Biffy Clyro ‘play every show as if it’s their last’

With a great, big, bushy beard, Biffy Clyro’s lead singer Simon Neil stands at least half a metre above me.

I’m terrified by his humongous presence, but he greets me with a smile and all I can muster is a feeble ‘hi’ as he swoops in for a hug. I’m dumbfounded. This is one of my musical idols and he hugs me as if we’ve known each other for years. WTF?

Hailing from ye old Kilmarnock in Scotland, Biffy Clyro has had an intense journey since they began in 1995.

“Yes,” he says. “It has been an intense journey. Looking back, it’s hard to remember the beginning because we’re having more fun now than we ever had.

“We have worked out how to be a touring band and normal people at the same time, and it’s been eye-opening every step of the way.

I love his Scottish accent. He’s warm and inviting.

“We weren’t a band who started with huge ambitions. We just kind of loved to play music and I think we can’t believe we’re still doing it.”

The band started at 13 years old and almost 20 years later Neil says more and more people are going to concerts to see them. “It’s phenomenal.”

I first heard of Biffy Clyro very late in their career, after a friend suggested I listen to them.

Beating Muse
I say to Neil that I first saw a YouTube video of them opening for Muse and he shivers with a laugh and says opening for Muse was probably the toughest gig of their lives.

“Muse is one of the few bands that operate at a level of artistry that has such sophistication to what they do, and we learnt a lot from playing with them.

“We were absolutely terrified every night. We played a simple set with not many lights and this tough band to follow is the best live band in the world.”

He says Muse kind of took Biffy Clyro under their wing for a while and we cannot thank them enough. “We learnt how to play the big shows by watching Muse every night. They have such a way about them.”

But recently, Biffy Clyro was voted the best live band in the world by the revered NME Magazine, taking Muse’s title after quite a number of years.

“Well,” Neil says with an awkward smile. “I don’t know if we have quite overtaken them.

“That was an amazing moment, and it’s a cliché to say awards don’t matter but it certainly makes you feel good and it’s a big confidence boost.”

Tearing up the stage
“We pride ourselves in live shows, and we always play every show as if it’s our last.”

Neil says the band doesn’t want it to become theatre. “We want to be a rock band on stage, getting all sweaty and stuck in. It’s all about uniting people at a show.

Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro performs at RAMfest 2014. (Photo: Nikita Ramkissoon)

“It’s spine-tingling when the entire crowd sings along and sing the guitar riffs and words – that kind of thing never gets old.

This seeming monster of a man says he gets choked up when people sing back “this silly wee song I’ve written at home in another part of the world”.

Biffy Clyro’s live shows are really something to be reckoned with, as people are still mind-blown at their set at RAMfest in Johannesburg.

“We have worked hard to be good live. We have had to let our egos take over and standing in front of that many people, you have to try to take control, which we learned how to do slowly.”

If their RAMfest performance is anything to go by, the band, made up of just three people – Neil on guitar and lead vocals, James Johnston on bass and vocals and Ben Johnston on drums, it’s hard to believe that so much excellent sound comes from so few people.

Africa for the first time
With the band’s first time here, Neil says they have been so excited about touring South Africa.

“It’s incredible I think that’s what the kind of ‘pinch yourself’ moments are. We’re just three guys from Scotland who play rock music and we get a chance to play on the other side of the world.

“It’s our first time in Africa. We we’re going to come a few years ago but that fell through at the last minute but now we decided that we need to make this happen.

“We have so much love from and for this country, and it’s most definitely not gonna be our last time here.”

A coming together of awesomeness
Biffy Clyro has released six studio albums to date, the most recent being Opposites in 2013.

“It took a while to get to where we were on Opposites,” Neil says.

“With the first three albums, we were allowed to do what we wanted and that allowed us to make mistakes and learn from our mistakes rather than someone giving us advice and dictating to us. It was then that we heard things about us that we wanted to change on our own.”

I explain that I love Opposites because it sounds like a coming together of every Biffy Clyro album in one stunning album that has to be listened to from beginning to end.

He smiles this huge smile and thanks me for noticing that because it was very deliberate.

He says he doesn’t like the word ‘maturing’ but he has grown as a songwriter and learning the craft of writing a song.

“I think Opposites is the first record we kind of caught every aspect of our band – the craziness and prettiness, and it means a lot for someone to notice that.”

I tell him that Only Revolutions is one of my favourite books, and he laughs and says that’s exactly what the 2009 album was about.

