Vic Galloway: 'It's music for people of any age who fall in love with that visceral thrill of great pop music'
- Fiona Shepherd
- 13 January 2020

credit: Laura Meek
Having teamed up with Saleem Andrew McGroarty and 'Philly' Angelo Collins as CHECK MASSES, Galloway discusses the newly minted trio's origins and future plans
As origin stories go, bonding with your future bandmate while collaborating on an award-winning performance art piece on seminal retention and sexual energy at the Fringe is fairly left-field. But it was the 90s, after all, back when Vic Galloway was a musician about town and Saleem Andrew McGroarty was helming Scotland's first hip-hop club, the Big Payback. The pair have been friends ever since.
'Scotland's music scene is a relatively bijou affair at the best of times,' says Galloway. 'Edinburgh's even smaller. We all went to Café Graffiti and Lizard Lounge, all these clubs that would be a bit of a melting pot. You'd dance to funk and soul and jazz but you'd also hear hip-hop.
And I'm a rock'n'roller so I was going to see Nirvana at Calton Studios and playing in noisy bands, but I would still go and see hip-hop and dub and reggae because I've got an insatiable musical curiosity and I love to absorb all of the different kinds of music that I fall for.'
Since then, Galloway has forged a successful career as a radio DJ, presenter and champion of new music from Scotland and beyond but, like McGroarty, he has continued to make his own music. The pair have now hooked up with another old compadre, vocalist and songwriter 'Philly' Angelo Collins, as CHECK MASSES, pouring all those diverse influences and backgrounds into their sound.
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