For the majority of the ten years the band has been together, singer Stuart Murdoch lived in a church in Glasgow, where his large flat was rent-free in exchange for him keeping up with the place—”mostly cleaning, clean every morning and late at night, gardening, setting out tables and chairs and stages and platforms for the various organizations, like the Women’s Guild, and the bridge club, coffee mornings, lunch club, that sort of thing,” says Murdoch in this book. He no longer lives there, but he still sings in the choir, reads the Bible, and writes gospel songs about (what else?) God, notably “If You Find Yourself Caught in Love” on Dear Catastrophe Waitress, which is the only album to have a cover photo featuring all seven members of the band.

[This has been a Belle and Sebastian Fact of the Day. And, truthfully, the person you can see best in the photo is not actually in the band. Anyway, they play the Paramount TOMORROW!]