They used to chant at Johnny Borrell during football matches. Standing alone, watching his beloved Chelsea decked out in “Elizabeth Taylor make-up, skin-tight jeans and platform shoes”, he’d attract a host of confused glances and sneers until the crowd belted out a version of Marc Bolan’s ‘Ride A White Swan’ in his honour. Johnny may have spent his formative years obsessing over football, but he was never one to blend in. Bunking the tube ride to the ground, and with the world drowned out to the sounds of The Clash, he’d drop ecstasy and watch the game from the sidelines, buzzing his nut off.
“It was fucking great,” he grins. “Thirty thousand people all singing and you’re standing there like…(pulls a huge MDMA-enhanced gurn).” He pauses to reminisce. “You know, I think in every bloke’s life there’s a time where football’s the most important thing. When I was young I used to think I was Maradona. I even lost a girlfriend to computer football management games! It got to the point where I was lying so I could play them in secret. One night she turned to me and said, “If it was porn, I could understand!” Then she walked out. I thought, ‘I can’t do this with my life’, and threw the discs from my rooftop, across Kings Cross.”
And so began the story of Johnny’s obsession, not just with football but with music, literature and pretty much everything else. Before all that, however, you join us in a north London photo studio, watching the band prance around in their gruds with flags.
The mood’s understandably triumphant: Razorlight are about to release what has become a incredibly traumatic (and utterly brilliant) debut album – 13 songs of melody-packed jitter-punk about finding romance in scuzz-lined city streets. They’re also about to go on a UK tour that’ll see crowds swoon in their wake and cement their reputation as Britain’s most exciting and important new band. Best of all, new drummer Andy Burrows (who, by the time you read this, will have spent time in hospital after leaping from a high-speed train) fits in perfectly, making the band gel in a way they never seemed to before.
The atmosphere makes us salivate at the thought of what Johnny might say. Here’s a guy, after all, who has claimed that he’s a modern day Bob Dylan, that The Libertines had no ambition and that he was comparable to U2 and 19th Century poet Rimbaud. Surely all we’ll have to do is lie back and let the tape roll while he gabbles about being able to walk on water.
Or perhaps not. When we arrive in Glasgow for the fourth date of their tour, the band are buzzing with enthusiasm (“We’ve done three gigs in a row that have a changed a lot of people’s lives,” froths Johnny) But awful acoustics mean tonight’s show is merely fine (a word Johnny would never want describing his band), leaving the crowd just short of going gonzoid mental.
Johnny’s noticeably bruised. And so, when we get to our hotel at midnight expecting a barrage of bravado and boasts, what we get is an edgy three-hour session that swings wildly between manic self-belief and the same self-doubts, anxieties and fears we all have.
“It got misinterpreted,” begins Johnny, defending the way he came across in recent NME interviews. “I never meant to compare the two singles I had out at the time to the entire canon of Orson Welles and Dylan. And now people will say to me, ‘I thought you’d be a right cunt but you’re alright actually.’ It’s weird.”
You did compare yourself to the greats, though. Do you think the album still stands up against Dylan?
“You can’t ask me that because I’m so far away from it and I’ve got no fucking idea. I just write songs and try and record them and take them to their logical conclusion. What’s the point in me saying, ‘It’s the best album in the world,’ when it’s just some songs that I’ve recorded?”
“Just some songs”? Come on Johnny – we thought you were on a mission to out-gob the Gallaghers…
“Well my life’s a contradiction. Sometimes I’m full of self-confidence and at other times…very humble.”
Johnny’s life isn’t just a contradiction – it’s a tangle of myth-chasing, romance, passion, and a need to squeeze every last drop of life from his time on this planet. Where other bands might form because they “all quite liked the Beatles”, Johnny never felt he had a choice other than to make music.
He grew up in North London – although by ‘grew up’ we mean he had his mind kidnapped by rock’n’roll. As a kid he might have been Maradona, but soon he was living every aspect of his life from inside the minds of his musical heroes. For a while he’d hang out in mod clubs, believing that he was Pete Townshend. Then he’d decide he was Johnny Thunders and start swaggering into bars and knocking back double vodkas because “otherwise people wouldn’t speak to me”. When this got boring he’d hitchhike alone around Europe. He wasn’t Johnny Borrell now, he was Jack Kerouac.
