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Perth MusicBiffy Clyro Interview
Scottish trio Biffy Clyro is definitely substance over style. The band cites a range of influences, like Pixies, Fugazi, Weezer, Rush, Metallica, but always operate on their own terms. They utilize extreme dynamics - constructing songs that can range from a whisper-quiet pick on the guitar, to huge walls of noise with massive distortion and crashing drums. While Simon Neil sings lead, all three members provide vocals, ranging from screaming to multi-part harmonies. Only when seen live is it possible to discern who is singing, as the three vocals intertwine so effectively. Their style of songwriting often depends on constant changes in volume, timing and even genre, displaying an eclectic range of influences even within one song. The bands fourth album, Puzzle, was released last year and reached number 2 on the UK Charts. They are currently on tour down under and lead singer Simon Neil chatted to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.
Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (13:50 - 1.6Mb)
I asked Simon if he believes the band has evolved and matured with their fourth album, Puzzle. “Yeah we are very happy with the new album, we put a lot of effort into it, obviously we put a lot into all our albums but we had more time to put into this one. I think we made an album we could be proud of and it’s been nice that other people dig it as well. I think every band hopes to evolve and move forward and I think it’s important to be constantly trying new things. We felt our last record, Infinity Land, was a complex pop album and we wanted to do something different for this one. So the songs we were coming up with were epic rock songs and it felt good so we were fortunate that we could spend a long time on the record. We could work on a song and then come back to it a week or two later and work out what we liked and what we didn’t.”
Describing the creation process of the album Simon says “We spent probably a year writing it and had about 40 songs for it, which was good as it was more songs that we had to choose from than before. We then went to Canada for two months with Garth Richardson (Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Rise Against, Atreyu). Initially we weren’t used to working that slowly, we are very much a live band but we had to take a different mentality going into this record. We had to slow ourselves down and not expect to have the record in two weeks. We certainly always forget that making the record is different than playing it live.”
“We had a shortlist of a few people that had made records that we really loved the sound of and Garth had made two of our favourite records, one was the first Rage Against The Machine album and the other one was by an Irish band called Kerbdog. We wanted the songs to sound pretty but we had to sound like a band playing them. I think a lot of producers can maybe lose that energy especially when you spend so long on a record. We needed to convince him that we knew what we were doing because it was probably one of the most bizarre records that he’s worked on. He’s used to working with big metal bands so it was important to us that he understood that we can come from a little left of field. We wanted big pop songs but still have a skewed way of how we want to be presented.”
After recording in Canada the band travelled to New York to mix the album with legendary music engineer Andy Wallace. “It was a crazy moment when we found out that (Wallace) was up for mixing it and we couldn’t believe it. He’s done Nirvana’s Nevermind, Jeff Buckley, At The Drive In, Shudder To Think, Beastie Boys, Ben Folds Five, pretty much every awesome record in our collection. For him to be working on our record was a real dream moment and we really relished being in the studio with Andy. He’s an absolute gentleman and it took us a few days to get over the kind of fanboy routine. He was actually working on the Guns And Roses record and Axl Rose wasn’t turning up so he decided to do our record. It was funny knowing that he went from working with Axl Rose to working with three Scottish idiots.”
Puzzle is out now through Warner Music. For more info on Biffy Clyro visit www.biffyclyro.com
