Last time You’re So Old Street spoke to Johnny Borrell over a year ago, the band were yet to release their first single – so much has happened in the time since. Johnny cheerfully summarises this for us.
“What’s happened in the last year? Let’s see… I’ve broken my foot. I’ve fallen in love and fallen out of love again. I’ve lost a drummer, gained a dummer, had a top 10 single and… a lot of heartache, a lot of trouble, a lot of good times… It’s just the same, really! I’m just somebody trying to figure everything out and try and find some peace and write some songs.”
Despite the avid following Razorlight already had back then, from countless gigs around Camden and in squats across the capital, Johnny admitted that he hadn’t yet come to terms with the idea that anyone could love his band. Have his feelings changed since the release of the album?
“I just hope that someone’s walking along the street at the moment listening to it and it means everything to them and it’s saying everything to them about their life. I really hope it comes across as personal…”
“I thought Michael Jackson was writing about me when I was 9 or whatever!” interjects the band’s new drummer, Andy Burrows, “That’s why you’re a fan of music, because it helps you with your boring life or whatever.”
This being the case, why is it that the music world seem to have this impression of Johnny as being arrogant and even difficult? The band seem confused by the very idea, and it’s a while before Johnny can come up with a theory.
“I think because I came out and said the album was going to be brilliant before it had even come out, that was perceived as arrogant. It’s important to do that, because otherwise why would you do it? You should try and put everything into it. I don’t try and court everyone’s opinions and try and make myself think like everybody else. You just have to think how you think and not believe everything that’s said about you. You don’t sit there and think – “oh, this is the moral majority, this is how they see it, I’d better make sure that I see it like that!” I think if you do that you destroy what’s good in the first place. But yeah, you’ve just got to do what you do and if you don’t think what you’re doing is a good thing, then don’t do it!”
But surely it’s hard not to be influenced by other people’s opinions or perceptions when you’re in the public eye? At least to remain sane in the centre of it!
“It’s all about the kind of person you are.” Johnny insists, “If you’re stupid enough to have people kissing your arse all the time then you deserve everything you get. You deserve the drugs. You just have to make that decision. Whether you’re going to play up to that or just make music, which is what it’s about – it’s why we’re here.” So, do the entire band have similar ideas about why you’re here?
“I think the point of it is that maybe we don’t!” Johnny explains fervently. “You know, I get incredibly moved by Neil Young going onstage and playing two of his worst songs that sound exactly the same, when they’re all baying for something good but he’s just standing there being very cheeky and I think that’s wonderful. To somebody else that might just be that Neil Young’s come out and played two terrible songs and there’s nothing good about it! I think to be in a band you’re in danger if you’ve all got the same record collections.”
Indeed. In the ‘90s accusations of a lack of originality were flung left, right and centre at bands, but surely there have been so many years of music that no one can ever be truly original these days, but the more influences a band have from different areas, the more likely they are to create something interesting.
“To do something really original it needs to be so fucking strange that it would be almost unlistenable!” Guitarist Bjorn Agren agrees. Johnny leaps on this point.
“See, there’s a good example! I don’t agree with you, but it’s not the end of the world! I think you can play E, D and A and B incredibly originally, and people have played that before. It’s all delivery and what you’re saying – it’s like writing a love song. The guy from The Vines says he never writes about love because it’s been written about so much that you can’t write anything new, and that’s just fucking nonsense! If you write something that says, ‘I love you, baby’ then, yeah, it’s been done to death. If you write something that says ‘I love you, but-!’ there’s a whole fucking world!”
Andy, at least, seems to agree here.
“The Beatles songs weren’t original,” he points out, “But it was just what they did with them was amazing. It wasn’t any different then songwise. It’s as original now as it was then, it’s just about whether it’s good or not.”
“Yeah, yeah absolutely!” Johnny agrees enthusiastically, “Originality’s just-“ He makes a sighing noise, and when this is greeted with laughter from the room adds with a grin, “That was a really good point, by the way!”
So, there’s only so long anyone can be earnest for, and conversation gradually mutates into discussion of ‘80s home computers (via the Razorlight Olympics game on their website), moose-tipping (which, for the record, Bjorn has never done, although his dad was attacked by a moose once) and what Freud would probably say about the band’s artwork. Let’s only hope that, after further months of album promotion, Razorlight remain this friendly in their sixth interview of the day. Right now, they possess that often bandied about but rarely seen quality – being “down to earth”.