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Razorlight Johnny Borrell's unwavering confidence is perhaps the one thing that's kept his head level throughout the last 12 months of madness. Those sycophantic pieces early on in Razorlight's career didn't faze him because he knew that the band were strong enough to outlast any press hype, similarly the barrage of criticism from the haters was brushed off for the same reason. Designer Magazine caught up with Johnny to explore the confidence and self-criticism. Q: Leading up the release of the new single "Vice" you been running the Vice line where fans can ring up and have a chat. A: It's always been there you see. The Vice Line was my phone number when I recorded the song and when I started singing, it sort of stuck in the lyric. It was quite cool, because in the early days I had it on my chest on the frontcover of the NME and I had it in the song and I think people had to do a bit of thinking to know to ring it. Now the NME have printed it and i'd imagine the record company have put it on the press release for the single. I don't know how much of a success it is at the moment. I can only take about 50 messages a day because it only saves 50 messages a day. I check them every evening when I go through it. But I think there's a lot more people than that ringing because if I take out all 50 messages in the morning, if I was to go back in a couple of hours it's full again. There's a guy actually who's been leaving me some songs, I think he's quite young and they're wicked. People get quite surprised when I ring back because i'm just like "Alright, what's happening". I don't go into that separation between stars and fans. People are just people and when you lose sight of that you're in trouble. Q: Bands are becoming less concerned with being stars, they are breaking the barriers down A: Liars, they're all liars. They all want to be f**king stars. You wouldn't do it otherwise, yer know what I mean. Only very exceptional people don't care about it or maybe they're just the people who think there stars in their head. Q: From when you started making waves a year ago till now how has it been overcoming the critics. As well as all the praise that was heaped on you by the likes of the NME, at the time some people really truly hated you with a passion. A: I didn't seem like we were hated at the time. I wasn't aware of it because nobody had the guts to say it to my face. On the Hope Of The States Tour I read reviews - at least 70-80% were positive reviews and the other 20% were just idiotic reviews. You've got to bear in mind when a band is like a year old you're going to have $h!t gigs, especially when you're doing your first tour. It's a strange thing with the support tours actually because we learnt a lot on them. The strange thing is that after every support tour we did we ended up moving up to the venues that were the same size of the bands we were supporting, if you see what I mean. It's a strange trend that's carrying on because it happened with the Bellrays, The Hope Of The States, The Raveonettes and now it's happening with Suede as well which is pretty mind-blowing. Q: You've always had this confidence from the beginning. Where does that confidence come from? A: I wouldn't be doing it otherwise. I'd be wasting everyone's time. I'm not really going to turn up and say "I don't think the band are very good, but you might like em". I think the band are really good. It kills me cos I spend every day trying to make the band better and sometimes I look at it and I think we're awful, we're a joke band and we could get better in so many way. But that's like taking a lot for granted, I know we're a good band. I think we're proving that we are continually getting better. Q: Going back to what you were saying before about how sometimes you sit down and think about this band and how much you can make it better. How much time do you actually spend theorizing about last nights gig? A: I do it quite a bit, but not all the time. We were just in Belgium and Holland and we did one in Belgium and it was the best gig i've ever done in terms of myself. There were not many people that were at the main stage of the festival, nobody knew who the f**k we were and it was so refreshing to play to people that just didn't know who we were. It was just the f**king best gig I've done. I knew that whatever Johnny Borrell is capable of in 2004 he'd done 100 percent of it that night. But it's a varied life I lead. Sometimes we sit around and say we can do that there or that there cos you just want to keep it evolving. You're always searching to make it better otherwise you're just turning up and putting the hours in. Q: In interviews you do come across as really confident. But I guess there are times when you're on your own and you really are quite self critical? A: I'm incredibly confident of certain things I know to be true. I'm not making any great claims here. I'm not making any great claims when I say that the album we made is full of great songs. I'm confident that a lot of bands around, their albums are full of average songs. And there's bands out there that have songs that are better than ours. But in terms of being self critical, you've gotta be. That's the reason that people write and work. If you're not self critical you don't push on, you don't evolve, you don't go anywhere. If you don't sit down and say "i'm f**king useless and i've never written a note that's any good at all, this is f**king bollocks" then where is the drive to write the next one. It's not like I sit at home playing "Golden Touch" with a big jug full of money with my royalties going happy days happy days. We don't do things the easy way. How easy do you think it would it be Razorlight now? We've done this album now. We could re-release "Stumble And Fall", 10000 people bought that single and there's 150,000 people who've got the album so far. We could re-release it, sell it to an advert, cos they offer you f**king loads of money for stuff like that, and it could be a massive hit. Plenty of bands would do that. Since the albums come out i've just been sat down trying to write the next song because I know that every song on the next record has to p*** on "Golden Touch" and p*** on "Vice", which are my favourite tracks off that album. Q: One of the thing that stands out on the album is the fact that you strip the songs back to the