The art of scaling Mt Doubt

In an effort to bounce back from the economic effect of lockdown Leo Bargery has had time this year to show that he is more than just a songwriter.

Bargery is an Edinburgh musician and the founder member of the Edinburgh band, Mt Doubt.

A musician since 2015, he had always played music through his schooldays. Then after university in St Andrews where he graduated with a degree in film studies he says he just ‘kept plugging away’. With only a couple of guitar and piano lessons when he was younger, Leo is a self-taught singer, guitarist and pianist, but now his wider artistic skills have been rekindled.

Leo lives with his parents – he admits to being a pandemic casualty – and paints in his bedroom where he shuffles the furniture each day to make space for an easel and paints. Happily, he has a large window with lots of natural light there (as well as being fed and warm). His paintings have a connection to his music too. He and his band have just released their third album, Doubtlands, and Leo decided to try and illustrate each song with a painting.

He put them up for sale on the band’s Instagram account appealing to the band’s online fanbase, and the first paintings are now all sold. Leo explained: “I thought it would be interesting to see what the interpretation came out like. And that – surprisingly – went down very well.

Leo said he was surprised, but explains it has given him the inspiration for his next art project. He said: “Now I am working retrospectively through our past releases and doing the same – illustrating each track with a painting. The second lot of paintings will be available for our album In Awe of Nothing at the end of November.”

The paintings will be sold through the Mt Doubt Instagram and Facebook pages as well as the Dubio Paintings Instagram account.

Leo told us how it came about. He said: “I have always been a keen doodler and drawer. I painted quite a lot when I was younger just for fun, toying with the idea of going to art college. Life got in the way and I stopped painting when I was at university. But during lockdown I rediscovered a cupboard full of paint which was largely dried up and unuseful. I found the stuff that was still usable and got back to painting.”

Leo writes his own songs and the band Mt Doubt has just put out their third album on the Last Night from Glasgow label – which is a community-based membership style business. The band have played shows around the UK, although predominantly around Scotland. This year was supposed to be filled with a couple of festival tours around the UK which have all been delayed.

Bargery said: “I have been churning away moving in a direction. Our music is not hard to describe but it is hard to describe your own music. There is a rock element to it but a bit more in keeping with the Nick Cave end of the spectrum. It is a bit wordy, darker and atmospheric. It has a pop sensibility at its core I would like to think in the songwriting.

“It started out with me on my own but I am fortunate to have friends who are much better musicians than me. I have accumulated them and they made everything sound so much better than me. Predominantly I write the songs and sing.”

The others in the band include Annie Booth an Edinburgh singer-songwriter, Ryan Firth on keyboards and piano, James Callaghan plays bass and extra guitar and Pete Bunting who is a ‘very adept drummer’.

You can buy the latest album here – or at least you will be able to when the label has repressed the vinyl as the first pressing has already sold out.

Meantime you can listen to a song from a previous album here, recorded during lockdown, to get the idea of what Mt Doubt’s music sounds like: