Sullenly slumped in corner, backstage at Liverpool's university venue is Johnny Borrell, Razorlight front-man and soon-to-be rock God. He's sulking. Why? All shall be revealed. Its as much as I can do to grab Björn and Andy for a quick chat before the atmosphere gets any thicker...
"The tour so far has been really great. Andy has been behaving very well..." jokes Guitarist Björn Agren about newly recruited drummer Andy Burrows. Burrows was drafted in last minute to replace Christian Smith-Pancorvo, who recently quit the as a result of the effect of touring on his stringent life routine. "Nottingham even sold out! It was ram packed with crazy people..." Bjorn continues enthusiastically, yet with being new it's Andy who really seems to be amazed by the reaction they've received on the tour:
Andy: "Yeah! Last night was errr Leicester (The Charlotte). That was great!"
Björn: "We were told that it was a bit of a..."
Andy: "Sh*thole!"
Björn: (Looking at Andy in amusement) "Sh*thole. I was gonna say 'dive' but yes!"
Andy: (in cockney slur) "Sh***thooooooole! But it doesn't matter where you are. If the crowd are well up for it, it'll be great and they were... We were walking on the stage and they were like 'Oouh, Oouh Oouh, Oouh'! That happened yesterday. They totally went for it! Tonight, the room was a bit empty, and the students are away and students normally give at gigs."
Now lets get something straight here, the set which has caused such dissatisfaction, such a sense of underachievement amongst the ranks of one of today's hottest new bands was, well pretty damn good! Opening with the energy of 'Rip it Up' followed by the Television-esq 'To the Sea' and charging through what was a (brief) yet climactic and feverish set, the boys have very little to complain of. It seems that Andy has yet to grasp the full enormity of the Razorlight mission:
"It was quite weird coming off stage tonight, because it wasn't the best gig of the tour really. For me even tonight was like... we came offstage and everyone's in a real mood and I'm like 'OK!' Not because I think I did a great job or anything but just because I just think I'm still in awe of the fact that there's a f**king bunch of people in the front who give a sh*t. I haven't been in a position before where there's actually a f**king front row who really care..."
With only four rehearsals with the band before the commencement of the tour its unsurprising that things are still sinking in for the new addition. "I'm really amazed he knows this much, this well already," says Björn, explaining that part of the reason for the unusually short set owes to the fact that Andy has not learnt all the previous material. "And if we play y'know when the adrenaline gets going, we play at a really high speed and the set isn't as long. You just don't know...We did have the option of bringing Christian on tour instead but see he decided he would leave before the tour. We managed to persuade him that if we couldn't find anyone to do it he'd go for the tour, but if we'd have taken Christian, he wouldn't have been up for it."
Andy: "It would have been hard for you guys, because it would have been a tour overshadowed by the fact that you had a member who didn't really wanna be there."
Björn: "I know, I know! Plus, you know, we opted to have a drummer that's got a hellish flame up his arse and play shorter sets than play slightly longer sets."
Andy: "The only restriction obviously is that if someone shouts out "can you play slibbidi wap wap" from the B side of one of them I don't know, then he'd be able to do it... I'm stupid really cos I wasn't a fan before. I wish I was..."
Björn: "Can you really call yourself retrospectively stupid? I don't think so..."
Having received a lot of support from the outset when John Kennedy played their songs on XFM to the present when NME hail the band as next big thing, how do the band feel about their rapid rise to recognition?
Björn: "It's almost two years since I met Johnny. But yeah, John Kennedy was a major support. And with the NME its like half the people liked us and half the people despised us. There was this one review which like completely slated us! It's like "they have a song that's like something, but where's the passion?" kind of thing. And it was like at Reading (Carling Weekend) verses... you know those verses reviews? It was us verses Franz Ferdinand! Because we both have 'Z' in our names! A third of that review was about 'Zs' basically! Which I thought was a bit silly. But yeah, there has been good support. I do feel like we've earned it, though. I do."