basics. There's a lot of space on the record and there's nothing in there that doesn't need to be in there A: That's me and Bjorn a lot. Bjorn had that idea, not so much in the depth of the record like how many guitars you've got going at once, but in terms of the arrangements of the songs and how long they last. I like music with corners. I like to be able to pick everything out. I couldn't make a record that's otherwise....actually that's $h!t, I could make a record that's otherwise...but I agree with you on the sound of Razorlight. Music is an art and like any art you have to have light and shade and make the corners and build tension and explode. It's like performing, dancing, painting anything - you can't just $h!t all over a canvas. Q: Razorlight is seen very much as your band. How important are Bjorn and the other members to the band in terms of the sound of Razorlight? A: Erm. Obviously it wouldn't be Razorlight without the songs, but the songs wouldn't be Razorlight without the rest of the boys. I don't know how to describe it. I write the songs, then I bring them in and basically as a band we work out how to play them. But when we're working out how to play them as a band it comes down to me a lot of the time. The reason the line up was as it was then was I believed in everybody's instinctive thought of what they should play. Q: What has Andy added to the band? Do you feel it's a more complete band? A: Andy is just good. Christian is a wannabe and always will be and he wasn't even that wannabe towards the end. Q: You were talking about the new songs you're writing. You're trying to better the last album. How are they taking shape at the moment? Have you got any new songs ready? A: I don't really want to talk about it to be honest. It's all in the system production and if you start talking about things before they've happened it's the biggest jinx you can do. I can't allow myself to talk about it. Q: A lot of people have exhausted the story behind the screenplay you've wrote called "This Man". I guess when you're on tour though you do find yourself writing short stories and passages A: People keep asking me about this script, but i'm making much better progress with writing prose at the moment. I don't know whether i'll put it out. I'm more just writing it for myself. One day i'm going to be forty years old or older and you don't really want to be getting up there on stage. The important thing though is not to preconceive things and do whatever adds some meaning to your time. Q: Finally you're doing the Make Trade Fair Gig on September 14th. How important is for you to do these events and give something back? A: When you start thinking about our society in any detail and apply any clarity of thought to the actual structure that we like in it's a f**king terrible world and a f**king horrible place. In fact you, me and everyone that reads this thing is to a great degree sanctioning basically a slave culture in the fact that the west only exists by exploiting poor countries. If somebody says to me do you want to do a gig to help out towards something like that in anyway, of course I'll do it. ********** "Vice" is out September 13th and tour throughout October Razorlight support the Manic Street Preachers in December

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Razorlight are undoubtedly poised to take the world by storm. So, as their moon rises in the east, X-Ray followed the best new band in Britain from one-man-and-a-dog gigs in Camden to Tokyo and Osaka’s Summer Sonic Festival. “I want to go and meet girls,” proclaims Razorlight vocalist Johnny Borrell, sallying out of his dressing room at the Summer Sonic Festival, Osaka. His success, within seconds of stepping outside, is spectacular, if not quite what he had in mind: Borrell is mobbed by literally hundreds of girls. This is a very Japanese form of mobbing, however: these girls are not snipping his hair or trying to kiss him – they’re keeping polite physical distance, snapping photos of him with identical flip-top mobile phones, frantically bowing (a Japanese formality) and cooing “kawai” (“cute”). What’s also peculiarly Japanese about this incident is that it’s highly probable these girls aren’t sure exactly who they’re mobbing (they will do the same to bassist Carl Dalemo later), just that they look like they’re a) Western, B) in a band and c) stars in the making. Japan’s music industry is in complete agreement with the latter point. While the London four-piece have yet to release a note in the country, they’ve been added to Japan’s Summer Sonic bill alongside The Datsuns and The Strokes, been interviewed by MTV Japan and both the country’s biggest rock magazines. Rightly so. Coming together around songwriter Borrell, drummer schoolfriend Christian Smith-Pancorvo and Swedish ex-pat pals Björn Ågren (guitar) and Carl Dalemo (bass), this is a band that amassed a maddened London following in mere months. A band that impressed Xfm’s John Kennedy so much he junked radio convention and played their demos on his show repeatedly. A band that got signed to Mercury for a quarter of a million. A band, what’s more, that have inspired Steve Lillywhite, the Managing Director of said label, to clear his production schedule (sorry David Bowie, sorry Macy Gray) to work on their album. They’ve barely been in existence a year. If you’ve heard the chugging guitar charge of debut single ‘Rock’n’Roll Lies’ you’ll be getting the picture: English vocals chiming with New York guitars, charm cut with cheesewire. Imminent second single – the rifftastic one-two punch of ‘Rip It Up’ – will colour that picture in. The album – out next year – will blow it up to saturated 3D widescreen. For this, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, is the best new band in Britain. It’s a day earlier, 6:30am in Tokyo. Unbelievably Razorlight have a soundcheck in an hour, and they’re playing at 10am. Festivals start early in Japan, and as the bus pulls up to the Chiba Marine Stadium there are already hundreds of fans queuing outside. The band look a bit awed, and jetlagged, but Borrell says he’s feeling “fit as a fiddle. A fiddle that’s waiting to be plucked. Then stroked. Then plucked. Then stroked again.” Borrell’s enthusiasm is infectious: second song into the soundcheck, Red Indian-coiffed drummer Christian Smith Pancorvo (think Joseph of the Nez Perce), blonde-banged bassist Carl Dalemo, dapper