“I got down to the south of Spain, eyes wide open, taking it all in. I was so fucking lonely, an introverted 16-year-old jumping in cars and trains, sleeping by railway tracks. But it was great.”
Clearly he was seeking something more, but he found his dreams led him to a series of dead-ends.
“There was a void in my life waiting to be filled, but it got confusing. You’d be Michael Stipe one week, Kurt Cobain the next…I tried hard to find a world I could fit in with, but about three years ago I realised I could just be myself and that was a massive fucking relief.”
It was watching the Strokes at Reading in 2002 that gave Johnny the kick up the arse he needed to start Razorlight. But, regardless of what critics say, the band are no Strokes-aping pastiche. Rather, ‘Up All Night’ throbs with a human heartbeat from someone who’s lived life rather than wet-dreamed it from a posho-school bunk bed. And that’s why the band’s growing army of fans make such a big connection with them.
“The Strokes are just so disappointing now,” rants Johnny. “They’ve got a stage - why not talk about Bush and Blair? Stop caring about being cool, urge people to read Chomsky and learn about how sick America is.”
So what are Razorlight standing for?
“We’re reclaiming something that hasn’t existed for quite a while. We’re the antidote to careerism and the horrible cult of celebrity.” His eyes begin to burn with rage. “You get Jet selling songs to Vodafone and nobody seems bothered! It’s wrong. We were offered the same deal for ‘Rip It Up’ but wouldn’t touch it. How could we? Someone’s gonna fall in love to that song, gonna get married to it, gonna put it on at their mate’s funeral. I’m not going to pervert that by selling it. Rock’n’roll is supposed to be about revolution . And (quoting black feminist writer Toni Cade Bambara) the role of a poet, or a band, is to make revolution irresistible.”
It’s this sense of disillusionment, level of caring, and desire to make something perfect, that meant Johnny wore himself out making ‘Up All Night’
“Making a record isn’t how you imagine it to be. You think you’ll be on a Learjet snorting coke but it’s actually just…really hard. It’s full of imperfections.”
By ‘hard’ he means being blackmailed by an A&R guy, having two producers walk out and having to relocate to Cornwall with a band on the brink of crumbling.
“The blackmail left a sour taste,” recalls Johnny. “The guy offered to pay for our initial demos, but once we’d recorded them he claimed ownership and demanded we buy them back for about £3,000 and give him co-production credits. But I never got that upset over it.” He pauses. “Actually, I do scream ‘(name removed for legal reasons) must die’ at the end of most shows.”
Sessions with producer Steve Lillywhite followed, but when he left his job at Mercury his contact with the band faded. It wasn’t working anyway (Johnny: “I’d get home and not want to put on the recordings we’d made, which means you’re fucking things up.”), which led the band towards John Cornfield in Battersea.
Things started brilliantly. “Finally, we’re capturing how good this band are,” is how Johnny remembers the sessions, but it wasn’t long before disaster struck again. Cornfield had to return home to Cornwall after his father fell ill, leaving Razorlight producerless and disillusioned again. “I could have sat and moaned,” states Johnny. “But I just said, ‘fuck it’, went into the studio and did ‘To The Sea’ and ‘Fall, Fall, Fall’ on my own. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done.
After being packed off to play Austin’s SXSW music conference, Razorlight made the decision to relocate to Cornwall to work with Cornfield. Laying down what was essentially a series of love letters to grimy thrill-fuelled London in the middle of the sleepy country must have been a bit of a head-fuck.
“It was surreal being isolated there,” agrees Johnny. “I was watching Bush and Blair butchering Baghdad on cable TV and I was on the verge of jacking in the band and going off to Palestine to do some good.”
It didn’t help that the studio atmosphere was frostier than a Detroit garage rock reunion party. In particular, then-drummer Christian Smith-Pancorvo’s obsessive lifestyle regime was taking over, meaning valuable time was wasted while he, “digested strawberries”.
Johnny: “I felt isolated. I was talking to Carlos (Barat) the other day, and he compared it to that summer when he had to carry The Libertines by himself.”
But why did you feel isolated from Bjorn (Agren, guitarist) and Carl (Dalemo, bass)?
