Back with a new album, the Fannies frontman remembers his teenage years, from the kindness of the Specials to selling guitar strings to John Martyn – and trying to impress with his ice-skating skills

I got my parents to buy me a bass, because I admired the Clash’s Paul Simonon and thought that would be the easiest instrument to learn. McCormack’s was a Glasgow institution: when the Beatles played the Apollo, when it was known as the Green’s Playhouse, the amps came from McCormack’s. I got a cheap Fender Precision copy and a Wem Dominator amp from there. Plugging in for the first time was an incredibly visceral experience because it was so loud. I moved on to guitar, but after I left school I didn’t have a job and so asked if I could work in McCormack’s, which was amazing aged 17. I got to meet the artists that came in when they were playing Glasgow. I was told that John Martyn never paid for his guitar strings so I handed them over and he went: “Thanks, wee man!” I got to test the latest synthesisers and the reason I’m good at tuning guitars is because I did it 5,000 times in McCormack’s. I could also play them all day. In those days, Sean Dickson [Soup Dragons], Francis McKee from the Vaselines and Duglas T Stewart [BMX Bandits] and myself went busking together. My first band was with Duglas, whom I was at school with. It’s completely ridiculous but we were called the Spanking Newts.

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