When it comes to Glasgow bands, pop music is often an underlying component—whether it’s a stirring chorus or something danceable. But while those elements are there, we don’t always label these bands as pop, and their fans might not either.
Majesty Palm don’t bother with that distinction—they’re a Glasgow pop act, and they’re proud of it. We’ve been following them for a few years now, and with 2025 shaping up to be a big one for them, SNACK caught up with Cameron Robertson (guitar) and Olivia McIntosh (vocals) to talk releases, intimate gigs, 80s music, and more.
For people who are newly discovering you, can you give us a quick introduction to yourselves?
OM: We’re a pop duo from Glasgow. We like different genres but the music’s pop at its core. We’re going into our third year as a band now.
We’ll dive into stuff a bit more deeply but I always like to get these things from the artist’s mouth – You’ve got a busy March lined up – what’s going on?
CR: Yeah, March is busy, our debut EP comes out on the 7th of March, and then on the 8th we’re doing a release show, an intimate release show at The Alchemy Experiment, just putting it on ourselves, on Byres Road. It should be a good night to celebrate it, a little stripped-back acoustic set.
OM: We definitely wanted something that celebrated the actual release, and something a wee bit different as well. So it’s an intimate setting, which will be really cool and we’re really excited for it.
The Learning To Swim EP has been dropping slowly – at this point, ‘All Dressed Up’, ‘The Longer I Hold You’ and ‘Borderline’ are all officially released – How have you found the response?
OM: We released ‘Borderline’ first, which was scary for us, as it’s different from what we’ve done before. Until then, all of our singles we released were more upbeat, very dancey tracks, so ‘Borderline’ is a wee bit more kind of stripped back and exposing ourselves. Now, when people talk to me about songs, ‘Borderline’ is a stand out to them, so that’s been cool to see.
At this point, ‘Quicksand’ and the title track are still to be released, and they’re both lively, perhaps in contrast to the other songs. Have you been deliberately holding the bangers back?
CR: Maybe, I don’t know, it’s just panned out that way. ‘Learning to Swim’, was one of the first songs we probably wrote, maybe third or fourth song, so it’s been around for three years or so. Those two are amongst my favourite ones. ‘Quicksand’ is the most recent that we’ve done together, but I think we always try and do something a bit different. ‘Borderline’ is a bit chilled out but we try and write as many bangers as we can.
Who doesn’t love a banger! So, you’ve old and new songs on the EP, do you think it represents the band well?
OM: We’re definitely very proud of it, I think it represents a lot of sounds and genres that we both love, and we’ve kind of brought them all together. As Cameron said, ‘Learning To Swim’ is one of the first songs we wrote and then we’ve got newer ones, it shows our journey, so that’s cool too. It’s something we’re really proud of.
The guitar on ‘Learning To Swim’ is excellent, really fun and uplifting – do you enjoy the studio process?
CR: We’ve always done it the same way, I’ll come up with an idea, record it in this room, send it to Olivia, and she’ll go ahead with the vocals. We bounce ideas from there, I enjoy it and we can do something different on every song. We’re not locked into a room with a band, we can get more freedom, which can be tricky as well though, trying to keep it consistent, but no, I really enjoy it, I enjoy the process, I think it’s just trying to always do it better every time.
OM: Yeah, that’s how we’ve always done it, which is maybe a wee bit like strange, Cameron has got a lot of talent with production so even when we kind of first started making music, he always sent a fully produced piece of music, and then I would just kind of write lyrics and vocals. It’s cool with technology that we can do that in separate rooms and not be restricted to a schedule or setting.
Was there a moment you felt you nailed or fully formed the Majesty Palm sound?
CR: For me, it was the first song we put out, ‘Peace Of Mind’. Olivia and I had done one song before as individual artists and when we were doing ‘Peace Of Mind’, something clicked. That was the moment for me, the sound we need to go with.
OM: I would probably say the same. To be fair, we realised we had the same outlook on what kind of music we wanted to make, so that and ‘Borderline’. On that I realised we could push the boat out and we were maybe maturing as songwriters.
You played the Sunday at TRNSMT last summer, how was it for you?
OM: Yeah, mental. Mad, mad.
CR: It’s a bucket list thing, I’ve been in bands before, across different genres and it’s always been a thing I’ve looked up to and thought it’d be amazing one day to play. I still can’t really believe it but it was good.
Even the weather was excellent on Sunday.
OM: I know, the sun came out as we walked on stage, so that was class.
You included a Hall & Oates cover during the TRNSMT set – How do you choose covers, especially for a set like that where you could end up in front of a lot of people?
OM: We struggled with covers in general, there’s so many songs, how do you know what one to go for. We both love 80s music, taking influence from that and ‘Out Of Touch’ was one that stood out to us. We felt we could make it our own, we didn’t want to cover the exact song, we wanted to represent ourselves.We thought it would be good for the audience too.
At the time of speaking, your next gig is an acoustic set at McChuills. That might not be the sort of show people associate with you – how are you preparing for it?
CR: It will be different. I think the one in McChuills is just Olivia and I, but for the EP release show, we’ve got the band with us. We’re playing live instruments, not relying on backing tracks, so the songs will be a little less produced, but we’ve got flexibility in our sound. We can do the dead poppy stuff and we can do the more stripped back stuff, we’ve been trying to relearn the songs in other ways, which is fun.
Your first gig was at King Tut’s, and you’ve already made it back as a headliner. That’s a great progression, what other venues do you want to play?
CR: I’d love to play like St Luke’s, that venue looks amazing, I think our sound would fit, but why not aim big? Why not the Academy or the Hydro? Just keep going.
OM: We played the Barrowlands for Tenement Trail, if we had a headline show at the Barrowlands, that’d be class, that’s the dream.
CR: I’ll happily play there again, I’ll suffer (laughs).
A debut EP is a great landmark for any band, but you’ve been about for a bit – What’s the thing that has surprised you most about being in a band?
OM: Honestly, that people like the music and buy tickets and stuff. Also, how supportive the Glasgow scene is. There’s good venues for smaller bands to play, there’s a lot of good people who can give you advice and support. There’s a lot of DIY promoters giving bands their first start, that’s the really positive aspect of the Glasgow music scene.
CR: I agree, from our experience, it’s inclusive and supportive.
After the EP release and gig, what’s next on the horizon for Majesty Palm?
OM: We want to do a couple of shows or a few summer festivals, that’s a big aim for us this year. We’d love to do some shows down south, towards the end of the year as well, so that would be cool this year, and then new music. Once we’ve done the EP, we’ll start working on new stuff, all that fun stuff.
Do you have new material ready to go?
CR: Nothing concrete, nothing solid, but we’ve got quite a lot of demos that we’ve worked on. Whether it’s this year, or we do them this year and release next year, I don’t know, but we’re not short on demos and stuff to go for.
Circling back to the album launch show, what should attendees expect?
OM: I think if you want some good vibes, maybe a dance or two, but also maybe like a cry, because some of the songs are kind of sad for this show. Whatever, you can just turn up and kind of be who you want to be on that night, I guess.
Learning To Swim is released 7th March. Majesty Palm play The Alchemy Experiment on 8th March. Tickets here.
Press Shots & artwork by George McFadyen.
Artwork Graphics by Martin McGeachie.