Excitement in creating
Even though Biffy Clyro have been playing for 20 years, Neil says it is still exciting. “That’s my favourite part of being in a band. I love touring and meeting new people, but writing a song and going into a studio and hearing it come to life… that’s the greatest moment.

“You always feel like it’s the first time that has happened. It just makes you feel.”

He’s at a loss for words as to how it makes him feel. You can see his face beaning with love for his craft.

“When you tour for three or four months, you get a bit tired and it’s no kind of evolution involved. It’s just getting good at one thing, but the creative aspect I love because you don’t know where you’re going to end up.

“We’re living our dream for the want of a better phrase, and I don’t want to stop touring and don’t want to ever feel uninspired.

“It’s my biggest fear making a record and not having any good songs. I wan to feel inspired constantly, and be proud of what we have achieved. We want to be an important band to people.”

He says the band has always said that they would rather be a hundred peoples’ favourite band than a million peoples tenth favourite band.

Bullshitting about the name
Biffy Clyro is a strange name and nobody knows where it comes from. The band has taken to making up stories about it.

Interviewed on Soccer AM, the band stated that they named themselves after a footballer called Biffy Clyro.

Another story is that one of the members owned a Cliff Richard pen, i.e. ‘Cliffy Biro’, which was accidentally spoonerised on a drunken night out.

The name has also been claimed in another interview to come from an acronym for ‘Big Imagination For Feeling Young ‘Cos Life Yearns Real Optimism’.

The band also state in an interview for BalconyTV that the band name was that of a Finnish footballer from the 17th Century.

On Off the Ball, Johnston claimed: “Well it’s a marriage of two words: Biffy is in fact the nickname of the spy who the James Bond novels were based on and Clyro is a town in Wales where both our families … used to go on holiday.”.

In an episode of Music Choice’s ‘Pop Quiz’ Neil explained that Biffy Clyro is the name of a Scotsman that built his own rocket and was the first man in space.

“Indeed we do make up stories the actual reason is so boring and tedious it’s more exciting to make up stories and those are far more convincing.

“The real story would seem like we’re lying. I think we realised that telling someone the truth they thought we were lying. We have about a dozen great reasons and flick between them with each interview.

I think this is the first time he’s not been asked what the name means, which he says he appreciates so much because it’s a stupid question.

Even so, fans have taken to chanting ‘Mon the Biffy!’ or, in more recent times, ‘Mon the Biff!’, which are usually shouted in between songs at gigs, or before the band comes on stage.

‘Kurt Cobain is my hero’
Neil says his influences vary, but they’re mostly rock. “I guess for most people it’s the bands you listened to as a teenager than turn you on to making music, so Nirvana without a doubt.

“Kurt Cobain taught me as a 12-year-old that you didn’t have to be a great guitarist to write a song or to say something, so as a songwriter he’s my biggest influence.

“With lyrics there’s a band called the Red House Painters. Mark Kozelek was the singer and I love his lyrics. You feel like you are really getting an insight into his soul.”

We discover many similarities in our taste in music as he admits that he loves movie soundtracks and their “dramatic OTT nature”.

He asks me what’s my favourite. I thought I was asking the questions. It seems that this is more of a conversation than an interview.

(Bear in mind I’m still shaking.)

I say my current favourite is the soundtrack from the film Once, which stars Glen Hansard from Irish band The Frames.

“Once is a beautiful soundtrack and movie. It has had a big impact on us as well, as to how powerful a voice and acoustic guitar can be with harmony.”

His favourite is Hans Zimmer’s The Thin Red Line, which is one of my favourites as well.

“That is undoubtedly my favourite. There’s a song on there called Journey to the Line, and it may sound egomaniacal but that’s the song I want at my funeral.”

He laughs as he says he’s going to force people to sit and listen for eight magnificent minutes. “That soundtrack changed my life.”

Time is up and 10 minutes felt like a lifetime.

Neil says recently he’s I’ve been listening to Elbow’s new album.

“I’ve also been listening to a Minneapolis band called Marijuana Deathsquads, who are as freaky as their name suggests.

“Their album … It’s hard to get beneath the skin of it, and it’s a good piece of work.

“Also St. Vincent ‘s record … the new one. Annie Clark is one of the most innovative guitarists out there at the moment. It’s almost like a rebirth of guitar.”

I am still in awe as we wrap up and Neil starts preparing for the show of a lifetime, which included hits like Victory over the Sun, Many of Horror, Sounds Like Balloons and Mountains.