Siren MUSIC the
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College Tribune | October 28th 2008
Life on the c Razorlight guitarist Bjorn Agren takes time out from a hectic touring schedule to talk about their forthcoming new album and their struggles with creativity, popularity and credibility, with Fiona Redmond. Bjorn is utterly shattered. “We only landed nine hours ago”, he explains. With no rest for the wicked, he will not even be able to pause for breath before jetting off again, and seeing the sights is completely out of the question. “Not apart from this hotel. There’s no time. We’re just here to promote our album and the tour. We’re playing in the Olympia the 26th of November, I think. We’ve played there before, I like that venue.” Razorlight have a testing schedule surrounding the launch of their third album, Slipway Fires, with over twenty live shows in the coming months. While the album itself remains true to Razorlight’s indie sound it is also far more experimental than the first two records. Johnny’s voice is stronger and the group sound far more in control of their music. “The album title was just an idea that Johnny had. When you think of a slipway what do you think of?” Is it the side road that comes off a dual carriageway? “No, although that’s exactly what I thought of as well, I thought; ‘that’s a very weird title.’ Now, that’s a slipROAD [sic]. A slipway is like a long wooden thing which boats land on. But I understand what you’re thinking because at first I thought it was a very odd title because you’d be thinking of cars burning on the side of the road. Anyway, because of the function of the slipway there’s the link with water. Then within the title there’s the idea of having fire and water together. You see, Johnny didn’t really explain the title at length.” The new material shows that Razorlight’s music has matured and they haven’t fallen into the trap of rehashing the same songs. Bjorn also points out that the influences for this record were diverse and manifold: “Too many to say really I think. When we were writing it Johnny and Andrew made a conscious effort not to listen to other music for a couple of months. You want to be able to find new musical expressions that are unique to you and if you listen to other stuff you mightn’t be able to find that sound. Particularly with me, I’m very much like a magpie! Plagiarism is a horrible thing to be accused of and especially when you do it inadvertently. I can just imagine the horror of it. I have solved that though by listening to lots of different music. Although saying that, I tried to avoid
listening to any new indie bands. But I listened to soul, rock and funk and stuff. Just lots of different things.” It is also abundantly apparent that the band did not make a conscious effort
“We’ve always been lucky because all the records we’ve done have just kinda come out”, he surmises. “With the first album it was a case of just do what you do and we did it. Then the second album was the first time we were writing with Andy and that was really exciting. So we really thought that this time -aw shit we’ll have to think about this because we can’t just do the same thing. So we said we’d start out and just do what came naturally. So it just came out the way it did, and we only had to record one extra song. It was great. And yet this record still felt different from the others.” Of all the songs on this new record, Bjorn is particularly fond of Burberry Blue Eyes: “I’m really into the cutesy, 50s, 60s, kitsch thing. And I would like to hear a song that’s cuter than Burberry Blue Eyes because there couldn’t be one. It’s super cute. And probably because it’s the most bonkers, most intense song we’ve ever done.” Both Up All Night and Razorlight have produced incredibly popular songs, with Golden Touch from the previous and America from the latter, but Bjorn is candid in admitting that he has no idea which single from Slipway Fires will burn the brightest in the public conscience. “I really don’t know because to be honest whatever I like is not what most people like. The funny thing is that I thought Wire to Wire was a really weird first single but people are really, really liking it. It is so intimate and it’s not the typical first single. People are probably thinking ‘what the hell is he playing now!’ Because it’s slow and heavy and we’ve never done that before. Actually you know what?” he asks thoughtfully “I could see that being a really big hit.” Only time will tell if this prediction will be the first time Agren has people liking the same thing as him. He is dismissive when it comes to worries that the band’s experimentation might alienate some of its fan-
Johnny and Andrew made a conscious effort not to listen to other music for a couple of months. You want to be able to find new musical expressions that are unique to you to create a unique sound with this release: “We never discuss things like that. We’ve never ever said, ‘oh this should sound a bit like that’. The creative process on this album was a lot different. Johnny went away to some remote island for a couple of months just to focus on lyrics and to be able to write whatever came out of his head. So then he came home with a fair few songs, and Andy had a couple as well. So they just got together and bashed the songs out with pianos and acoustic guitars and stuff. Then when that was done band rehearsals began where we just started adding drums and whacking in guitar riffs and whatever. Everything just kinda came together. I don’t think there was any instance when anybody said ‘well what you’re playing there just isn’t going to work’. It just came out, all of it, and everybody was dead impressed with what we were after doing. We were just on a roll, and rehearsed everything really well. This way everything was written when we went into the studio, not like U2 where they rent out a studio for a year and just go in with nothing. We
We had something we had to prove, like for a musician there’s that feeling that with every new album you’ve to prove you’ve still got it always go in basically knowing exactly what we’re playing.” It is clear that the band members have great chemistry and Agren speaks of how effortlessly they spark off each other to create their records.
base. “Some people will say ‘Oh no they’ve changed, they’re not as good blah blah blah’. But really, the last album will always be there and we’d always play those songs live. It’s not like that album is going to go away because the new one doesn’t sound the same. I think with the last album we really felt that we had something we had to prove, like for a musician there’s that feeling that with every new album you’ve to prove you’ve still got it.” Under the shadow of their previous successes, it would be understandable if Razorlight felt the pressure to emulate such releases. Bjorn, however, is emphatic in insisting that this is not the case: “After we did well with the second album we felt that we had proved that we were actually a talent. So I think on this one we felt like ‘oh this is cool we can start
experimenting and start doing what the hell we like’. It’s an album that comes at you rather than one that really wants you to like it. It’s a party album, one that when you hear it you