guitarist Björn Ågren and Borrell himself all have their tops off. Shortly afterwards, Borrell is spotted weaving past various Kings Of Leon in a crowded backstage café, still topless and clutching a hairdryer. Attention-seeking, you realise, is so natural to these guys they don’t even realise they’re doing it. “It’s taking nine Japanese people to find me a socket,” says Johnny, waving his hairdryer unselfconsciously. “I’m just worried someone’s lost their job over it” Carl is having similar problems. “I can’t play unless I’m a bit drunk,” he declares: “I need beer!” Japanese minions are again urgently despatched. Westerners want beer: run, run! Suddenly though, there’s a deafening roar. It’s 9am, the doors have opened and thousands of Japanese kids are literally sprinting into the arena, screaming fit to burst. To the power of ten, this will be the biggest crowd Razorlight have ever played to. Hair now blow-dried to immaculate disarray, Johnny takes the band aside and advises, “let’s not be overawed: we’re going to be playing bigger places than this – and headlining them!” Indeed, Razorlight’s self-assurance is astonishing. They’re a Western inferno in the blazing Tokyo sun. Opener ‘Rip It Up’ immediately gets the crowd clapping along, but the best thing is how much new material this band has: the Dexy-ish ‘Make Up Your Own Mind’, the soulful bounce of ‘Golden Touch’ and the U2-esque ‘Up All Night’ – mellower, more complex songs that round out the adrenaline bursts of the singles. This is a band that not only isn’t going to dry up on our hopes, they’ve got life beyond any ‘new rock revival’. They’ve also got energy to burn: Bjorn leaps around like he’s on springs, Christian rushes down the front to chuck tshirts into the crowd, while Johnny ends the show swaying precariously on the lip of the stage, howling into his mic. Afterwards, the band cheerily wanders the site: in the main hall there’s a Kabuki theatre, noodle stalls galore and a film of a naked Japanese woman rolling around in the dirt. Later the band are interviewed on a red vinyl couch, surrounded by garish girl doll superheroes, one of whom is armed with a hypodermic. It’s all very Japan. Curiously, the landscape is not. Having collected a now-reeling Carl, as we bus-fly to Osaka that afternoon for the festival’s second leg, everything looks oddly American. Wide streets. Neon strips. Malls. McDonalds. High rises. Primary colours. Johnny gazes out of the window and says, “So this is America? Well, f*** the stars and stripes is all I can say!” He’s been saving that one up. Johnny Borrell is a very self-aware young man. When we first arrive he grins and says “ah, it’s the enemy!” He’s quoting Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe’s movie about a journalist tagging along with a touring band. On the bus to Osaka, noticing me earwigging, he says “write that [salacious comment] and I’ll f***ing do you!” Then he grins, and quotes the film again: “Write what you like – just make us look cool!” Johnny is used to people wanting to help him. The nakedness of his need – for love, for adulation, for fame – certainly brings out an – ahem! – maternal response in women. Even as we adjourn to a noodle hut in the toytown neon ugliness of Osaka, he casually picks up a couple of girls on the way. He gets them to order for us. Gives them passes to the festival and then sends them home, faces beaming. Razorlight may be a new band, but Borrell has been beavering away for years. Born in 1980 to middle class parents, Johnny went to (public) school with Smith and members of The Libertines. But even taking into account a penchant for self-mythologising, he has lived a far from sheltered life. At 16 he had an affair with his 34-year-old French teacher. And before long the couple were dabbling in some pretty serious narcotics, along with half his crowd. “In London, when you’re a kid, it’s easier to get drugs than to get into pubs,” he says with typical matter-of-fact romanticism. “Everything’s available. By the time your 17, you’ve tried the lot.” There have been some casualties in his gang along the way: drug casualties, mental casualties, life casualties, one of his friends having been put away for murdering another. But mostly it’s been an adventure – Johnny wandering around the city with nothing but a guitar, a battered notebook and a bag of dirty laundry. He’d play an acoustic gig in a pub here, crash on his future manager’s floor there, dep for the Libertines on bass here, get looked after by girls everywhere else. They’d provide him with a bed. Wash the clothes. Cook him dinner. Give him money for a taxi back to his manager’s. And he needs looking after, because Johnny, simultaneously knowing and innocent – is always losing things. His bag. His lyric book (after leaving it in a taxi he found it in a dustbin hours later). His mind. One night, on Ketamine, he felt the whole room slither down the building, then slide down the road into Camden rock venue the Dublin Castle. Hell, even his hallucinations live the rock’n’roll dream. But despite the little-boy-lost demeanour, Borrell is a do-er not a dreamer. As The Libertines started to go places, Borrell hung out and observed. He says they wrote ‘The Boy Looked At Johnny’ about him, but you put that down to self-mythologising. And an ongoing reluctance to give Patti Smith credit (the line is hers, as is the riff and structure of Razorlight set-closer ‘In The City’). Borrell watched carefully as the Libs let partying take precedence, screwing up their arrangements, production and songs. You know that Johnny will ensure none of this will happen with Razorlight. It’s another disorientatingly early start (6am) but everyone is in fine – if mildly deranged – fettle. No one’s had more than four hours sleep for four nights. In the dressing room the band does an impromptu a capella ‘Rip It Up’, trying not to giggle. During soundcheck they improvise an entirely new tune, Johnny making up lyrics on the spot. Today his T-shirt reads “Reach Out and f*** Someone”. It’s another excellent performance. Another new song, ‘To The Sea’, is a mid-tempo breezer with blistering Television-esque guitar from Borrell. This morning they also roll out another newie, ‘Get It And Go’ which could be a hit, if it weren’t for lyrics like, “First time you’re there really gets you up/Second time’s all right but it’s just not enough/Shoots through your veins, tears