The View - A biography
Four friends from the Dryburgh area of the small Scottish city of Dundee, The View are Kyle Falconer (age 19), Pete Reilly (20), Keiren Webster (20) & Steve Morrison (19). They formed from the ashes of an old covers band they formed at school, playing everything from Squeeze to The Sex Pistols. After deciding a little over a year ago that their ambitions stretched considerably further than hawking 'Up The Junction' around the pubs and clubs of Dundee, they began writing and rehearsing their own songs in the backroom of their local, The Bayview Bar (hence the band's name). When the band were thrown out of there - "I can't remember exactly why," recalls Peter, "But I think it had something to do with Kyle riding a scooter along the bar," - they decamped to nearby venue The Doghouse, where they began living a "Monkees-like" existence, and the songs they were writing slowly began to take shape.
And what songs! From the ramshackle pop nuggets like "The Don" and "Superstar Tradesman" to the razor-sharp melodies of the ska-inflected "Skag Trendy", they may be grounded in the gutters of Dundonian council housing estates but nonetheless gaze intently at the stars. Marrying the forked tongue wit and guttersnipe humor of The Libertines with the melodic prowess of The Buzzcocks and Oasis, each one is a mini-anthem in waiting, and none more so than "Superstar Tradesman"s sing-a-long tale of council-estate drudgery. "Your whole life," explains Keiren, "People are always telling you, 'Get yourself a trade, get yourself a job, it's the only way to make any money' and people end up giving up their other ambitions just to make some money. So you end up getting a trade to buy yourself a guitar and get a band together, but when you get home at the end of the day, you're too tired to play the thing. You see it happening to so many people."
Armed with an album's worth of great tunes, it didn't take them long to build up a following around the city, and after only their second gig, local indie label Two Thumbs declared that they wanted to release an EP with the band. Interest outside the city, however, was harder to come by - at least until former Rough Trade A&R man James Endeacott (known in Britain for first discovering & signing The Libertines) stumbled across their early demos. Since then things have been moving at breakneck speed for The View. They watched as their small gathering of followers grew into a mobile army, following them the length of the land on support slots and headline shows. And they stood agog as they found themselves at the centre of a record company bidding war that finally ended when they signed to Endeacott's brand new label, 1965 Records.
"He's just a brilliant person," explains Peter as to why they signed to 1965, "You can sign to someone for money, but we signed to James' label because he's a totally genuine guy who's really enthusiastic about what we do. It's all about the people for us, not whether someone's a big shot or not. The other people we spoke to were all like 'We're from such-and-such a label, we could make you huge', but James would just be down the front at our gigs jumping up and down, shouting 'I love you boys! I love you boys!'"
They were soon whisked off to record their debut album with legendary producer Owen Morris, renowned for his work with the likes of Oasis and The Verve, where their eyes were quickly opened to the excesses of rock n' roll. "When James told people that he was sending us off to record with Owen," laughs Peter, "Everyone apparently said to him, 'Why the hell are you sending the boys off to work with him? He's mental!' and he replied by saying, 'Well, Owen's mental - but the boys are fucking insane!'" Kyle concurs, "Every time people were a bit down in the studio, or something wasn't working properly, he'd be like, 'Right boys, let's head off down the strip club!' Then another time it came up in conversation that I'd never drank champagne before and he stopped the session, dragged us out to a Chinese restaurant and told the waiter to give me as much champagne as I wanted! He's a lovely guy, but a crazy bastard. I mean, we like a drink, but..."
Thankfully, the distractions didn't have an adverse effect on the end result and, with Morris at the helm, the band recorded a truly great debut album: Hats Off To The Buskers (due for release in the US in March). Meanwhile, however, the band's popularity has been quietly snowballing, with Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie recently declaring The View his new favorite band after they'd supported the Scream on a handful of UK dates, and their debut festival appearance at Radio 1's Big Weekend Festival in Dundee, where the band's hometown crowd packed out the tent where they played. "I feel like it's just meant to happen for us right now," says Peter. "A small band from Dundee play two gigs and sign to a small Dundee label, a couple of months later they sign to a bigger label, then there's a major music festival in Dundee for the first time - and we're on the bill! Not only that, but people are going mad for us. It's just meant to be."
The success isn't limited to Scotland, of course. Early British singles "Wasted Little DJs" and "Superstar Tradesmen", two of the most brilliant slices of teen punk pop since Wreckless Eric and The Undertones' first records, debuted impressively in the top 20 UK singles sales charts and anticipation for Hats Off To The Buskers is reaching fever pitch. Remarkably quickly The View have found a welcome audience, not just with the legions of teenagers who relate to their spirited tales of adolescent small town frustrations, but with music lovers of all ages. Hats Off To The Buskers - (the title is taken from forthcoming single "Same Jeans" - "I take my hats off to the busker man/When they drown all the sorrows singing songs") - will go a long way to cementing their place in the rock n roll history books.
The View are:
Kyle Falconer (vocals / guitar), Pete Reilly (guitar), Keiren Webster (vocals / bass) & Steve Morrison (drums)
www.theviewareonfire.co.uk
December 2006