Art to choke hearts - Biffy Clyro interview [Kerrang! (May 19th, 2007)]
Biffy Clyro
Art to choke hearts
From cult acclaim to growing commercial success; this year Biffy Clyro are set to go supernova. This is what it’s like in the eye of the storm…
Words: Simon Young Photos: Ashley Maile
SIMON NEIL and the Johnston twins drop their bags on the concrete floor of a West London photo studio and walk towards a large black backdrop. Everywhere you look, there’s maniacally-scribbled, chalky equations and strange symbols scrawled across thick, dark paper.
Before dropping out of university to make Biffy Clyro his deafening full-time concern, Neil spent days writing and deciphering equations as part of his electronics and music course at Glasgow University. In five minutes, he’ll take his shirt off and will spend an hour having numbers and symbols inked onto his back and arms.
“This is giving me some serious flashbacks,” he says. “What if you accidentally wrote an equation for the meaning of life and no-one knew? Imagine that.”
Biffy look shattered. They played three shows yesterday: an acoustic showcase in the afternoon, a set at Brixton Academy supporting Bloc Party and a glorious 1am gig in a tiny bar at the Kerrang!-sponsored Camden Crawl. Neil ended the band’s triumphant set by hurling himself headlong into the crowd just as the police were threatening their soundman with arrest for breaking the noise curfew.
“Last night was amazing,” says the frontman. “It reaffirmed our faith in what we do. It was great to see our fans up close and feel their excitement.”
Once their forthcoming album ‘Puzzle’ hits the shelves next month, it’s difficult to predict when the band will play a tiny venue again.
Biffy Clyro are about to become massive. It’s about time.
TWO DAYS later, we join the band at La Carrière in Saint-Herblain, a short drive away from Nantes on the west coast of France.
They’re special guests on Bloc Party’s European dates and are enjoying the chance to tour extensively without having the responsibility of headlining. That’s not to say the band are getting royally hammered before they play. They’d rather spend their time fishing at the lake in front of the venue or flying remote-controlled planes around the catering hall. These are the sort of things that Mötley Crüe never had time to do on the ‘Girls Girls Girls’ tour.
But then, Biffy don’t really do rock ’n’ roll excess: indeed when ‘Puzzle’ producer Garth Richardson suggested bringing in some strippers for a hot tub party towards the end of the album sessions, the band insisted he send the girls back home.
It’s just not the Biffy way: during band downtime you’ll find Simon watching ‘24’, reading or writing complicated riffs. Bassist James can often be seen cycling through the hills in Ayrshire armed with a flask of tea and a couple of sandwiches. His drummer brother, meanwhile, likes to take in a round of golf when the weather’s nice. If it’s pissing down – as it seems to do in Scotland all the fucking time – he’ll put his pyjamas on and play PlayStation2 until his eyes hurt.
“It’s boring getting wrecked every day,” says Neil, nursing a cheeky drop of red wine. “If you tour all the time and cane it every night, you’ll burn out in no time at all. We’re not 16 anymore.”
BIFFY CLYRO began recording ‘Puzzle’ in Vancouver with Garth Richardson in September 2006. But their new songs started to come together much earlier, before the band had actually finished touring their last album, 2003’s ‘Infinity Land’. The band’s growing cult success had not gone unnoticed in the music industry, and they found themselves caught up in a protracted legal process while they made the sticky transition from indie label Beggars Banquet to 14th Floor, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers. To a band who were used to releasing an album every 15 months – they famously recorded their 2003 album ‘The Vertigo Of Bliss’ in a day – the delays seemed like an eternity.
But when the legal smoke finally cleared and the band were told they had three months to record their major label debut they grasped the opportunity with both hands.
“With the other albums, we’d have absolutely everything planned down to the last detail because of time constraints,” says Neil. “With this album, we took our time and took full advantage of all the opportunities we had been given. We could have recorded four albums in the time we were there, but we really worked on every aspect of the album, right until the last day.
“We’d waited for so long to record these songs,” he adds. “We had all these great opportunities and a great producer, a new label and we put more pressure on ourselves than anyone ever could.”
“We had four days left booked in the studio and Garth wanted to postpone finishing the album,” laughs James. “We’d worked so hard for so long on the album, he was losing his mind. We almost broke the man who gave Timmy C a nosebleed from stress while Rage Against The Machine were recording an album! We like to work hard.”
It was only in December, when the final tracks of ‘Puzzle’ were being mixed in a New York studio – by Andy Wallace, who pushed some buttons on some album called ‘Nevermind’ – that the band were able to actually properly listen to what they’d created. Bug-eyed and possibly a little hysterical from three months of intense hard work, it began to dawn on the three childhood friends that, after almost three years of monumental heartache, grief and uncertainty, they’d recorded the album of their lives.
Before preparing for tonight’s show – vocal warm-ups, a glass of red wine and a roll-up – the band crowd around their tour manager Neil’s laptop to check out the final draft of the album’s unsettling artwork, created by conceptual artist Storm Thorgerson (Pink Floyd, The Mars Volta, Muse). The album has been finished for five months now: the wait to release it is killing them.
