Biffy Clyro
We sat down for a wee chat with drummer Ben Johnston before their Aberdeen gig on their headline UK tour.
Scotland's new heroes, and the savours of British Rock, Biffy Clyro, have unleashed the quite staggering album 'Puzzle' on the world, and we sat down for a wee chat with drummer Ben Johnston before their Aberdeen gig on their headline UK tour.
Good to see you, how's things going?
Good to see you too, it's going really well, it's great to be touring again.
We last had a chat with you back in January in Glasgow on the Kerrang! Tour, and since then it's been going extremely well for you guys; 'Saturday Superhouse' went top 15, 'Living Is A Problem' went top 20, a European Tour with Bloc Party, Radio 1's Big Weekend, this headline tour, and the Warped Tour, UK Festivals, supporting Muse at Wembley, are all still to come; anything we've missed?!
There's a few European Festivals as well and it's just been confirmed that we'll be supporting The Who in Ireland, so that'll be a biggy! We're really honoured to be asked, we did the Teenage Cancer Trust gig at the Albert Hall last year and we got chatting with Roger Daltery and he liked us and just asked us to support them!
Have you found yourselves having to sit back at any point and really pinch yourselves and think 'look what's happened in six months!'?
Um, not really to be honest, it's been such a long time coming, the whole thing really. We've worked so hard for the eleven years we've been playing together now so nothing has felt like it's come easy or too quickly really. I guess it does seem a lot if you look at it from this year alone, but that's really what happens with the more exposure you get on a major label, the fanbase has grown, and we're getting all the press and PR now, so it does seem like it's all happened at once, but it doesn't feel like that to us. The gig with Muse at Wembley is definitely a pinch yourself one though. When it was announced that gigs would be played at the new Wembley, you have pipe dreams, but we're so lucky that Muse happen to like us and asked us to do it. It's gonna to be incredible.
When we last spoke you said how Muse are a band you'd love to support, especially being a three piece.
That's just it, and to be asked by them is a real honour, and to have respect from one of the best live bands in the world is really flattering.
Looking forward to that gig, I understand you're all big football fans, one of you must don a Scotland jersey and score a goal at the new Wembley!
It's all planned! I had planned to wear a Scotland top on stage, but I'm not sure how well that would go down to be honest! We might have a big Scotland flag in our backdrop or something. We're proud to be Scottish, but we're not hugely patriotic and we don't want to cause any problems!
There's talk on the website diaries of how you often kick a ball about backstage and so on, what's been the best venue for that?
On the European Tour we played in Cologne and we got this huge fucking room all to ourselves. Basically the venue had two halls, the one we played in was huge and holds about 5000 people, and the adjacent room was about the same size but empty, so we just played in there and it was amazing! We ended up doing ourselves in and being totally shattered before the gig!
Who's the best player?
Simon [Neil - vocals]. He played school boy football when he was younger and played at the Boys Scottish Cup Final.
You had Mike Vennart from Oceansize join you onstage for a few tracks in Leeds, was that a spur of the moment thing, or are you looking at adding another live member?
It's something we've thought about for festivals and big shows, where we have songs with lead guitar lines and others we want to fatten up a bit. We're not getting an extra member at all but we just thought we'd try and see what it sounds like. On the Bloc Party tour, Gordon, their bassist, did the lead part on 'Now I'm Everyone' and the glockenspiel as well. Obviously Simon can't do it all, so it might be fun to try it out. Loads of three pieces have done it, Muse, Green Day, Feeder, so it's just what comes with growing to this size.
The album release has been put back a few times now, and that must be extremely frustrating given that it's now being released after the headline tour to promote it?!
Yeah, and it's leaked now, purely because it's been put back so many times. People have become frustrated, as have we, and we kept telling the label if they put it back again it would leak, reviews would be out too early, promo copies would be kicking around for too long, and basically they've fucked it up, and we're not happy about it. This is meant to be 'The Album Tour' and it's not even out which is just ridiculous. We'll do another headline tour before the year's out and we'll probably play almost the whole album then, that'll be more like the album tour.