all your nerves apart”. Later on, while Johnny and Carl are being mobbed, we join Christian to watch Hot Hot Heat. “Last night I had a dream that I was dead,” he says, “and it reminded me of Ketamine. You get this thing where you think you’re dead but you’re fine about it.” Those days are gone: now he doesn’t drink or take drugs. “I’m an addictive personality,” he shrugs. We’re packing to leave, but we have two problems: Johnny and Carl. Johnny doesn’t want to go. Or for the roadie to take his guitar. He has an idea for a song. He wants to meet girls. Within seconds, he’s asleep on the couch, cradling his guitar to his chest. His manager leaves him to it: “Johnny always makes it home. He’s got an incredible survival instinct. And if he loses it, well, there’ll be a girl along to rescue him in a while.” Carl is another matter. He’s loudly insisting he wants to see Blink 182. Oh, and he needs more beer. His eyes are now drooping as much as his ¾ length trousers – leer and underpants his dominant features. Before we can stop him, he’s barging into Blink 182’s dressing room, attempting to steal their beer and telling them how much he loves them. “f*** off outta here, we’re onstage in two minutes,” they tell him amiably. The bouncers that flank Blink onstage are rather less amiable. Obliviously, Carl takes it in turn to p*** them off, flitting from one side of the stage to the other, whipping another beer from the icebox on each occasion. Dancing wildly, he keeps knocking into the bouncers, spilling his beer on them, ignoring their increasingly threatening demands to “step back”. He grins, filled with unfounded confidence in his charm. Eventually, for his own safety, we drag him away. Now, however, comes The Slump. Carl has effectively to be carried out of the venue. Japanese kids look utterly bemused at the sight and people fall over themselves to find us a taxi, nodding madly. Carl is asleep within minutes and has, upon arrival at the hotel, to be carried to his and Bjorn’s room, retching loudly. Bjorn is already tucked up in bed, beatifically asleep. He admits he gets a bit hacked off with the amount of attention Johnny and Carl get. Thing is: neither little-boy-lost nor beer monster, Bjorn’s just too well-behaved. He’s the one who wont get too pissed, f*** up on his timing, disappear or stay out all night. He will play mean guitar licks and come up with killer tunes. Being ‘the rock’ isn’t the most glamorous of roles, but it’s a necessary one. He deserves his sleep. It’s Razorlight’s last night in Japan. We’re back in downtown Tokyo. We’ve dined on noodles, seaweed and skewered meats in a stylish restaurant. Now we’re in a bar in sight of the city’s Blade Runner skyscape, all huge flickering neon adverts, techno tickertape and teeming hordes of people. Hordes who never jostle each other or express the slightest irritation – the height of bad manners in Japan. It’s why the suicide rate is high: better to be dead than reveal negative feelings in public. “I love all this politeness, all the bowing,” says Johnny. “When I get back to London, I’m going to keep it for as long as I can!” “I dunno, I’m getting a stiff neck,” mumbles Carl through a killer hangover. Johnny’s getting emotional about leaving. “It’s like watching a girl walking out on you slowly and there’s nothing you can do,” he says. Bjorn, himself given to fruity metaphors says, “It’s quite unfulfilling – like getting a nibble of a huge bowl of delicious food..” What are they going to miss – Japan itself, or just being mobbed like rockstars? “Attentions a terrible drug,” says Johnny. “We’ve gorged on it and now it’s gone.” He looks morose. “Tomorrow I’ll be back in Finsbury Park”. But they soon perk up. Back in London they will, after all, be recording their first album with a top producer in a swanky studio. And anyway, they’ve got the whole night ahead of them. The city’s after-hours bars are calling. Johnny wants to meet some girls. Toby Manning

Exciting, Thrilling, Confusing? Razorlight frontman Johnny Borrell spills about how their first American tour is going. Interview by Amanda Van West, photos by Nancy Elser ?Hey girl, get on the dancefloor/And rip it up, yeah/That?s what it?s there for!? commanded Johnny Borrell, the frontman for new U.K. sensation Razorlight, as they launched into ?Rip It Up? from their recently released album ?Up All Night?. The crowd happily obliged. Razorlight tore through an exhilarating hour-long set, and lived up to the hype that they have received in the U.K. Guitarist Bjorn Agren and bass player Carl Dalemo jumped around all over stage, throwing in some scissor kicks for good measure. Drummer Andy Burrows, who joined the band when original drummer Christian Smith-Pancorvo left due to health problems, banged and beat his drums with high, youthful energy. But it was Borrell who stole the show that night. Borrell spat out his lyrics with a feverish intensity, sometimes even throwing his guitar and knocking over his mic stand. He climbed up various amplifiers, eventually climbing up the tallest one and grabbing onto the ceiling rafters, all the while still singing perfectly, not missing one word. Borrell jumped off the amplifier and back onto the stage in one fluid motion, like some kind of wild jungle cat. At one point he grabbed a chair and stood on top of it proclaiming, ?There! Now I feel like I?m on a real stage [the Popscene stage is only about a foot high]! Can everybody see me?? He was met with rabid cheering from the crowd, and received even more cheering (mostly from the women in the crowd) when he stripped off his shirt and ran around on stage like Iggy Pop. All of Borrell?s onstage antics were caught on tape by the BBC, who were there filming for their popular music show Top of the Pops. Razorlight ended their set by playing two extra songs that were not written on the setlist, ?Up All Night? (which Borrell stated, ?this is for all the sixteen year-olds who were kept up all night because their friends were in the other room shooting up heroin?) and ?In the City?, a song that starts out very bluesy, but then turns into a completely trashy, Clash-like punk song. They put the excitement back in rock and roll, and proved that music today is as alive as can be. After their show, I got the chance to interview Johnny Borrell and ask him all about their first American tour. I expected him to be very intense and to have an attitude, but he