“I’d mention the third Velvet Underground album and I’d be hit with blank looks. I’d talk about (Neil Young’s) ‘Hey Hey, My My’ and they’d shrug. That sort of thing.”
This sums up the dynamic of Razorlight perfectly. Whereas Carl, Bjorn and Andy play an essential role in the band, it’s not their vision and drive that keeps it fuelled. Aware of this, Johnny leads with a control-freak type nature; they’re banned from interviews and he admits to sometimes not being able to look at them for hours after a show. And rather than parade for the press like Posh’n’Becks and pretend everything’s fine, Johnny’s frighteningly open about his love-hate relationship with the band.
“I had some fights with Christian, but not so much with the Swedes because…well, it’s just weird,” he sighs, unaware how strange it is to hear someone refer to bandmates as “the Swedes” (particularly when he insists Razorlight are an English band to the point where – despite protests – they all have to wear England shirts for the NME photoshoot). “You know, I’m just praying for the day that Carl asks why I don’t like him so I can explain and he won’t be offended. Basically, I don’t think he’s living his life in the right way. I found him very inspiring at first but now he’s nothing but a…consumer.”
Do they have the same vision as you?
“I’ve got so much respect for what they do but…no, not really. When we got signed I saw that as a starting point to get better, but they were happy being as good as we were. That was frustrating. And there are bits of the record that aren’t what I want because they weren’t capable of making it that way.”
What about you doing interviews solo?
“I just couldn’t hack it as a group. If you’re gonna spend all your time with someone, the last thing you need is them winding you up, saying that certain songs are about something when they’re not at all.”
Is it because they’re not what you want them to be?
“No. I love them and I have so much respect for what they do. Musically, they take my songs in a way they need to go. Razorlight wouldn’t exist without them.”
It’s 2:30am and NME’s feeling drained. We’ve been going around in circles while Johnny tries to explain…well, something. He seems very cautious about how he’ll come across, often stopping stories before he finishes them. When we ask him about his life in London he simply says: “The only stories I can tell you involve drugs and more than one girl and people misinterpret that.”
This isn’t the Johnny Borrell we expected. The mood has turned remarkably tense and Johnny decides we should stop the interview and carry on in the bar. We go down, Johnny orders a pint and a double whiskey, and we spend a while talking about the album.
“Every song’s like a telephone conversation with a different person I know,” he explains. “They’re all true, which is why people connect with them. When I first heard Nirvana’s ‘Lithium’ I thought, ‘How can someone I’ve never met know exactly what I’m thinking?’ That’s the best thing about what I’m doing now, that someone somewhere is thinking that about my songs.”
Is ‘Don’t Go Back To Dalston’ about Pete Libertine?
“It’s about two different people at the same time. It was a song to a lover not to go back to someone if she wanted to be with me. Typical male jealousy. But it was also a song for Peter, pleading with him not to go back hanging around with those people.”
We heard you started taking heroin again while making the record. Is that true?
Johnny laughs, surprised: “Erm…yes, I did. Well, once.” He pauses. “I don’t want to get into talking about that. But my philosophy in things is that when things get bad, you walk. And in that studio I couldn’t walk anywhere – there was nowhere to go. But I’ve been an addict and that’s all out of my system now.”
Was being an addict horrible?
“No, it was fucking great.” Really? Nobody ever says that… “Well, it was.”
What about giving it up? Surely that was horrific…
“Yeah – I had to spend six months indoors. But I’d probably still be a drug addict if it wasn’t for the fact I find doing drugs all the time so fucking boring. Like, I took MDMA powder over Christmas and ended up crawling around the aisle biting girls’ ankles. It really wasn’t a good look for me.”
He starts to look uncomfortable again. “Let’s hide this,” he says, covering the tape recorder with a menu, “and then it’ll be easier to talk.”
But it’s not, and by 4am we agree to call it a night.
It’s 1pm the following day when NME gets a call: “If you’ve got five seconds to spare, I’ll tell you the story of my life.” It’s Johnny, quoting The Smiths’ ‘Half A Person’ (this is a very Johnny Borrell thing to do), and he wants to talk some more. Three hours of gruelling late-night interview wasn’t enough to get his message across. As he grapples with his own contradictions, it’s genuinely touching to find someone who cares about his music this much. Oh you could call it vain and obsessive. But it’s not true. We know, because we saw him ask us to play ‘Up All Night’ in our hotel room and we watched his eyes glaze over as he recalled pouring his heart into every note. It dawns on us that nearly everything that made this interview so intense and frustrating, is because Johnny cares. Cares too much for his own state of mind, really.
