I caught up with Rogan Gibson from Under The Surface ahead of their 3 day festival weekend with Staged Live next week bringing some of Scotland’s best up and coming to the sunniest city in Scotland – Dundee.
Tell us a bit about under the surface?
Under The Surface is a DIY promotions (and soon to be artist management…) company that I (Rogan) run alongside two of my good pals Declan & Sam.
We started UTS last May just as an excuse for us to start putting on gigs with our mates but it has quickly built up to become something much bigger than any of us could’ve expected!
Our initial goal with UTS was just to put on fun wee DIY shows with some class bands but over this past year we’ve started to see it grow into something that feels more like a community, we’ve started seeing a lot of familiar faces at our shows and get a lot of messages from folk that just seem pretty excited about what we’re doing, and the shows we’re putting on. I feel that’s definitely something I’d love to continue to grow through collaboration with other promoters/artists and just by supporting the rest of the Scottish music scene as best we can as well!
You are holding a 3 day event in Dundee called substance, this has grown significantly since previous events.. How are you feeling about it?
I’m absolutely buzzin for it to be honest! We definitely have expanded the event quite a fair bit compared to last year, going from 8 artists playing across 2 nights at Roots to now 16 artists across 3 nights at Roots, Hidden and Church that is pretty exciting for us!
After seeing the success of the first Substance event last year in October with both nights selling out completely and just from receiving a lot of positive feedback from the bands and the people that came down for those nights, we obviously knew that we had to run Substance again but this time go bigger!
I’m especially excited about day 3 at Church since I’ve never put on a show in that venue before and from growing up going to so many memorable shows in there it’s a place that holds a lot of special memories for me and hopefully Substance will be another one for me to add to that list!
Any bands you are excited about working with for the first time or welcoming to Dundee for their debut?
That’s a really tough question to answer aha. If I had to pick a couple names that I’m most excited to be working with for this I would probably say Oh Romance, National Playboys, Count The Days, Red Vanilla, Guevara and Ferguson!
I know that for Ferguson this is actually going to be is second ever gig and first show with a full band so it’s quite an honour being able to bring him thru from Edinburgh to Dundee for this,
For Oh Romance and National Playboys this is actually just one stop for both of the bands as part of their current UK tours, so it’s definitely quite exciting to be getting artists on the lineup that are going from playing a place like London one day to then coming up to Dundee to play Substance the next aha
I think the line-up is especially class this year since we have such a good mix of bands with from Dundee, Edinburgh, Fife and Glasgow. So it’s really special being able to showcase not just the best of what we have here in the tayside but the rest of Scotland as well!
I think there’s something for everyone here and if you are coming down to Substance at the end of May there’s definitely a pretty high chance you’re gonna discover your new favourite band!
What you are doing for the grassroots music scene across Scotland doesn’t go unnoticed. Has there been any particular highlights so far?
Thank you that means a lot! I would definitely say that first Substance was one of my personal favourite shows we’ve done!
For me it just felt like such a real special moment of the Dundee scene coming together and supporting one another and that’s something that I don’t think I’ve felt with our local music scene for awhile before that. It’s a feeling that I’m really trying to recapture and maintain around Dundee through events like Substance to really help us rebuild that sense of community in our local scene since, it’s something a place like Glasgow does really well within their DIY music scene and I feel that Dundee has just really been missing out on that recently,
Throughout the past year of doing UTS I’ve been also been fortunate enough to meet and start working with a lot of really incredible people so that’s also been a real important highlight for me, just getting to discover new bands, meet new people and gain new opportunities that I never thought I’d be able to do in my life has just been incredible and I’m very much appreciative for it all.
I’m also very much looking forward year 2 of UTS, We already have a lot of exciting stuff planned and in the works for the rest of this year and for going into 2026. – some of which we’ll be announcing soon so keep an eye out for that. If you enjoy what we’re doing with Substance this month just wait until you see what we have planed for number 3…
Personally I think you should go see Callum Gibson, The Castros , Panhead Sharps, Denara and Joshua Grantt over the weekend. You won’t be disappointed!
Weekends like this are so important for the grassroots music scene and I’m glad that Dundee is being put back on the map as somewhere original music is celebrated in the growing music community. There will have been so much work gone into this – a lot of love also – and I hope people come and support what Under The Surface and Staged live are bringing to the city! Unfortunately I can’t make the weekend myself due to other gig commitments but I’m excited to say that Ellie will be along and can’t wait to catch up with all the action.
Tickets for all three events can be found here; don’t miss out. Go and support your local venues, Scottish bands and promoters.