With the question of self-belief having arisen there seems to be an awkward silence. Johnny's declaration that he is the greatest songwriter of his generation in the NME not long ago has left the band open to speculation that there is a great deal too much talk and not enough evidence of this. However sensing this Andy comes to the rescue giving his new band-mate the encouragement he needs to continue. "I mean if you believe in your band, y'know?"
Björn: "If you don't think your in a good band, then why would you be in a band?"
Andy: "So any good press you do deserve!"
Björn: "Unless you do a useless gig!"
Andy: "There should be more honesty in the press really. Less bitching, more honesty."
Björn: "Yeah but y'know... A crap gig is a crap gig and should be reviewed as such."
The new Album, 'Up all Night' is due for release on June 28th on Vertigo. Are you happy with it?
Björn: "Well we're all like complete perfectionists. Speaking for myself I'm not 100% happy with it. But I'm not 100% happy with anything. I mean, if we would have worked until we were all 100% happy with it we would have gone on for about 15 years. We would never have finished it, so we kinda had to bring John Cornfield to say 'right, that's that, that's fine now'."
How do you feel changing producers from Steve Lillywhite to John Cornfield have affected the sound then?
Björn: "It ummmm, the thing is the only song we finished with Steve Lillywhite was 'Stumble and Fall'. I don't know whether his plan was to make the song sound like that, like a blueprint. But I think the album would have sounded cleaner, not as raw as it does now. It's not like amazingly raw, it's not like Jesus and Mary Chain raw but still got a... It is very fresh y'know? We are really pleased about it. I'm not going to be able to judge objectively but about a week after, I went home sat down had some food and started to listen to it. And after a bit, I had to put my knife and folk down and go "phhhhhhhhhhwwww, this is good!" It's always tricky but I mean we've had this album in our heads since September probably even longer, it's very hard to judge it. But naturally we're really fucking pleased with the way its sounds or we wouldn't have put it out cos y'know that would be pretty horrible to all the people who have waited such a long time, y'know? We're very aware of quality."
Finally, how would you like people to think of Razorlight in the future?
Andy: "Ummmm... Ultimately a great band!"
Björn: "Yeah and music that's powered by..."
Andy & Bjorn simultaneously: "Passion!"
Andy: "Yeah music that's powered by honest, total honest f**king passion."
Björn: "Yeah. Raw unmasked passion, just raw emotion whether it being happiness, sadness..."
Andy: "Just absolute no bullshit. Y'know? Cos there is a lot of bands you just don't believe... And I don't think you need to cut your fucking arm up and write '4real' just to fucking prove your point. I think you should be able to prove it by, that's no disrespect to the Manics, they meant it definitely, but I'm just saying that I think y'know you should be able to get that from a band I think, y'know, if a band really mean it. And all a decent bands can want is to be thought of as great..."
Björn: "We wanna be a band that means something to people.You hear the song and it goes right into your head and you can relate to it, like you understand it. You get it and the songs are about something that's happened in your life. We want to be very direct, the way it sounds, the way the lyrics work, just the whole thing. Just pure... Try not to fuck around with it... If its not necessary its not there..."
Andy: "I think to last is the most fantastic thing you can want ... I know that's not an answer to the question but I think to last as a band is the most fantastic thing you can want... not to be something like 'oh! Do you remember that?' To actually last in peoples minds and memories just because you were passionate and because people believed you, Believed that what you were doing up their you really fucking meant. It's the best thing you can possibly do as a band... You gotta have that!" At this point Andy begins to thump his chest makes suspect primate noises and Björn joins in.
Whether the band achieve their much aspired to ideals, it is too soon to tell, yet one thing is for certain. That is that tonight, Johnny could well be this generations greatest songwriter, tonight the greatest performance and as "Midnight's calling, are you close behind?", for soon Razorlight shall disappear to the Masque Theatre, taking with them their love lost followers for acoustic delights to last to last them an eternity, or at least till the next tour.