In a previous interview Simon [Neil] spoke about a strange jinx you seem to have of bands you play with splitting up! It looks like you're continuing that now! The Cooper Temple Clause were originally going to support you in England on this tour, but they've called it a day, and now Aerogramme who are supporting up here are splitting at the end of the summer. What's going on?
I've no idea!
Just pick shit support bands next time and break them all up!
Haha, aye! It's not usually this way round though, it always used to be the band we were supporting that broke up rather than the other way round, and the list is endless - it's really quite scary. When we told Bloc Party about it they were shitting themselves, but I don't think they're in any danger!
Back to our last chat again, you spoke last time about looking to break Europe and start on America this year. With the successful support slot already under your belts, some European Festivals to come, and the Warped Tour in the States as well, you must be ahead of schedule?!
Yeah it's exactly what we talked about. When we were in initial talks with the new label, they told us all this would happen, we would get the producer we wanted, the mixer, go to Europe, go to America, everything they've said is actually happening. It's exactly what we need and it's all happening. So if we fuck it up we've no-one to blame but ourselves!
Knowing the way you boys work, album number 5 is probably written and in the bag already, but what are the plans after the busy summer, get back into the studio, or take a bit of time to reflect?
I think we'll take a bit of time off, but you know what Simon's like, he just doesn't stop writing, so there are a few songs already written, but it would be good to do it like this one, and get about 40 songs written before we go into the studio. We'd like to tour this album a bit more than we did the last ones, so I doubt we'll have anything ready in a year, but we don't want to take as long as some bands do. So somewhere between Biffy-ness and normal-ness!
Given all that's happened in 2007, what has been the highlight for you so far?
Hearing the mixes of the record in New York. We'd been working in Canada for two and a half months and it was a real slog, we were out in the middle of the woods with no-one around, so to go to New York with people everywhere was great. We got to go and meet Andy Wallace, who is an absolute hero, talk about all the records he's done, and then getting to sit down and hear the tracks all mixed. That was a real high point. You hope that what you've put down will be good enough and then you hear it all polished up and it's great. He doesn't have any fancy tricks either, he's just good at mixing!
Did you have input to that mixing process, or was it a case of hand it to him and trust his reputation?
You've got to have trust in Andy Wallace cos he's just brillaint. He's not always going to have it exactly how you envisage it, but he got it spot on most of the time cos he's the best in the world!
It's very well known that you have a really loyal following, but have you experienced any 'backlash' or 'agro' from so-called 'die-hards' who think you've sold out or any other nonsense?
Yes of course we have. It's gonna happen no matter what you do when a band gets bigger, and there'll be some people that don't want that to happen. We've all three of us been guilty of it in the past with other bands who you don't want to get any bigger and you want them to stay the same size so they'll always be special. So some people have been on the website saying we've sold out and stuff, but I don't feel bad or anything, it's not like we've got loads of money. I also think the term 'sold out' gets thrown around far too much and people don't really know what they mean when they say it sometimes. To me selling out is doing something your heart isn't in to get more money, and we've never done that. This is the most heartfelt record we've ever made, so people can say whatever they want, I don't care.
With the new album you've quite a few 'epic' tracks on there with choirs, orchestras, strings and so on, and you've done it in the past on a smaller scale. Could you ever see yourselves playing live with that type of setup? A Biffy take on Metallica's S&M if you like!
Yeah, kind of. I don't think we'd ever go to that length though and put strings on songs that shouldn't have it, we've never been fans of putting strings etc on just for the sake of it, but I could see us using strings where we have done on the albums, it's something we've talked about and we'd love to do, but it'd cost a lot of money. So it all depends on how successful we are!
It's maybe early days yet, but any thoughts on the next single? I've heard rumours that 'Folding Stars' will be released.
So have I.
Is that all you have to say?
Yep. I don't care what it is to be honest, we've always said they're just adverts for the albums really. The label can do what they want, we just want the album out, and they're the best at knowing what should or shouldn't be a single so they can decide. I'm happy with whatever they release, we've shown that with 'Living Is A Problem...' that the more complex Biffy stuff can be successful so I don't think that 'Folding Stars' would be misrepresentation even though it is one of the more straight forward tracks on the album.
Well thank you very much for your time!
No problem, thank you!
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