential ingredient.

“It’s a space that has a window, which is a really rare thing with practice spaces,” says Aggs. “We felt that we needed some natural light in order to write properly.”

Songs such as album opener “Save Something” shone in through the glass. Freed from the hourly booking stresses that come with most studio reservations, Aggs and Rodgers felt empowered to flesh out the material in ways they otherwise wouldn’t have. For the first time, they paid extra attention to choruses. Yes, you read that correctly: the band that wrote hooks like “The Conversation” never cared too much for the pop song’s most fundamental building block. Say it again: thou shalt not overthink.

“Coming up with the verse often in the past has been like stumbling on a really good riff, and being like, ‘Okay, let’s build the whole song around this,’” says Aggs. “But in that session, it was much more like, ‘Okay, we built the verse. Now let’s make it bigger for the chorus.’ I feel like ‘Save Something’ and ‘Fall For You’ were the triggers to us being like, ‘Let’s try and do this with every song.’”

“It’s so funny – we’re talking about this like we just discovered choruses,” says Rodgers.

“No, no, but it was a bit like that!” Aggs insists. “I also think about confidence. When we used to write no chorus, we’d be like, ‘Oh, I guess this works. I guess this is fine.’ There was something maybe a little scary about trying. It’s easier to be like, ‘Oh, it’s good, but I didn’t really try.’ But then with these songs, we tried to write the best songs we could. And that’s quite vulnerable.”

Like a lot of the album, “Save Something” gets vulnerable in other ways too. Sacred Paws songs have always operated on the classic dichotomy of cheerful sounds masking melancholy lyrics, but Jump Into Life brought out their most mature and considered writing yet. The arrangements got more serious to match; rather than the ska-like shine of Strike a Match, the brass parts lend Jump Into Life a sobriety reminiscent of gloomier indie bands like The National. In fact, the very first sound on the album is the sombre string accompaniment to “Save Something”, soloed for emphasis.

“We mostly joke that the reason the strings went on the start in isolation was because they got lost in the chaos of what we do,” Rodgers explains.

“It does feel like…” Aggs pauses. “A statement? Because our music is always really uplifting and jolly, and it is quite nice to open this record and be like, ‘Whoa, there are strings. Sadness.’”

“We discovered choruses and sadness,” Rodgers deadpans.

A serious Sacred Paws record sounds like an oxymoron – a heresy, even – but the duo still have their fun and earn the unironic optimism of the album title. “Save Something” may be a breakup song, but it’s a deeply compassionate breakup song (“I hope you know you’re not alone,” goes the refrain), and by the end, the tears have dried and given way to an upbeat outro more in line with the band’s reputation. “Slowly, Slowly” takes the album’s emotional contradictions head-on as it confronts the idea of getting older and more mature.

“It was totally about the feeling of, ‘Oh, my god, I need to be more grown-up; I need to be more responsible,’ and all the things that are good about being grown up, but also not wanting to lose your childishness or your playfulness,” says Aggs. “You’re not supposed to be too old and boring, but you’re also not supposed to be naive and immature. So it’s like, ‘Which one is it?’ Also, just the feeling of not wanting to rush life. I feel that more and more as I grow older – quite happy moving at my own pace, in general. As a band, as well. I mean, we’ve been having to talk a lot about how long it’s taken us to make this record.”

Without the six years of experience the two collected on their informal hiatus, of course, Jump Into Life wouldn’t be the proud leap forward it is. When she’s not on stage, Rodgers works as a tutor with MusicALL, a charity that provides music workshops for disabled and neurodivergent young adults. Aggs – who grew up playing folk music in a family band – runs a monthly folk session geared towards people of colour (last year, they also brought their love of traditional music to a Samarbeta Music Residency). On the single “Another Day”, Aggs transplants that side of their musical life, layering a classic Sacred Paws beat with banjo played by their father. After all the living they’ve done, Aggs and Rodgers have enough faith in themselves to reconcile everything: the disparate sounds they love; the contradictions inherent to growing up; and all the joy and vulnerability in their lyrics.

“It’s been fun to write these songs that do feel quite emotionally raw at times,” says Aggs. “I might have been a bit scared to do that on previous albums, but it’s been fun to just go for it… I’ve become more confident, and I hope that’s reflected in the songwriting… knowing that some of the things about me that I sometimes hate, like being immature and silly, are also my favourite things about me.”

The duo’s growth more than justifies the gap between Run Around the Sun and Jump Into Life. But then again, maybe they primed their listeners for a break way back when they named the band Sacred Paws. Could it have been an intentional homophone for Sacred Pause all along? A hidden allusion to the importance of the space between releases as well as the releases themselves? An invitation to meditate on the zen of empty space?

“That makes it seem way deeper,” Rodgers begins, but Aggs cuts in.

“No, we did talk about that! We were thinking about off-beats and stuff – that moment before you hit the drum.”

Ultimately, though, the band’s one commandment holds true. One more time:

“We weren’t over-intellectualising it,” Aggs continues. “It’s mostly about cats.”