turned out to be incredibly polite and soft-spoken. We sat down out back and I asked him how the tour was going so far. Johnny Borrell: Um?it?s been a bit exciting, thrilling, confusing, disorientating, um, overwhelming, (laughs) boring?yeah, I think I?m quite proud of doing it, you know? Amanda Van West: What was the most exciting part so far? JB: A lot of things, I mean, um, getting out of Manhattan because we had been running around there for a bit. VW: You guys have played there before, right? JB: Yep, we?ve played there before, meeting up with people we haven?t seen. It?s been a good time?getting lost in Brooklyn on my own at four in the morning, which was fun. Getting outside of New York for the first time was great. Gosh, um, we?ve been all over, seen lots of things. Seen lots of baseball stadiums. Loads of places. Getting into San Francisco was amazing. It was really exciting. I?ve always wanted to come here. VW: What did you expect of San Francisco, the crowd, the city? JB: Well, I didn?t know what I expected because it?s kind of been at the back of my mind. I don?t know why, because I?ve been to New York and I?ve been to L.A. I actually quite liked L.A, which everybody doesn?t understand. I actually liked it more than New York in a way. Yeah, you know, and then, um, I got to San Francisco and thought, ?Ah yes! f***ing San Francisco! It?s f***ing brilliant, innit? It?s gorgeous. Yeah, and the weather?s great, and it?s a very beautiful city. It feels like you?ve got all the good things that you?ve got in America, but none of the $h!t things, and you?ve got stuff that nowhere else has got. VW: How are the crowds in the U.S., as opposed to the crowds in the U.K.? JB: Well, in the U.K. we?ve got 5 or 6,000 people in the crowd. VW: Was it a big shock to you coming here and playing on a twelve inch stage? JB: Well, no because it was only a year ago that we were playing shows like this in England. It?s a different kind of gig. I think for a gig like tonight you have to really be really, really on it to do it, you know? And I was almost not on it. I had a quite busy day today, running around doing lots of stuff. But I enjoyed it. VW: What have you been doing on the tour bus for fun? JB: I?ve been watching a lot of films. I?m obsessed with Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, they?re German filmmakers and I?m absolutely obsessed with ?em. I?ve been watching loads of DVDs that I?ve bought since I?ve been in America. I?ve got a little laptop that I watch them on, so I?m quite happy with that. And I?ve been doing some writing, a little bit, as well. VW: As far as songwriting goes, what inspires you to write? JB: Every experience. Usually, usually, to be honest, it?s intense emotions, innit? But, you know, generally when the wheels fall off and you?re looking and you?re talking to yourself and going, ?I don?t even know how I can bloody do this any more.? You can?t understand your life or why you?re living it. You know, you tumble into that depression. That?s usually when you have to?there?s nothing else for it?so you write your way out of it really, and that?s when you really start looking at your life and trying to write about it. Trying to write as honestly as you can. It?s just the way you write. Sometimes you write to?sometimes you?re writing to really say something you really need to say. Sometimes you?re writing to?sometimes you write for the wrong reasons. Sometimes you write just to prove you can write or ?cause you?re bored, or ?cause you feel like you have to write. And I?ve done that all before, you know, but hopefully I?m getting to a point where I don?t have to just write when I feel like I have to. VW: You?ve been compared to the greats such as The Jam, The Kinks, and Gang of Four. How do you feel about that? JB: That?s great. I?ve got a big box that I fill with comparisons and I stick ?em in there and forget about it (laughs). I like what Mick Rock said. He said, ?A little bit Iggy, a little Mick Jagger, but a lot of Johnny Borrell.? VW: You?ve just turned 24 recently. How does it feel to be this young in this industry? Is it hard or a lot of fun? JB: It?s both, you know. It?s hard stacking shelves in a supermarket because you don?t get any reward. Of course doing a gig every night is hard. To talk about yourself is hard. All this is hard. But at least in this job you do get a pay off when you walk onstage for a second encore and you go, ?wow?, you know? VW: Some of us inside were saying how agile you are (laughs). Have you always been so agile, or did you have to work at it? JB: (laughs) Well, in Chicago I wasn?t wearing these jeans (points to pants). I was wearing these Dior trousers that were so f***ing tight that I couldn?t even f***ing move my legs past here (raises leg slightly). It was really quite embarrassing. VW: (laughs) Was that one of your most embarrassing moments on tour? JB: Um, well I never get embarrassed on stage. Never. Never, because if you fall right on your ass it doesn?t matter. I?ve fallen over onstage numerous times, and you always just kind of go, ?oh well? and get back up. VW: So your album was recently released in the U.S. on October 26th. You guys are huge in the U.K., so how do you plan on breaking ground in the U.S? Do you plan on gigging more? JB: Yeah, I mean, you don?t really want to spend the rest of your life in a van killing yourself every night for 60 people. The next sixth months we?re gonna be here. Might give it a good crack. VW: I think after this tour your band will receive more press. JB: Well, I hope in January it?ll be good. Actually, when I think about my band, I try to compare my band to other bands. You start to compare it to the great bands that resisted like The Stones, The Beatles, and you get quite depressed. And then you start to compare it to the other bands that were around and you think, ?wow it?s just like that.? VW: Yeah, I think out of a lot of bands out there today, you guys are one of the greatest. And after seeing you live, it definitely made an impact. JB: Well, all we want is to get better and better. VW: It?s really excellent so far. Thank you. JB: Cool, it?s great. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Razorlight's debut record "Up All Night" is available through their website or your local record store. Look for a followup tour in North America in the new year. In the meantime you can find some tunes on razorlight.co.uk.

