By Rob Duguay

Mogwai’s explosive sound has inspired numerous bands around the world, including in the Boston area. 

Many influential bands have been recognized for making a major cultural impact on an international level, but there are others who have achieved that kind of impact on more of an underground level. Mogwai, a pioneering post-rock act from Glasgow, Scotland, is an example of a group that has exerted surreptitious clout. Its explosive sound has inspired numerous bands around the world, including in the Boston area. Back in January, the quartet consisting of guitarist, bassist, and vocalist Stuart Braithwaite, drummer Martin Bulloch, and multi-instrumentalists Domenic Aitchison and Barry Burns, kicked off a tour after the release of the troupe’s 11th studio album, The Bad Fire (Rock Action Records and the Brooklyn-based label Temporary Residence Limited).

Mogwai will be at the Paradise Rock Club on April 11. The show starts at 7:15 p.m. Dayton, Ohio, noise rockers Brainiac and Ye Gods, the moniker of New Haven electronic artist Antoni Maiovvi, will kick the night off.

Burns and I talked about the making of the new album, dealing with the health challenges of one of his children, and why coming back to America this time around is kind of weird.

The Arts Fuse: When making The Bad Fire you guys worked with John Congleton from The Paper Chase at Chem 19 Studios, which is located right outside of Glasgow. How did you find that producer and what was it like having him involved?

Barry Burns: My daughter got really sick, so I couldn’t leave the country. We were originally going to go back to record with Dave Fridmann, but he doesn’t travel. He likes to use his own studio. He liked a lot of records that Congleton had produced, like the one he did with Angel Olsen and quite a few others. He was willing to come to a very ugly part that’s outside of Glasgow and he was really good. He was really fast and he got our sense of humor, which for some reason is very important to us. It was just a good experience.

AF: It’s said that the title “The Bad Fire” comes from a Scottish phrase that means “hell.” So what inspired choosing the drawing of a fiery crater on the album cover, drawn by Dave “DLT” Thomas?

Burns: Generally, we don’t intend to associate the names of songs with the music or the names of albums. It’s always an abstract type of connection. A lot of people have picked up on the fact that a few of us were having a hard time, and they sort of figured the album title must have had something to do with it. But it really doesn’t. It’s really something that somebody said, which was taken as funny when they were drunk or whatever. We were talking about our grandparents, and I mentioned that my grandparents used to say stuff like “If you don’t do this properly, you’re going to go into ‘the bad fire’,” which is a very cruel thing to say to kids. It is something Scottish grandparents would say if you did something wrong.

AF: You mentioned earlier how you dealt with your daughter becoming very sick. Is there any sort of emotional correlation between that and the music on the album, its mood, vibe or approach? Also, how is your daughter doing now?

Burns: Yeah, she’s much better now, she’s pretty much cured. I think probably, either subconsciously or consciously, her condition influenced the way the album sounds, at least the songs I wrote. My anxiety wasn’t something that I dwelled on at the time. In fact, it was more of an escape when we went down to the studio to write music. At that point she was getting much better. I didn’t write any music when she was sick, because I didn’t have the time. When she was improving, I would go down every day for a few hours to write some music, but I wasn’t thinking about her health. Still, it must have had some effect, I guess.

Mogwai Photo: Steve Gullick

AF: As a musician from Glasgow, what are your thoughts on performing in Boston? You’ve performed here numerous times since the mid-’90s.

Burns: To be honest, the whole experience of being here this time is very weird. (laughs) We were just in DC. You could call it “The Heart of Darkness” at the moment. It is really strange coming to America from Scotland. We didn’t have any problems with getting into the country, we just had to wait in line for two and a half hours. But once you’re here, you  live in a “tour bubble” and you don’t really experience the country, which is kind of weird. That said, I am looking forward to all the shows on this tour, they’re always good fun, and all the people that we meet are always great. We manage to sort of avoid all the politics.

AF: When it comes to performing the music on The Bad Fire live, I know fitting new material into a set list — making it sound right — can be complicated. How did you prepare for these shows?

Burns: In terms of this album we rehearsed a lot to get this stuff as fine tuned and tight as it could before we went out on the road. There’s also the fact that we didn’t have much time because of my daughter’s health — but we tried to get as much done as possible. When this tour started in the UK and Europe, it took a few days, or maybe a couple weeks, to get everything sounding good. I reckon that by now it’s sounding good. Every night we try to do a different set. We never play the same set two nights in a row because we get bored. We just hope the lineup works, and it usually does. Stuart (Braithwaite) usually writes the set list. This time around he picked songs from each era of Mogwai, so there’s at least two or three songs from each era. This tour offers an expansive representation of what we’ve done.

Rob Duguay is an arts & entertainment journalist based in Providence, who is originally from Shelton, CT. Outside of The Arts Fuse, he has also written for DigBoston, Aquarian Weekly, Providence Journal, Newport Daily News, Worcester Magazine, New Noise Magazine, Manchester Ink Link, and numerous other publications. While covering mostly music, he has also written about film, TV, comedy, theater, visual art, food, drink, sports, and cannabis.