Creatures of Habit are a Alternative Rock/Americana band hailing from Glasgow, Scotland. Their style is as diverse as it is exciting.
Creatures of Habit began, as many good things do, with a drunken idea.
Lifelong friends Barry Fitzsimmons and Stuart McPhee had grown up together and learned guitar side by side in their early teens.
One evening, through a Guiness-invoked haze, the two pondered why they had never sat down and made a serious and prolonged attempt at making music with each other. Stuart had become adept at audio engineering and had recently completed a solo instrumental venture, Mournful Glory. Barry was playing in a covers band to earn some cash. The time finally seemed right to make it happen.
Creatures of Habit was born as a result in the early spring of 2014. Both Stuart and Barry had songs ready, and new ideas were quickly seized upon and expanded in a creative explosion. Years of friendship had clearly made for an excellent writing partnership which neither had experienced before.
With several evenings jamming the songs into a cohesive structure, recording took place in Barry’s front room over the course of four booze-fuelled days. Stuart would then spend countless agonising hours mixing the songs at home.
The result is the band’s first album ‘Free from the Cares of Man’. Drawing from a wealth of influences, the songs cover themes as diverse as homelessness, parenthood, love, loss and redemption.
Various recordings have since been made, with a second album in the works.
The songs ‘Dear Green Place’ and ‘Once in a Generation’ deal with the issues surrounding Scotland’s 2014 IndyRef, with the latter being used to promote a play at the Edinburgh Free Fringe by playwrite Julie Anne Calderwood. Then duo’s political songwriting can further be heard on tracks such as ‘Invisible’ about homelessness and ‘Caged Birds’ which was written in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
Songs are free to download and stream here
Find Creatures of Habit on Facebook here