PAWS live in Glasgow, with members respectively from Tain (Highlands of Scotland), Edinburgh, and Glasgow. The band is made up of Philip, Joshua and Ryan.
The band rose from the ashes of a briefly (but passionately) lived “Violent Femme-esque”, Glasgow based band called “A Copenhagen Hope”. After the departure of one of it’s founding members (Nick Anderson) the remaining three friends (Phillip Taylor, Josh Swinney and Matthew Scott) formed PAWS.
After their first show in 2010 opening for Dum Dum Girls in Glasgow on a sold out bill, the band began to establish a strong presence in Glasgow and the surrounding areas by performing live at every opportunity available. The trio self recorded and released the majority of their early writings on a small bedroom run cassette tape label that Phillip had started called Cath Records. As well as those releases, the band released their debut 7” vinyl in 2011 on Edinburgh Based indie label Gerry Loves Records. In the beggining of 2012 PAWS signed with Brighton/Brooklyn based FatCat Records. Their first release for the label was their “Misled Youth EP” in May of that year. In October their debut full length album “Cokefloat!” was released. The LP was recorded by ex Test Icicle, Rory Attwell on the boat/studio “Lightship95” docked in London’s Trinity Buoy Wharf.
A relentless touring schedule since their conception in 2010 has seen PAWS tour the UK, Europe, USA, Canada - gathering a loyal fan base wherever they go. The band have toured with a number of peers such as Japandroids, The Cribs, We Are Scientists, Bleached and have also previously been invited to open shows for The Breeders, Fucked Up, Mates Of State, No Age, Wavves and Ty Segall amongst many others. Spin Magazine placed the band in at number four on their “Top 50 Best Acts at SXSW Festival 2013” and their debut album “Cokefloat!” was nominated for the “Scottish Album Of The Year” award.
In spring 2013 Matthew departed from the band to pursue other interests and Ryan Drever joined Phillip and Joshua to complete the PAWS puzzle.
May 2014 seen the bands second full length L.P “Youth Culture Forever” released on FatCat Records. The record was produced by the band and was recorded with Jeremy Backofen at the controls in Upstate New York in November 2013. The album was received with open arms by the press upon it’s release and ABC News North America placed “Youth Culture Forever” in at #35 on their Top 50 Albums of 2014 list.