Razorlight
It's been a month since Razorlight embarked on their longest tour to date, as the support band to Hope of the States, The Bellrays and The Ravonettes. After our initial interview with them on the tour's first date in Manchester we caught up with them in the bowels of Sheffield's Leadmill to hear how they've survived kidnappings, Glaswegians and, fittingly for Halloween, ghosts…
“Well, I've lost 3 pairs of gloves, 1 scarf, I've smashed my wrist, my back hurts, I lost my voice and got it back, ran out of money and I've stayed in one haunted hotel,” begins Johnny Borrell, Razorlight's lead singer. Being as it is October 31st, we feel the need to pick up on the last point. Haunted hotel?
“Last night, in Birmingham. I was leaving the room and had to go back to turn the bathroom light off and everything was dark, really spooky. Then there was knocking; giving me all sorts of trouble.
On the other side of the dressing room sits bass player Carl Dalemo and guitarist Bjorn Agren who drops into conversation the fact that, as well as facing ghosts in Birmingham, they were also hijacked by two young women…
“It was actually quite lucky as the cab driver didn't know where the hotel was. Two random girls jumped in the cab, looked at us and went, 'these guys are weird!'.”
Seemingly not wishing to be outdone for tour stories, Borrell comes back with, “I went to the sewer museum in Manchester which was pretty disappointing. They had some aeroplanes as well. It was like the industry museum. The aeroplanes were pretty sexy actually.”
So are the sewers better in London then?
“You can't get into the sewers in London and they won't give you a map of them or tell you where they are for security reasons. There are a lot of underground tunnels in London from the war and the Royal Mail has a few but it's impossible to find out where they are. They think people will go round blowing them up. There's all these secret tunnels that I really want to go in. Margate is good for that, there was a pilot scheme in the Second World War and it was the first town that were doing it. There's a bloke I know who offered to take me down but he's a bit odd and I don't want to go with him.”
Did your mum never tell you not to talk to strange men?
“My mum never did give me much advice when I was little, but the advice she did give me was don't go down dark tunnels with strange men and don't kiss men with beards. That was before she put me on the window ledge and said if you don't jump out I'll push you myself!”
Feeling we've drifted slightly from the subject of the tour we try to get back on track. What's the audience reaction been like?
“Well,” starts Johnny, “there's been people following us from gig to gig, there's been singing along to the words, girls screaming; which is always strange coz you think they're being sarcastic. There's a look on their face – I get this more in London, usually the front row's all girls and you see this look in their eye. But the audiences have been good.
Not had any screaming boys then?
“There was a man in Glasgow,” Bjorn ponders before adopting a Glaswegian accent, “yer nay bad yous lot is!”
“He was stood in the middle of the dance floor saying to anyone, 'that band, they're nay fooking baaad! I said they're nay baaad!'” chips in Johnny in the same accent.
“Not as odd as Stoke – classic first gig out of London and there's six burly blokes standing by the stage shouting, 'faggot!' and a song after that, 'your drummer's a faggot and a Paki!'” Agren recalls.
Johnny continues, “I felt really sorry as there were some girls on the other side of the stage really enjoying it and I felt bad for them as we could get out and hide and dodge at the end while they were stuck there for the rest of their lives. Or however long they have to be stuck there….”
After finishing this tour the band are back in the studio completing their debut album with Steve Lillywhite and then embark on yet another support slot, this time to Suede.
“I thought the first two albums were fantastic and then the rest was a load of shite,” responds Borrell when asked if he's looking forward to it. “'Coming Up' was alright as a pop album but every time they come up with something new you kinda think it can't be worse than last time and it is. Those first two records were phenomenal. It won't be good for them as we'll just be blowing them away every night but apart from that it'll be alright. He's (Brett) just a shallow parody of himself. I was watching them play some festival during the day and I saw Brett in the light with his egg head hair cut.”
So if future touring mates don't hold much excitement, what did he make of Hope of the States, The Bellrays and The Ravonettes?
“Ok, nearly ok and slightly better than ok. Hope of the States…I really like the Tindersticks, what does that say? The Ravonettes have a couple of good songs but I really like the Jesus and Mary Chain. Read into that what you will.
“These gigs are 700/750 capacity which is fine but The Bellrays were at smaller venues and charging the same,” points out Bjorn.
“I'm not modest, I don't understand it,” says Johnny. “Sometimes I'm so full of self confidence that nothing gets in my way and I feel I can walk through walls but other times you're so full of insecurities you don't know how you can get on with it, it's really strange. But I know when I see a band I really love and if I'd seen any then I would tell you. I very rarely watch support bands as when you're on tour, it's not the same as just going out. I do a gig, I put everything into it and I haven't got much left.”
After spending the last month on the road, have you learnt any invaluable lessons?
“It's grim up north! No that was a cheap joke!” pipes up Bjorn. “Cheap hotels are cheap for a reason.”
“Don't get taxis in Manchester. I was standing in the rain for about half an hour and I wasn't even drunk or unruly but they'd just go by. They could tell I was from London,” moans Johnny.
“Go Karting is fun,” Carl says, “me, Bjorn and Ian the sound guy went Go Karting, it was good. And I won.”
“I realised how much fun it is to run around the stage with my microphone with a roadie chasing me. Coz there's 3 microphones you can do a figure of 8 round all of them. I also leant that everything they say about girls in the north is true!” smiles Johnny with a glint in his eye. “I also learnt that sometimes it's really hard to be interesting. You can't be interesting, witty, engaging, charismatic and magnetic all the time. In fact I'm finding it increasingly difficult for more than 23seconds a day.”
As Bjorn concludes his touring tips, “there's also 3 ways of coping with the stress of touring, one is you're gonna go mad, so one way to not go totally mad is to release your madness in little spurts, be a bit mad all the time. That's one way. The other way is sleeping a lot which Chris (Razorlight's drummer) does and the other way is sulking,” Johnny starts making hand gestures suggesting that there's one more way to cope with touring stresses. Ahem…
“You can't beat a good sulk,” Borrell agrees.
“I'll do more research and report back,” promises Bjorn as Johnny heads off to shower.
Assuming that they take they're own advice for the Suede tour then we should be hearing a lot more from Razorlight in the coming year and I for one can't wait.
Razorlight head off on tour with Suede during December and then embark on their own headline tour to support a third single in January. Check out the gigs pages for more details.
“It's (the tour) been exciting, frustrating and boring and we've just been getting really good. It's been great. Just going round seeing more people every time we play a town; just getting out there and playing, it's been really good.” The list continues… “I've had one hair cut; I've gone through two razor blades…”
“We're just getting out there and playing. I didn't really like the fact that The Bellrays were playing shitty little gigs and charging £10 to get in. That's pretty poor.”