soooo many times! so often johnny recognises me :blush: seen then in everything from tiny clyubs before they got huge to earls court last year

Beginning To See The Light Razorlight bring their brand of art-punk to Staffordshire as they kick off their 2004 UK tour. Matt Lee caught up with bass player Carl Dalemo, before they hit the road… "We'll always remember Stoke - especially our first show there in 2002. There was only about 10 people to see us support the Jeevahs. After just a few minutes they started chanting and hurling abuse at us. We got off stage after only 5 songs, told the promoter to give us the 50 quid he owed us, and got out as fast as we could." They say first impressions last, and if that is the case, it's quite a surprise that Razorlight keep coming back here. Suckers for punishment? Not so - says bass player Carl Dalemo. "When we came back to the Sugarmill in May it was really good. We were frightened before the gig because of past experiences but that made us play a better show, I reckon." Maybe it's that 'fear factor' that's led the band (completed by frontman Johnny Borrell, guitarist Bjorn Agren, drummer Andy Burrows) to kickstart their next UK tour back in Staffordshire, albeit at Keele University. The band are continuing to pedal long-player "Up all night", which rocketed up the album chart following the success of single, "Golden Touch", which has cemented itself as this years art-punk anthem (alongside Franz Ferdinands "Take Me Out".) "It's hard for us to tell how other people see that song, cos obviously we've played it a million times now. It seems like it's gone through quite well, but I like Vice better. We'll wait and see if people greet that one in the same way as Golden Touch." Ah, yes, "Vice" - with it's "L-O-V-E. I'll see you later" chorus mantra which is already burning itself onto our indie subconscious. Released on the 13th September it's set to propel the band back up the charts, and following a victorious performance at the Reading/Leeds festival, into centre stage. The strawberry blond, skinny base player is currently relaxing in South London, after the hectic weekend split between Berkshire and Yorkshire ("We did Jo Whiley on Radio 1, before playing in the afternoon - it was all 'go'"). The fourpiece were given a leg up to the main stage, filling the gap left by The Vines who pulled out while singer Craig Nicholls recovers from 'physical and mental exhaustion'. Carl says it was a great opportunity for them. "Reading and Leeds was one of the biggest festival gigs we've done in the UK. It's definitely the best rock guitar music festival you can get here, and being promoted to the main stage allowed us to play in front of hundreds of people we might not have previously reached." And that's the draw of the band - their energetic live show has won them an army of new fans. As with the sweaty, beer sodden, tops off, mid-afternoon sunshine, rawk'n'roll strut-fest that was their Leeds performance, they're enjoying every minute. "Definitely. Playing live is the best thing with this job. It's real fun to play our songs for an hour, it's just a total release. And now people like our stuff I think it's going to be great and I'm really looking forward to the next tour. "We're then going over to America in November for 3 weeks - we really want things to happen there, and we're aiming for Japan too. There's not enough time to be in all those different places at once - we're going to be well busy over the next year. And we've also started thinking about writing songs the new record already!" The band have never been modest about their ambitions, (frontman Johnny Borrell previously stating they wanted "to be the best band in the world"), but in music's 'build 'em up, knock 'em down' culture, are they not afraid of a backlash? "In the beginning we just rehearsed and played 1 gig a month and no-one knew about us, so obviously we didn't have any expectations from anyone. Now we need to prove we're good enough to be where we are, and to raise it another level. That's what we all want to do. "We're living for the moment, but I don't think any of us are scared to be knocked down. As long as we like what we do and we're true to ourselves it's hard for people to really knock you down. You can't be in the spotlight forever - but then again you never know." Razorlight play Keele University on 28th September 2004

Something on your mind? Group therapy has helped Metallica and R.E.M. So Sean O'Connell took a leading psychiatrist to meet Razorlight and find out if the fractious four can stand the pressure of success. Sunday March 20, 2005 Observer Music Monthly The strip-lit dirty-yellow dining room is scarcely glamorous and nor is the atmosphere backstage at the Birmingham NEC particularly hospitable. Johnny Borrell, Razorlight's diminutive but big-mouthed frontman, is not best pleased. 'Everybody wants to get inside my head,' he says in a petulant cockney bark. 'I don't know the f*** why - I'm a hundred different people all the time. We're about the music and anything else is nobody's business.' The proposal had been straightforward enough and agreed, at least in principle, weeks ago: for OMM's sake, Razorlight would undergo group therapy with 56-year-old Dr Brian Wells, a London-based psychiatrist who has worked with Michael Jackson, AC/DC and Foreigner as well as other rock greats he is prevented from naming. Already a band with a reputation for being a touch awkward, thanks to 24-year-old Borrell's burgeoning ego, Razorlight appeared perfect candidates for psychological fine-tuning - a process which would see them emulate groups including Aerosmith, R.E.M. and Metallica. This plan draws its inspiration from the Metallica film Some Kind of Monster, which documented the band's two-year relationship with 66-year-old 'performance enhancement coach' Phil Towle, who charged $40,000 a month to teach the group 'how to connect and not be afraid to love each other'. In saving Metallica from a messy split, the jumper-clad shrink also turned a spotlight on the therapy culture that has grown up around the music industry. Every big band worth its salt is prepared to pay upwards of $250 an hour for the services of a 'lifestyle minder'. 'We are going through a culture shift,' says Towle, who is working on establishing a 'genius conservation network' to prevent artists 'flaming out' prematurely. 'Throwing something into a swimming pool makes for excitement, it's a quick fix. But it doesn't feel good a couple of minutes later. We are getting to a point where we are more interested in fulfilment than instant gratification.' Nancy Sobel, a Los Angeles-based psychologist who has worked with M¿tley Cr¿e and members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, says: 'A lot of newer bands use the fact they've got a psychologist coming in as a sign of success - a sign that they've made it.' She will be hired by management companies to give young acts a 'psycho-education' on the hazards of the music industry. 