“Listen,” he says, “I met this girl in Middlesbrough telling me she had to wear three pairs of knickers to minimise the chances of getting attacked on her way home. I’ve never wanted to take part in a world like that. That’s why I spent two years convinced I was a folk singer in Greenwich Village in 1965. I grew up in Ally Pally and every Friday night I’d be getting made up, listening to the New York Dolls and getting ready to go out. I’d look at the world around and it just wasn’t enough. This bunch of lads would call me a faggot every weekend and I remember one time I said, ‘Well come here and suck my cock and find out.’ And you’ve been listening to Johnny Thunders for an hour so you feel you can say that but then you get battered and…”
He’s still struggling to spit out what he wants to say – but we think by this point it’s pretty clear. Johnny’s been called lots of things in his life: a faggot, a weirdo and, unbelievably, a faker. But truth is, he’s just a dreamer who let rock’n’roll steal his life at an early age, and who’s on the verge of becoming a star.
“Of course I’m a fucking star!” he screams, finally finding that self-belief. I’ve felt like a star ever since I was 16, walking home from clubs where I couldn’t get a girl, singing ‘I Am The Walrus’ at the top of my lungs. Nobody believed I could do this but I have.”
Looks like the loner in the platform shoes is about to have the last laugh.
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Get Your Kicks – Razorlight on the beautiful game.
Who’s Razorlight’s star player?
Johnny: (Straight away). Me! I went on Soccer AM and scored on the target shoot from 25 yards.”
Bjorn: “I was never any good. I never got picked so I would wander off on my own to philosophise in the woods.”
Which bands are the best/worst footballers?
Bjorn: I think Jet make the best team – they’d make the opposing team faint from the smell of the sweat.”
Johnny: “We played (occasional Razorlight support band) Dogs last week and they were terrible. Dogs to the fucking slaughter…but I’m bad like that, I always want to win. It’s my terrible type-A personality. I start shouting out orders.”
What do you think of England’s Euro 2004 song, ‘Altogether Now’ by The Farm?
Johnny: ‘World In Motion’ was fucking beautiful but songs and football don’t generally go hand in hand.”
Andy: “Ian Broudie is a bad example of that.”
Johnny: “I don’t think he’s a good example of anything really!”
Who’s your tip for winning Euro 2004?
Johnny: “We’ve got a reasonable chance. We’ve a problem with strikers and who’s gonna partner Michael Owen. We’ve got a fantastic midfield and we’re solid at the back. It all depends on scoring goals.”
Describe your ideal football song…
Johnny: “A duet with Sting and Celine Dion. It’s involve Sting flexing muscles on the upright bass and Celine doing ‘operatic wail’. Then Zucchero would say something you couldn’t understand.”
Could shrooms calm down hooliganism like E in the late ‘80’s?
Johnny: “Of course! You wouldn’t go fighting if you’re tripping off your head. There should be a FIFA directive that says everyone has to eat mushrooms before they watched a game.”
Who are your favourite players?
Johnny: “I’m wilfully perverse like this, but I’d rather watch Johnny Spencer and Gavin Peacock struggling to overcome Ipswich than pampered millionaires. Having said that, I love George Best. There’s a great story where Best is sitting in a hotel room with three girls in bed with him, piles of cash and loads of booze. The waiter comes in and says, ‘George, where did it all go wrong?’”
David Beckham – did he or didn’t he?
Johnny: “Who cares! Monogamy’s a fucking stupid concept anyway. Yeah, it’s romantic to say you’ll be with someone forever, but there are lots of things that you can delude yourself as being romantic. Sometimes it feels romantic to go down the pub at 10:30 in the morning and drink six pints before 3 o’clock!”
Dogging or roasting?
Johnny: “I think they’re both disgusting. Roasting is that whole thing of sublimating your homosexual desires by all screwing the same girl. It’s like Harold and Lou in Neighbours. They’ve always gone after the same girl – it’s obvious they’re deeply in love.”