THE wailing guitar, rasping vocals and thumping drum beat blasts through the lounge bar of an empty pub in a dull 60s concrete block, where Scotland's forgotten legends of rock are busy rehearsing.
It's their last practice session - as if they need to practise songs they've played for the past three decades - before the opening gig of a gruelling 2005 world tour.
For the next year, ageing rockers Nazareth will trek across the globe, packing in more than 50 dates, travelling tens of thousands of miles and performing their decades-old brand of hard rock to hundreds of thousands of devoted fans.
"It all starts in Sinky's Pub in Dunfermline," explains Pete Agnew, the band's bassist for the past 30-plus years. "And it ends in - aye, I know it's hard to believe - Las Vegas. And we go just about everywhere else in between."
He's not joking. Indeed, with the band's two leading members nudging 60, Nazareth are about to embark on an exhausting schedule which would leave musicians half their age weak at the knees.
As world tours go, Nazareth's could well fall into the "Spinal Tap" variety. Take, for example, the string of gigs in unpronounceable cities in Russia - Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is just one - where they're regarded as one of the world's top rock bands and where the number of counterfeit Nazareth albums in circulation tops eight million.
There are gigs in Scandinavia, Switzerland, America, Spain and assorted other countries, organised by Pete. Despite some minor blips - he forgot how many days there are in February and booked back-to-back gigs in Nuneaton then Switzerland, leaving barely any time to travel - he has cunningly managed to build in a fortnight off for a summer break.
"We'll be playing Portugal - a Bikers' Festival - then I'm going to Center Parcs in the middle of July," he explains. "Nottingham, of course. I didnae bother with the Lake District one, but Nottingham's brilliant!"
So this is rock 'n' roll . . . Nazareth-style. And if it all sounds off the wall, that's simply because Nazareth don't really do rock 'n' roll the way anyone might expect. For a start, while they can still pack in an entire football stadium of crazed fans in Outer Mongolia and have Norwegian rock fans scrambling and clawing for concert tickets, there's an entire generation of young Scots music fans who don't have the foggiest idea who they are.
And while there's no danger of them being mobbed for autographs in their native country, Pete, along with his lifelong friend and the band's lead singer Dan McCafferty - the only two original band members - can barely walk down the street in some Eastern Europe cities without being accosted by delighted fans.
"Hey hen, we're the Scottish Beatles but naebody knows it!" laughs Pete. "You wouldn't believe the reaction we get over in the Eastern bloc. And we're huge in Norway!"
Back home they don't even register a second glance in the supermarket, despite clocking up more than 35 years in the rock business and being hailed among the main influences for later generations of heavy rockers. Justin Hawkins of The Darkness credits Nazareth as one of his main inspirations and Axl Rose of Guns 'n' Roses pleaded - in vain - with them to play at his wedding.
SO far, they've sold more than 20 million official records around the world, yet Nazareth don't even have a UK record label.
"You need someone in the industry to believe in you," rasps Dan, those gravelly vocal chords which launched Nazareth into the charts in the 70s with Broken Down Angel and This Flight Tonight now even rougher thanks to a lifetime love of tobacco.
"The record companies are only interested if you're 17 years old and beautiful. And naw, we're neither. But I'm no bothered - we don't give a monkey's. They are in the pop business, but we're the music business."
It's been that way since July 1, 1971, when Dan and Pete - who met, aged five, on their first day at primary school - along with original band members Manny Charlton and drummer Darrell Sweet, were persuaded to chuck their comfortable day jobs and become professional musicians, pledging to give it a year and see how they got on.
They left behind very understanding young wives and headed to a communal flat in London, where they were advised to spend some money updating their image into rock stars. In came long, corkscrew hair, wide flares, long scarves and platform boots - none of which went down terribly well on visits home to Fife.
Pete recalled being given £100 by the band's management and told to buy some glamorous stage clothes.
"Dan and I would spend about £90 on lager, and go home with a couple of T-shirts each," he told Classic Rock magazine. "It was hard walking about in seven-inch platform heels - we liked a game of football in those days. As soon as we could get rid of them, that's what we did."
And of course, the band couldn't survive almost 35 years without the occasional bizarre incident. But while other rock bands were busy trashing hotel rooms, scoring drugs and sampling the delights of the groupies, Nazareth were far more sensible.
"All right, so I like a couple of pints," says Dan, who'll spend his 59th birthday somewhere between the Robinson Bowling Centre in Illinois and Fiesta Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, "But all the rest of it? All that, 'Hello, you should take this and it will make you feel like you're Jimi Hendrix.'
"Well Jimi Hendrix is dead and I don't want to feel like that. Besides, my wife would dig up my body and kill me all over again.
HAVE I been tempted? Of course," he continues. "But it's not written down that you've got to get laid every night by some former model because you're in a band. I do rock 'n' roll because I love it, but it doesn't interfere with how I feel about others.
"Our wives deserve Brownie points for bringing up the kids while we were off all over the place."
It's not all been plain sailing for the families. Nazareth were touring with rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1977, when the group's plane crashed into a Mississippi wood, killing three members of the US band, their road manager and the two pilots. In the confusion that followed, the tour's distraught road crew announced that Nazareth had been wiped out too - in fact, they had turned down the chance to travel on a plane they later describe as being like "Gaffer tape airlines".
There are, says Pete, too many wacky incidents in 35 years of touring. Such as one recent gig at a stadium in Outer Mongolia.
"Outer Mongolia isn't as bad as it sounds," says Pete, "We've played worse places. Anyway we were playing in a big football stadium, all was going well when suddenly this car drives on stage. It turned out to be the president in his limo, who decided it would be a good idea to drive on while we were playing. So there's this bloody great limo, about 152 bodyguards and Dan turns around and nearly shits himself! We never did find out what was going on."
He'll write it all down, says Pete, 58, if the band ever gets around to giving up the relentless world tours.
There's certainly no shortage of fans desperate to keep paying good money to see Nazareth, even if their home audience appears to have lost interest. The Nazareth website's fans forum bristles with pleas for tickets and information about tonight's tsunami benefit gig from music lovers as far flung as Norway, Germany and Washington. Typical of them is a 39-year-old Norwegian fan who calls himself the Beerman. He lists his hobbies as "President of the local beer club and collecting beer bottles" and his interests as "Nazareth, web design, Nazareth, family, Nazareth, fishing, Nazareth, beer . . . " and so on.
There's every chance he'll still be tracking down Nazareth gigs in years to come. For there's no sign of Scotland's forgotten rockers - with Aberdonian lead guitarist Jimmy Murrison, 40, and Lee Agnew - Pete's 34-year-old son - replacing the late Darrell Sweet on drums - hanging up their tour jackets just yet.
"I'm still younger than Mick Jagger," declares Pete. "Besides, this is what we do for a living - why would we want to give it up? After all," he adds with a laugh, "it's a bit too late to think about becoming a plumber."
Edinburgh Evening News Feb 2005
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