'It's like a cool thing.' The flame-haired Sobel frequently goes on tour with her clients to provide support - dealing with infighting, drug or alcohol problems and neglected girlfriends - as well as organising horse riding, surfing or the odd afternoon on an assault course. 'I know it sounds kind of goofy compared to an evening spent in a strip club, but it's more fun than sitting in a room and talking about how you feel.' Kurt Cobain is one of many artists to have been interested in Nancy's services. He left a message on her answer phone the week before he died saying he'd like to see her and would call back. Unfortunately, he never did. Back in the court of Razorlight, Johnny Borrell listens closely while all this is related, eyeing Brian Wells suspiciously. Despite being widely hailed as one of this country's most exciting new prospects, the band's relationship with the media is at an all-time low after an off-the-record remark made by Borrell about Michael Parkinson being 'so sycophantic' appeared in print. As Parky had effectively broken the band to the Tesco CD-buying masses by giving them a spot on his talk show last September, no one was best pleased. Nor is Johnny well disposed towards OMM. It seems that Paul Morley's recent description of the band - 'what would happen if 1993 Radiohead vomited up 2004 Busted' - has been taken to heart. 'Your magazine doesn't even like us,' Borrell yaps. 'Why should we bother with this?' We persist nonetheless - or rather, Wells does, as OMM is asked to leave the room. Returning half an hour later, it's clear that more than 25 years of dealing with creative egos has served him well - Borrell is almost smiling. Perhaps Wells's rock star credentials have impressed the singer. He is, after all, almost certainly the only psychiatrist in the world to have had a number one hit record. 'Paper Party' soared to the top of the Hong Kong charts in 1976 when he was working as an obstetrician there, after grateful new parents started ringing Radio Hong Kong to request airplay for his unreleased song. He also spent many an hour with Nick Drake while they were at Cambridge together. ('He was smoking dope and going to Andy Warhol movies; I was doing medicine and running a mobile disco,' he recalls. 'I used to get him to show me his guitar tunings. His dad gave me his guitar at the funeral.') Indeed, it's probably fair to say that there is still a chart-topping rock star lurking within Wells. When we meet earlier in the day at his office close to Harley Street, he apologises at least six times for wearing something so calamitously uncool as a pinstripe suit ('the patients expect it'). He is good company: as we drive up to the NEC, he plays his recently completed rock opera on the car stereo - a Tommy meets Oliver! tale about a photographer falling for a model - and talks excitedly about how each scene will run. He is cautious, however, about giving too much away about himself. After graduating from Cambridge he worked in hospitals around the world - including a stint with the Red Cross in Cambodia - before becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol in the late 1970s. On returning to Britain he got clean and helped to establish the substance misuse service at London's Maudsley hospital and then moved into private practice. Whatever the reason for Borrell's eventual smile when OMM returns he gets up, thanks Wells, and says he will go and discuss the situation with the rest of the band. We sit on our plastic school chairs and wait. To understand where band therapy culture began, you need to take a trip to the comfy green sofas of Dr Lou Cox's office in Manhattan. Aerosmith parked themselves here in 1985 when their managers realised something had to be done before the band killed themselves. 'It was a baptism of fire,' Cox recalls with a mischievous smile that cuts through his austere appearance. In his mid-fifties and dressed almost entirely in black, he reclines gently in his armchair, legs crossed, hands rigidly animated, maintaining eye contact at all times. 'It was a pioneering thing to do. The prevailing attitude was definitely, "f*** all this talking, let's go make music, f*** people and do drugs".' Once Aerosmith had been through rehab, Cox devised an 'ego and communication training workshop', subsequently used by Bon Jovi and R.E.M. The process is broadly the same each time, with Cox running through a three-day programme interviewing each band member on the first day, teaching them how to communicate without resorting to violence on the second and encouraging personal and group feedback on the third. Thereafter they are encouraged to have a meeting at least once a month to discuss their relationship and work on their problems. 'Let's say you bring down a lick for a song,' Cox explains, 'and someone else says "that sucks" - which is how a lot of bands talk to each other - by doing that people start to close down, creativity ebbs away, things become less spontaneous and people start to feel angry. But if they can learn to talk about why they feel hurt, or what scares them in the process of creating, they can start to reconnect. What I do in the workshop is get people to feel a little bit safer with what I call their soft spot. 'One guy can say, "When you did this the other day it really f***ed things up, and it f***ed things up in this specific way and if you did it this way I think it would have been better". And if they don't get defensive - which takes a lot of work to achieve - it's like, "I didn't understand that's how you felt. Why didn't you tell me?" And then they can start problem solving rather than finger pointing. It's about identifying the barriers to communication.' To be sure, none of this is the stuff of rock'n'roll legend - but spare a thought for the poor artists. Metallica guitarist Kurt Hammett is certainly aware of the pressures created by the way in which fans live vicariously through their actions. 'I think most people in rock bands have arrested development,' he said last year. 