“It’s like Christmas has been postponed,” says James. “We know major labels like to do things a little differently. But we’re so proud of this album, it’s just frustrating waiting all this time. We just want to get it out there so people can hear it.”
“WE’VE HAD TO FIGHT EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.” BEN JOHNSTON
THOSE WHO have heard ‘Puzzle’, are enthusiastically telling everyone they know that this is the album of the year. The experimental, prog-like flourishes which have characterised their previous three albums are still there, but have been reined in to make way for a joyously inventive yet accessible 13-track effort that is free of filler.
The album’s last single, the anthemic ‘Saturday Superhouse’ entered the singles chart at number 13 in March and this week’s release ‘Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies’ – a suspense-laden masterpiece layered with spiralling strings and a celestial choir – looks set to do similar damage. The band nervously laugh when it’s mentioned that this album could well be the one to propel them into the premier league. But how will mainstream success affect the band?
“We could be heading for a big fall talking about that,” smiles Simon. “But I don’t think success would change us. We got that out of the way when we released our first EP. We had the cockiest attitude ever.”
“But we quickly realised that we had to fight our corner and play constantly to get anywhere,” adds Ben. “We’ve had to fight every step of the way.”
James recalls the time their single ‘27’ was awarded ‘Single Of The Week’ by largely forgotten nu-metallers Taproot in 2001 [K!847}.
“I was getting ready to wash my car when Ben brought the magazine into the house,” he laughs. “We couldn’t believe it and started running around the house screaming. When I calmed down, I thought, ‘Well… better clean the car, then’. We’re from Kilmarnock and no-one gives a shit. It helps keep your feet on the ground.”
What, then, if one member starts acting like the big rock star? What would you do?
“If anyone started playing up, the other two would have to give them a spanking,” laughs Ben. “None of us are limelight seekers at all. It would create friction. I’m glad we’re not like Fall Out Boy.”
“I think it’s intrinsic to people’s personality,” says Simon. “It’s weird when a band’s celebrity overshadows the music. People like Pete Wentz, for example. He probably wants to be the centre of attention. There’s no danger of that happening, because it’s so far removed from what we are.”
2007 IS shaping up to be the band’s most exciting year yet. But for Neil, the year will be full of bittersweet memories as his mother will never get to see the success her son worked so hard to achieve.
Eleanor Neil passed away suddenly in March 2004 while Biffy were touring Ireland with Hundred Reasons. Dropping everything, the band flew back to Scotland and Simon was able to see his mother one last time in hospital before she passed away.
In a music scene choked with bands peddling theatrical angst as a means of entertainment, ‘Puzzle’ is a brutally honest album of genuine depth and emotion: it’s about a young man having his heart broken and his attempts to rebuild his life. Neil’s lyrics across the 13 tracks aren’t swathed in metaphors. They’re from the heart and uncomfortably so.
The album’s opening track ‘Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies’ is about losing your faith in everything (‘I met God and he had nothing to say to me.’) and conjures up heartbreaking imagery (‘I pray to God that you’re right before my eyes, bathed in white light with halos in your eyes.’). The bludgeoning ‘Semi-Mental’ deals with grief (‘I smoke my face in night after night, to numb the pain and stop the world spinning round and round’), while the quietly introspective closing track ‘Machines’ finds some sort of acceptance and attempts to face the future (‘Take the pieces and build them skywards…’).
“IF YOU TOUR ALL THE TIME AND CANE IT EVERY NIGHT, YOU’LL BURN OUT IN NO TIME AT ALL. WE’RE NOT 16 ANYMORE.” SIMON NEIL
THE FOLLOWING day, we join the band at Lille’s L’Aeronef venue. In the blazing sunshine, we find a shaded spot in the sunny courtyard. Simon is surprisingly open about his loss.
He admits that when their third album ‘Infinity Land’ was released shortly after her death, they threw themselves into an intensive touring schedule to delay dealing with the reality of his loss. In hindsight, Neil wishes he put the band on hold to cope with his grief properly.
“I really regret that,” says Neil quietly. “I wish we’d taken a year off but I think I wasn’t of sound enough mind to say I wanted to be at home and be with my dad and brother. We’re all quite manly men in my family and there were times I wish we weren’t so stiff-upper-lip about everything. In different cultures, if a family loses someone, they’re so open with their grief. I think it’s healthy.”
And when the band’s legal woes started to slow things down to a halt, Neil began to channel his grief, anger and confusion into his songwriting and page after page of moving, confessional lyrics.
“I kept writing and writing,” he notes. “The songs were very raw.”
ELEANOR NEIL was incredibly supportive of the band. But she worried, like all mothers would do, when her son announced he was dropping out of university to concentrate on Biffy Clyro.
“She saw it in my eyes when I told her how much playing in the band meant to me,” he smiles. “We were playing together since we were 15 and she was always pleased when we were doing well.
“The worst time I remember was when we played in Glasgow a while afterwards,” he adds. “My dad and brother came to watch and that was one of the saddest times of my life. I knew my mum would have been so proud. We’d be doing well and there was this cloud following me around. It was tough for the other guys because they didn’t know how to deal with me. I was up and down all the time.”
Neil brightens when I mention ‘Folding Stars’, is a moving tribute to his mother.
“She really liked the quiet songs, so I wrote the song for her,” he says. “It’s the kind of song she’d like and although it was really tough to record, I’m immensely proud of it. It makes me happy when people say they connect with the song but I’m not sure if we’ll ever play it live. Not any time soon, anyway.”
Predictably, the label love ‘Folding Stars’ and there’s talk of it being released as a single in the future. It’s something that’s causing Neil some concern.
“It makes me feel uneasy,” he says, pausing to collect his thoughts. “I knew that by being on a major label it would happen, it’s their job to sell the music and not be so concerned with the artistic integrity behind the songs. I know we’re lucky to have a label that believes in us but it makes me feel weird.”
What do his dad and brother think of the album?
“I’m actually too scared to let them hear the full album yet,” he admits. “I feel guilty, because I don’t know if they see music as just entertainment. I don’t want them to think of it as it like that and get the wrong idea about why I’m singing about my mum. I know there’s a couple of songs on it that’ll make them really upset and I’m trying to delay that happening.”
All eyes will be on Biffy Clyro this year. Whatever sales they clock up, ‘Puzzle’ is an incredible artistic triumph and, perhaps most importantly to the three young men who created it, a magnificent tribute to Eleanor Neil.
“There’ll always be days when I’ll feel sadness,” he says quietly. “I don’t think anyone truly gets over something like this, do they? I’m happy to talk about this with you, but once the album comes out, I’m not going to talk about it anymore. This year is going to be weird, I think.”
‘PUZZLE’ WILL BE RELEASED ON JUNE 4 VIA 14TH FLOOR. THE NEW SINGLE ‘LIVING IS A PROBLEM BECAUSE EVERYTHING DIES’, IS OUT NOW.
’MON THE BIFFY!’
SIMON PICKS 10 TRACKS FOR THE ESSENTIAL BIFFY MIX-TAPE
‘JUSTBOY’ “That’s one of the first songs I ever wrote that I thought was quite good. I had discovered bands like Far and Mineral and this song was a product of that.” FIND IT: ‘Blackened Sky’ (album, 2002)
‘HERO MANAGEMENT’ “Arrangement-wise, that’s probably one of the most complex songs on the first record. It was the first time we’d played a song and realised there were no rules, basically.” FIND IT: ‘Blackened Sky’ (album, 2002)
‘BODIES IN FLIGHT’ “After our first album, people thought we were grunge or something. When people heard this song, it made people realise we were doing something a bit different.” FIND IT: ‘The Vertigo Of Bliss’ (album, 2003)
‘TOYS TOYS TOYS CHOKE TOYS TOYS TOYS’ “This was the first song that was written for ‘The Vertigo Of Bliss’. We’ve got lots of back-and-forth vocals and has got a crazy break-down section. It’s almost quintessential Biffy, I guess.” FIND IT: ‘The Vertigo Of Bliss’ (album, 2003)
‘SOME KIND OF WIZARD’ “This was a really tricky one to learn how to play because the guitar parts were really hard. At that point, I hope we were managing to meld the pop song to something more complex. It was fresh for us and full of things we’d never tried before.” FIND IT: ‘Infinity Land’ (album, 2004)
‘GOT WRONG’ “That was down-tuned to C. I was playing around with the tuning and the song came straight out. Initially, we thought that was going to be a single and was our poppiest moment to date. It was poppy yet really heavy.” FIND IT: ‘Infinity Land’ (album, 2004)
‘LIVING IS A PROBLEM BECAUSE EVERYTHING DIES’ “This sums up the new record and shows that we’re not happy to plough the same kind of furrow as we’ve done before. We wanted something epic and over-the-top and something the three of us would find hard to do.” FIND IT: ‘Puzzle’ (album, 2007)
‘FOLDING STARS’ “Personally, it’s a very important song to me. It’s the most straight pop ballad – I hate the word ‘ballad’ – let’s say slow song we’ve done. It turned out perfectly. It’s a sweet song and is a balance to the craziness.” FIND IT: ‘Puzzle’ (album, 2007)
‘MACHINES’ “This is the sparsest song on the new album. It’s nice for us to have a tune that isn’t all about dynamics and blowing people’s faces off. It’s got lyrics people can connect with and it’s very satisfying to play.” FIND IT: ‘Puzzle’ (album, 2007)
‘AND WITH THE SCISSORKICK IS VICTORIOUS’ “We almost put this on ‘Vertigo…’. It was one of our favourite songs but it didn’t quite fit in with the album we wanted to make. It’s got a really galloping feel and lots of screaming. It’s quite Iron Maiden-y.” FIND IT: ‘The Ideal Height’ B-side (single, 2003)
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