It’s testimony to Rob’s group LONGVIEW, that he and splendidly-named Doug Morch have spent the last hour musing on the nature of greatness of the tragic deaths of Ian Curtis and Kurt Cobain, the moment of madness which lost Jeff Buckley to the world. In their company the weekly scramble for the charts all seem a little, well, undignified. For LONGVIEW, legendary status is the only goal worth achieving.
“I remember seeing Radiohead at Southampton Guildhall when I was fifteen” remembers Rob. “They were amazing. They seemed to have
For those as yet unacquainted with LONGVIEW, prepare to go missing for a few days screen your calls, draw the curtains; cancel those urgent night manoeuvres. You won’t regret it. In times when scene-chasing garage bands clog up the column inches, LONGVIEW are a band from a far noble tradition. There are obvious parallels: Doves, Radiohead, even Coldplay, but there’s a serenity and optimism in their music which speaks more loudly of Verve (pre ‘The’): a blessed out Teenage Fanclub and the Beatles ‘White Album’ (a band favourite). You get lost in there.
Fast forward to track ten on their debut album Mercury, ‘Still’, guitars soar, kettle drums rumble vast orchestras seem to appear from nowhere only to vanish down deserted side-streets. If they’re playing anything else in the lift up to heaven this month, there’s clearly been a mix-up. When it ends with Rob intoning “Good times are coming”. It’s like nothing so much as the Stones ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ performed by ‘Nowhere’ era Ride. But enough. How, to paraphrase David Byrne, did they get here?
The story starts in Winchester. Having first picked up a musical instrument at the age of four. Rob’s natural aptitude for piano and guitar meant that by his mid-teens he was well on the way to being a classically trained guitarist to follow in the apreggioed wake of Julian Bream. Grateful for such an early apprenticeship but loathe to commit to the rigid structures of life as a classical musician, he decided at eighteen that the time had come to leave the dreaming spires of Winchester for a different sort of musical education. That September Rob took up a place on a jazz course in Manchester.
Naturally gravitating toward Night & Day Café (adopted home of Twisted Nerve operatives Badly Drawn Boy and Alfie, amongst others) Rob slowly got his musical bearings having recruited drummer Matt Dabbs and lured bassist Aidan Banks from his hometown, the last piece in the LONGVIEW jigsaw came with their mercurial guitarist.
“I’d been playing with this band in Leeds” whispers Doug from beneath an actually disheveled center-parting. “They were a really good band, and I’d travel all the time from Manchester to make it work. But it wasn’t really going anywhere serious. So when this lot approached me and I heard Rob’s songs. I knew it was the right move to make.”
Tours supporting Athlete, Goldrush, Easyworld and Gemma Hayes followed, and with their ‘Further’ EP having made waves ‘at radio’ the time had come for their incendiary second EP ‘When You Sleep’. Blistering with intent, it took the Longview blueprint laid out on ‘Further’ and willfully scrawled all over it.
“I wanted to make something heavier, something a bit more violent sounding” continues Rob. “I think about it all the time. When we were recording at Rockfield in Wales I’d stay up all night, walking through the fields, just thinking about how I could make it better, I’m so desperate to get all I can, harmonically, spiritually, into every song.”
“If people give up their time to listen to us, I don’t think they’ll be disappointed” he adds, as the clocks strike seven and Camden prepares to go about its mighty business. “My aim was to make a record that touches people emotionally.” He adds. “A classic album, one you can’t forget.”
Which is where we come in. Let the short-term look after itself. Here’s a band with their eye on not just greatness, but the higher things. Call it the Longview.
