It’s been a perfect 10 from Teenage Fanclub – and the Bellshill legends are showing no signs of stopping yet.

The group will celebrate this year’s new album Here with a sold out double header at the Barrowland and the O2 ABC this weekend.

It is the band’s 10th record and while it took six years to arrive, ever-cheerful bassist Norman Blake believes the guys will still be going strong in the future.

“The Rolling Stones are still together so there’s a long way to go before we’re the oldest band on the circuit,” he chuckles.

“That’s something that’s changed over the years. When I was younger there wasn’t many older acts still going out on tour, but now you have guys like Springsteen still going strong and there seems more of an acceptance of older acts now.

“If you were an artist in the 60s, by the mid 70s your career was often over, because no-one thought you could do anything creatively interesting anymore. That’s changed, and with things like Radio 2 and Radio 6 there’s more places for older acts to be heard.”

Here is a typically excellent collection of tunes from the pen of Norman and his collaborators Gerry Love and Raymond McGinley. There’s wistfulness, melancholy and at times anger running through the lyrics, but the melodies remain as sharp and upbeat as ever.

“Coming from Scotland there’s always been going to be a melancholy there in your music, because there’s all these folk traditions around you and that you grow up with,” says Norman.

“The songs are still optimistic though, because we’re generally optimistic people and there’s not a lot of pessimism in the band. One thing you realise as you get older is that there’s not a lot you can really change by yourself – when I was younger I naively thought that there would be less racism and homophobia by now but they’re still there.

“There’s a lot of people who still have those views and the rise of the right across Europe and the world is showing that although these people got quieter for a time they’re still there. Great things have happened like gay marriage, but as you get older you realise that things take a long time to change.”

Norman himself, however, is still full of energy for the band and for music, even if he drily notes at one point in our chat that he can’t wait for a good night’s sleep after their gig that night. One reason for Norman’ enjoyment is that the band are helping to give a lift up to some emerging Scottish talent, with guitar-slingers Catholic Action joining them earlier this year, and ramshackle indie-pop band Spinning Coin opening this weekend’s gigs.

“It shows that the music scene in Scotland, and particularly Glasgow, is still thriving,” says Norman.

“It’s still amazing to me that so many big, important bands have come from Scotland, like Mogwai, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, and how we punch above our weight. We’re proud to have played a part in that, and we will always see ourselves as being a Glasgow band because we’ve all lived the majority of our lives in the city, and it’s good to see a band like Spinning Coin coming through.”

Norman no longer lives in Scotland, having moved to Canada several years ago. He’s busied himself with other projects in recent years, like the New Mendicants with the singer Joe Pernice. However returning to Teenage Fanclub, even after years away, was easily done.

“We can all flip back into Teenage Fanclub mode pretty quickly,” he says.

“The old songs are pretty much imprinted in our brains so it doesn’t take long to dust them enough, and we all still get on pretty well so there’s no drama with the group. When we get back together it happens easily.”

Teenage Fanclub, Barrowland and O2 ABC, Saturday/Sunday, sold out.

Jonathan Geddes