Interview with The View
Ahead of your tour, you must be gearing yourself up to go back on the road, but does it suit you as a band to tour? Yeah, it definitely suits us better that being at home. We’re definitely a touring band; we all love it. I get depressed if I’m in Dundee for more than a week, I wanna get back on the road.
Do you live in Dundee when you’re back at home?Yeah, in general, yeah.
What’s it like kicking around the same places? Is it comforting?Aye, well it’s always good to go home, see our friends and stuff; because we’re on the road so much, when we come back we kind of appreciate it, you know what I mean.
You started off your early days in the band on a local independent label, much like some of the bands that might be reading this, but how much help, advice and exposure did they give you?Erm, they were quite helpful, you know, it was we’re manager’s label, so it was really helpful. We brung out we’re EP and stuff on Two Thumbs and that obviously caught everyone’s attention. It was like that EP that we got a signing off, so yeah, it was valuable, yeah.
Were you aware when you were writing those songs from the first EP and album that you about to tip into the realms of fame and commercial success?Nah, not really; we were just writing songs that were lying about in we’re heads and it all just kind of came and swept us off our feet.
When was the moment that you thought, ‘shit! This actually looks quite big!’? Well, I dunno, probably when Wasted Little DJs was put in the top 20; I’d never expected that to happen, so that was probably when I realised we were gonna be on the hit parade for a while. I couldn’t believe it.
After initial singles were released and they stormed the charts, you haven’t re-entered the singles chart but you’ve been high up in the albums chart – do you think that shows the way that people are changing the way they buy music?Erm, yeah, I think it shows the difference in the way people buy music, but I think it also shows how the trends on the radio change a lot.
But you’ve retained and added more fans, and still done well with album sales – is that more important to you than individual single sales? Aye, definitely, yeah.
When you’re recording the album, is the focus still, ‘what are our singles going to be?’Aye, we normally just focus on the whole thing together and then pick the singles at the end. I think on this record we’ll be bringing out three again, so that seems to be the average for us.
A quote on the front of the album says, “One of the best songwriters in music today”, but obviously there are two of you that write the songs – you share songwriting credits with Kyle. How does it work? Are you two always on the same wavelength?Erm, no, not always, no, ha! Nah, we’re not always on the same wavelength, but we manage to be on the same wavelength enough to get albums out, which is fine! We’ve got different tastes in music, so quite a bit of it is trying tae find middle ground and then go wi’ that.
Clash Magazine called you the Tchaikovsky of the 21st Century – I think they were alluding to your music being a timeless soundtrack of a generation. When you’re writing music, are you thinking of it being that timeless? Yeah, well you don’t really wake up and think, ‘Oh, I want tae get up and write the greatest song that’s ever been written’, ‘cause obviously every one’s not, but at the same time you don’t want to – and I can’t answer for everybody – but I think we definitely don’t want to write changeable music styles just to be in with the times, ‘cause as soon as those trends come in, they’re away again, you know what I mean? If you distance yourself from that thing, we’re always going to write guitar music, so it’s cool, that’s just what we like.
You’ve kind of broken out of that traditional rock format and embraced electronic elements and other instruments on the new album – has that reinvigorated you as a band?Erm, I suppose it has, not that we really needed reinvigorating, but we were just experimenting with different songs.
Is that something that Youth influenced you to do?I think it’s something you just do as a musician without thinking about it. You know, after you’ve brought out the first record and that’s in the shops, you think I wonder what that would have sounded like on the record? Yeah, I’ll fuckin’ buy that, and then you end up playing it on the record to justify it, haha.
Youth, I read, banned alcohol from the studio – was that a big thing worth noting?Nah, not really, I mean he never really banned alcohol from the studio, he just didn’t want it to be the tour de force for our party, which was cool. We were happy accept that, you know, we’d done enough partying. During working hours we were happy enough to tighten his reign – it worked good.
You were teenagers when we heard the first album; you’re different people now, I imagine…Yeah, it’s not really a problem though ‘cause everyone’s grown up together, so it’s cool.
2011 looks like it could be a big year for rock albums, but what are your thoughts on the year ahead – for yourselves and music in general?I’m not thinking about it, other than the record coming out just before the summer and I think with music in general, I’m looking forward to a few of the records that are coming out this year. I can’t think of any records that I was looking forward to coming out last year; I’m pretty sure there were a couple, but I can’t think of them. But this year you’ve got, well, Beady Eye have just brought theirs out, Strokes are bringing theirs out, we’re bringing one out, the Monkeys are making one, so there’s a lot of good guitar music coming out, so hopefully it’ll make it shift back around after festival season when everybody realises that the indie bands are this country’s sort of bread and butter as far as music comes.
I’ve been really impressed with the song, ‘Friend’ off the new album. It starts off by saying, “Bye, bye bible, bye, bye faith.” Is it just girls that are making you question these philosophical matters? I imagine the events today in Japan [the day of the interview marked the Japanese Tsunami hitting] must also make you ask those sort of questions?Yeah, well that’s not really my jurisdiction, eh, ‘cause I never really wrote that song, but yeah it does, it’s terrible what’s happened.
Do you feel as a band, as someone with a voice, do you feel obligated to make any commentary on world events? Or is it your job to entertain and take the troubles away?Nah, it’s no really our job to comment on major issues that are happening around the world, or anything like that. I mean obviously we’re feeling for the people of Japan right now, but I dunnae really like it when popstars come on and start saying all this stuff about people such as them, and then they go back to their big mansions at the end of the day. Not that I’ve got a big mansion, like…!
Doing a Bono, I guess you could call that…Ha, yeah.
We’re really excited about you coming to Norwich, and I doubt there’ll be a ticket left by the time you get here…Cool, well I’m really looking forward to coming back to Norwich – we played the Arts Centre not that long ago, it’s cool.
Emma Roberts
The View come to the Waterfront on April 17th, and tickets are available from www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk.
