|
 When Razorlight came crashing onto the scene in 2004 with
their debut offering Up All Night they brought with them a good old
fashioned rock ‘n’ swagger that hadn’t been seen in a long, long time. Mouthy Frontman Johnny Borrell’s self proclamations of
genius has probably entertained and perplexed in equal measure. After all how many, with only one album to
their name, would have the balls to even dare suggest they’re better than the legendary songsmith Bob Dylan?
In a recent tabloid friendly rant Johnny told the world to "F*ck the Kooks" no doubt provocated by their singer Luke Pritchard labelling the Anglo-Swedish combo ‘contrived’. Luke then hit back by dedicating the hit
song Naïve to him. “I’m sure they’re lovely guys,” says Bjorn diplomatically. "I
think that Mr Pritchard seems to have a very strange idea about how our band
works though”.
Disputes and controversial gobbyness aside, it's time to put money where the mouth is as they prepare to unleash their self-titled follow up. So how confident are they about album number two?
“I’m extremely excited but slightly terrified. It’s kinda
like showing your baby to the world and you hope people are going to like
it," admits the guitarist. Ultimately it’s your baby and you’re
proud of it, no matter if it gets completely panned in the reviews and everyone
thinks it’s a piece of f*cking sh*t.
Obviously it’ll hurt me because it’s very personal to me the album, but
I’ll still love it and I’ll still think we could not have made a better
album”.
Whilst the likes of Keane felt the pressure of the recording
a follow up to a hugely successful debut nearly breaking up in the process,
Bjorn says it was nothing like that for the London based quartet.
“It was quite painless because all the outside pressure went
away, because we all thought f*cking hell this sounds great. You hear all these
horror stories about recording the second album, that it’s very difficult, that
it’s make or break and all this sort of stuff but it was easy for us,” he
recalls. “We never stopped writing since the first album so we had all this
stuff that we wanted to put together and play as a band and we didn’t do that
while we were on tour. We just shacked
up in a rehearsal space for three months and just put the entire thing together
and wrote some new songs and sorted everything out. We recorded it in four months”.
One track that provided a challenge was America. As
Bjorn explains: “We spent loads of time on it and did loads of retakes and in
the end we just had to give all of it away to someone else, someone external
and said, ‘look, we don’t know what to do with this any more, but we really
like the demo’. Basically what this person did was take the original demo that
we recorded ourselves one day in a studio in November, and added some things
onto it after that. It’s funny that we spent so much time on it and it the end
it was basically the demo we recorded in one day ourselves!”
At the time of speaking to Bjorn the band were preparing for
yet another major Hyde Park gig, or as he puts it: ”It’s our annual July 2nd
Hyde Park outing. We’ll do one every
year!” Their last outing at the Park was 2005’s extravaganza that was Live 8.
Watched by an audience of three billion, it was ambitious project that
involved putting on 8 concerts simultaneously around the world. The idea was to draw people’s attention to the G 8 Summit which had put the issue of third world
poverty on the agenda for their meeting in Gleneagles. “I think it had some impact. The whole point
was to try to do something, and I think it did bring it to the public’s
attention. Something good definitely
came out of it,” insists Bjorn. “That was
the whole point, to try and do something rather than just sit back and think
‘we can’t, it’s not going to change a f*cking thing’. People signed the petition. I don’t have any figures to hand, but it was
on the political agenda more”.
It was Bjorn, who first teamed up with Johnny back in 2002
to form Razorlight. They would then be
joined by bassist Carl Dalemo, an old friend of Bjorn’s from back in their native Sweden,
and drummer Christian Smith-Pancorvo, who would later be replaced by Andy
Burrows.
Despite any dramas that might have occurred in their four
years together Bjorn says that he has “absolutely not” thought about leaving the band. “No
matter what little personal arguments there are, it’s like a marriage with four
people in it and its’ really strange. You have arguments, you fall out, and then you start
getting along again and I know no matter how bad it’s been we’ve always made
good music together. That is the healing
power of music that we do stick together despite how much we argue. It’s all trivial if you compare it to the
fact that we are actually a great band!”
The rise to the top has been pretty quick for Razorlight, but what achievement is the guitarist most proud of? “I this it’s this
album that we’ve just made,” says Bjorn. “I’m insanely proud of it and I keep
thinking that if we break up in the near future without recording anything
else, I think that I’d actually be happy with that”.
In The Morning is out on 3rd July followed by the album,
Razorlight, on the 17th July.
For more info: www.razorlight.co.uk
Words: Helen Duong
 |