'You're able to start drinking whenever you want, and you can play shows drunk, and you can get offstage and continue to be drunk, and people love it. They toast their glasses to an artist who's drunk and breaking things and screaming and wrestling in the middle of a restaurant. Things like that happened to us, and people cheered.' An 'ego management proramme' sounds like something Razorlight could benefit from. Formed two years ago, their journey from playing to 200 people in Camden pubs to selling out two huge shows at Alexandra Palace at the end of their current tour has been far from smooth, and original drummer Christian Smith-Pancorvo quit last May because of 'lifestyle incompatibility' issues. Borrell, for his part, is renowned for openly commenting on his fellow band members' perceived shortcomings, claiming that if he had to take a taxi with guitarist Bj¿rn Agren for a journey of more than three hours the band would cease to exist; condemning bassist Carl Dalemo for 'not living his life the right way'; and claiming that 'bits of [our album] aren't what I want because [the band] weren't capable of making it that way'. There is also his pretentiousness and arrogance ('If you're comparing our debuts, [bob] Dylan's making chips and I'm drinking champagne,' he has said), plus the fact that he usually travels separately from the rest of the band and normally represents them on his own in interviews. It therefore seems legitimate to ask (as one magazine headline did recently): can Razorlight survive 2005? Dear reader, we did try to find out. After an hour of waiting, Wells heads into the band's dressing room, and - careful to avoid breaking any patient confidentiality - regales Razorlight with tales of AC/DC's blister problems; the internal strife which followed the success of Foreigner's 'I Want to Know What Love Is'; and eating curry with Yes (an anecdote that ends with the punchline, 'So the waiter gives them the note saying, "I know I am only a poor Indian waiter from the Punjab but I'd really like to f*** the arses off you two!"'). After an hour of this cool uncle shtick a compromise is reached. They refuse group therapy, but each band member will talk with Wells one-on-one and discuss what life feels like in Razorlight. A magnolia dressing room is procured, the lights are dimmed, and they begin. And what did we learn? A surprising amount. Far from a series of troubled individuals on the verge of collapse, what emerges is a fairly tightly-knit, hungry unit happy to ride out the journey together. Shaggy-haired drummer Andy Burrows had actually been considering going to talk to a therapist prior to today. 'Not because I'm f***ed up,' he says. 'It's just nice to chill out and talk about stuff.' He emerges as the most genuinely enthusiastic and grounded of the group, still not quite having come to terms with the fact that he isn't earning £70 a week teaching drums and shopping for food on his credit card. He cried when he saw himself on TV for the first time, has a steady girlfriend and intends to consult his dad on all investment decisions. Kurt Cobain lookalike bassist Carl Dalemo is more of a worry. A touch drunk, he lacks the excited enthusiasm of Burrows. 'I drink too much,' he says when the issue is raised. 'I think our schedule has made me drink more. If I drink three beers when I play a gig it's not the end of the world, but if I drink five before and after...' 'You're going to end up with cirrhosis of the liver,' Wells interjects. 'Yeah. My liver is a little bit of a worry.' 'We can check out your liver function tests sometime.' 'That would be cool.' Although he doesn't say as much, there is also the sense that Dalemo isn't entirely happy with how money is dealt with within the band - they are each, apart from Borrell, given a regular wage. Does Dalemo mind that Borrell will probably earn much more than him if the band's rise continues? 'It's not probably, it's definitely,' he says. 'It's just the way it is. If someone writes all the chords, melody and lyrics he can take 100 per cent if he wants to. But he'd be a total arsehole.' Next up is crop-haired guitarist Agren, who is by far the most open and articulate. He talks at length about his need to find time away from the others when they are on the road. He reveals his admiration for Borrell ('He's so good at what he does') but also a sense of the tensions involved. 'It's not like we're bestest friends in the world,' he says. 'We are four individuals ... sometimes it feels like four freaks, because we each have our own idiosyncrasies. There was a lot of resentment to start with because there would be interviews and we'd not even be mentioned, and sometimes I feel like a marionette on stage because Johnny will decide to finish a song and we all have to stop. But what I've come to realise this last year is that I would not be comfortable in his role. I'm really glad that we've got him.' How does he feel when Borrell says 'sometimes I can't even bear to look at them', referring to the rest of the band? 'I think that probably happens to all four of us. We don't think the same, we don't like exactly the same music, but it works.' And what of Borrell? Tellingly, when the session starts, he takes the chair in the centre of the room in which Wells sat for the three previous interviews. The next 40 minutes consists of Borrell mumbling into his trainers and picking at his fingers, huddled up foetal-like on the chair, either trotting out one-word answers or ramblings about 'having nothing but the stage' before coming to a sudden halt. 'I try to explain to people that I do write all the lyrics,' he says. 'I do write all the melodies and I do write all the songs but it's not Johnny Borrell, it's Razorlight and Razorlight is Johnny Borrell but Razorlight is something else as well ...' Does he argue with the others? 'The Swedes are very reserved. I was screaming at Bjorn and Carl that they shouldn't be so pragmatic about how they view music and instead of shouting back at me Bjorn came up 10 minutes later and said: "What does pragmatic mean?"' We call it a day and the next morning Wells delivers his professional verdict. 'I think within a year, if they maintain their current pace, the cracks will start to appear,' he says. 'They are exhausted. If I was to give them advice right now it would be advice they wouldn't heed at this point because they are too young: the stuff that grandads tell you - get a pension plan, get a financial adviser, think about the future. 'I think Carl probably drinks too much. As far as Johnny is concerned ... he is an individual within the band. I think he said: "I am Razorlight but Razorlight is the glue that surrounds me". And that's how I see those guys and I think they are cool with it. They are not ready for a therapist yet on the road yet - maybe in two years' time.' · Razorlight play Alexandra Palace, London on 23 and 24 March Jung at heart: Do's and don't for bands: DO: · Make communication a priority. Take time to establish goals: who are we? Where are we going? How are we getting there? What's the time frame? · Plan/problem solve/debrief · Be willing to compromise/negotiate/compliment/stroke · Know who will have the final vote. A band is not always a democracy. Include ‘family’ and keep them involved · Confront the fear. Performance anxiety can be overcome · Be specific with suggestions · Recruit a good team: manager/lawyer/accountant · Balance your life. Stress is caused by imbalance · Learn the business. Remember: music is not just an art form · Stay healthy DON'T · Gossip · Make impulsive decisions · Have to win every time. It won’t be perfect all the time · Name call or label · Forget how or where you began · Overlook/neglect/mistreat the little guy · Give up too soon

did anybody buy the cd?

surely hes not tabloid fodder enough to make it worth the girls while? she isnt gonna have got much for the story is she :w00t:

last third of video is 3 songs from saturday night

can i start one?

thank you for posting that!! :lol: