Interviews: Biffy Clyro

Rock Sound cover stars talk about dreams, orchestras and success in this exclusive online interview.

Posted Wednesday, 7 October 2009 in

Biffy Clyro With their fifth studio album 'Only Revolutions' about to drop, Rock Sound caught up with Simon Neil and the Johnston brothers to discuss their incredible rise to the top.

For the full interview pick up the latest Rock Sound magazine, for an exclusive online teaser read below...

How did your experience working with Garth Richardson for the second time develop on this record?
James: “I think we learnt a lot from last time, we were certainly at loggerheads at points on the previous album [‘Puzzle’], just trying to work out how he worked and him trying to work out how we worked… That doesn’t mean that the process was always easy, you’ve got to work hard and work through your problems, but the understanding was there. We knew he could get the results that we were looking for.”
Simon: “Trust is so important, you know, between a band and a producer. We were a fairly new band to Garth when he was doing ‘Puzzle’, so he didn’t know how we worked, what we did, and that was the main reason for us kind of butting heads with him, but this time he just trusted us, and that’s the most important thing.”

You guys started the band as teenagers while still at school; did you ever envisage getting to this point, five albums into your career? For example, did you ever think of playing the Main Stage at Reading?
Ben: “We certainly didn’t imagine doing five albums! That’s the one thing, you’re sat there and you’re dreaming of headlining Reading after your first album!”
[Everyone laughs]
Ben: “You’ve written down the running order at Reading and you’re playing above Nirvana, but this is after one album.”
James: “I think that was after our first practice!”
Simon: “Yeah, when we were 14!”
Ben: “You don’t dream about being a band who’ve slogged it out for years and have now stepped it up, it’s a weird fucking dream to have, obviously, but I don’t think we’d have it any other way.”
Simon: “I think the satisfaction for us has always been in the making of the music and playing together, and to be able to do that and spend our time doing that has been our biggest success, because that’s the main thing you dream of when you’re young, or certainly for us. We never really dreamt about being millionaires or anything, it was just always about making records and putting out albums that hopefully mean something to people, and I think that we’ve always tried to retain that, I guess.”

Did you have to rework the songs on ‘Only Revolutions’ at all to bring in the orchestral elements?
Ben: “Not at all, absolutely not, that’s something that would never happen. The songs have to be as they really are as a three-piece rock band, because live we don’t have orchestras usually, we don’t have keys and choirs and stuff, well not at the moment at least, so, first and foremost, the song has to blow your socks off with just the three of us playing it.”

A journalist from another magazine suggested you could potentially ‘do a Muse’; how do you feel about that comparison?
Simon: “I think Muse are doing alright! You know, I don’t think they’ve got any worries! We’re a three-piece rock band and we kind of do different things musically, but you know, it [ours] was definitely a different style of attack. I think they’re very much about getting in a room together and making it this planned, wonderful big concept, but no one’s better than Muse, you know. Muse are the best live band in the world, and it was lovely to be compared to them, but I don’t think we’ll be a new Muse for a while yet!”
James: “It’s someone sort of putting words in our mouths and we don’t really have that kind of goal to be any further than we are. We’re quite happy with the band.”
Simon: “Hopefully someone will be the new Biffy one day, that’d be nice!”