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    Scotland Invades US: Biffy Clyro at The Basement

    Let’s play a game. I say a word and you say what comes to mind. Ready? Ok. Here we go.

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    Scotland

    I hear you…kilts, Braveheart, haggis, Sean Connery, scotch tape (who said that?), and the Loch Ness Monster…

    I’m thinking music, and I’m not talking about bagpipes. Unbeknownst to many, Scotland has been a breeding ground for such great musical talents as Belle & Sebastian, Eurhythmics, Mogwai, Franz Ferdinand, and The Jesus and Mary Chain to name just a few. In recent years the Ayrshire-bred rock trio Biffy Clyro has been rocketing to the top of that list as well.

    Biffy features Simon Neil on guitar and vocals while twins James and Ben Johnston take up bass and drum duties. Their fifth album Only Revolutions is creeping up on double platinum status in the UK, and they’ve been wooing fans and selling out shows throughout Europe for years. They’ve shared stages with Muse, The Rolling Stones, and U2. North America is just beginning to pay attention, but take notice they should. Biffy’s sound is an attention-grabbing mash of late 90’s grunge-y distortion, Metallica-esque metal influences, and twitchy tempos and guitar riffs all their own. And let’s face it, they’re pretty easy on the eyes as well…if that sort of thing revs your engine.

    I was fortunate enough to catch up with drummer Ben Johnston via phone in Vancouver as the band prepared to hit the road for a month of US headlining dates. He was nice enough to fill me in on where the band’s been, where they’re heading, and his thoughts on the Loch Ness Monster.

    Lauren Wilson: You guys have been on the road a lot in the past year in North America and all over the world. You’re days from kicking off a month of North American dates as headliners. Are these the first US dates you’ve done as headliners?

    Ben Johnston: No we did a few back in the fall and last year. Those were the first bunch of headline dates we did in America. We did some supporting tours before that. Last year was our first time on our own getting around America, doing our own shows and getting to play some grotty little clubs. It was a lot of fun. And it’s gonna be similar this time out, so we’re really looking forward to it.

    LW: What American cities or venues are you looking forward to playing again?

    BJ: In their own little ways they’re all great. Even if there weren’t many people at the gig, the people who were there were always super passionate. I can’t really pick any one in particular. Of course we’re looking forward to playing the big cities…New York and LA…and obviously Columbus, Ohio. They’re literally all great, and we just can’t wait to get back.

    LW: Biffy Clyro has been together since 1995 and released three solid albums before signing to Warner Brothers. Since then you’ve exploded. You’ve been nominated for the Brit award alongside The xx, Gorillaz, and Mumford & Sons; NME awards along with Muse, Arctic Monkeys, and Foals; and for the coveted Mercury Award. Your fifth album, Only Revolutions, is approaching double platinum. Has this rapid rise to fame changed the band or your approach to the music? How are you guys adapting?

    BJ: I’d like to think we haven’t changed. I hope not. We’ve always just done what we do and stick to our guns musically on all of our albums. It took those first two or three albums to get our fan base to a certain level in the UK and Europe. Then we changed labels and wrote another great album in our opinion and then finally our first really great album that’s done really well in Britain and over in Europe. So we’re really happy with how it’s going, and we still have the exact same approach to our music as we always did. It’s just the three of us in a room, and we arrange stuff and then we record it and it’s as simple as that. We like it that way.

    LW: Your last album Puzzle was a great but more somber album. Only Revolutions is much more upbeat. To what do you attribute that shift?

    BJ: It’s just a shift in the band’s mood as a whole I think. When Puzzle was written, we were going through some dark times as a band…some personal things and stuff like that. That album was more about grief and death and the loss of people and stuff. It was quite a heavy album. It’s a great album, but the subject matter is a bit touchy. It’s stuff that’s hard to talk about. I mean we always seem to write music about personal experience, and that’s just what we were going through in that period of time in that part of our lives. We’re in a more joyous time now, and now that’s what we’re sharing with our fans.

    LW: I read that you were the first band to play in the Houses of Parliament. How did that come to pass, and what was that experience like?

    BJ: It was really cool actually. It was a great little gig. It was for a radio station in London that really, really liked us and they asked us to play there. We went there and played in front of speakers and members of Parliament. It was very surreal indeed. We stole a couple things from the House of Commons…some silverware and some glasses. It was one of those gigs you get an opportunity to play every once in a while, and we jumped at the chance. It’s something we’ll always remember.

    LW: What bands or musicians are you listening to right now?

    BJ: Oh god, let’s see. We’ll be touring with Cage the Elephant later this spring. After we do the headline tour, we go home then we come back out with them. So they’re a band that we like and we’ve been listening to. There are a lot of Canadian bands right now we like. There’s some bands back home we like too. We’re enjoying The Twilight Sad a lot at the moment. I like The Unwinding Hours who are a band from Glasgow with former members of Aereogramme who we’ve had links to. There’s so much great stuff out there right now, I feel like I’m leaving so many out.

    LW: What’s the most embarrassing thing on your mp3 player or in your music collection?

    BJ: I don’t think I have anything terribly embarrassing. Although I guess some people might not think that Dire Straits is very cool or that Funkadelic is that great. I’ve got a lot of that kind of stuff I really like. I’m trying to think of anything truly embarrassing.

    LW: I can confess that I found a couple Pussycat Dolls tracks on my iPod a couple weeks ago. I have no idea how I got them, but that’s pretty embarrassing.

    BJ: Oh. F@*k yeah, that’s terrible. That’s a really bad one. I hope you maybe deleted that.

    (I didn’t. Anywhoo. Moving right along…)

    LW: I see that the band is on Facebook and Twitter. How often do you guys read or contribute to those outlets?

    BJ: We do a little bit. We’re not tech heads. We’re not very good at the internet. We don’t have Tweeters…or Twitter…whatever that’s called. We’re not very internet savvy guys. We really like to get face to face with people. We’ll meet people after shows and hang out. We’re not really that good when it comes to online stuff. We’d rather shake hands and talk to people and sign their stuff or whatever.

    LW: Do you think the existence of those outlets, whether you guys use them much or not, changes how bands and their fans relate?

    BJ: I think it has to. We’re dealing with a generation of music listeners now who live on the internet. So you’ve got these bands who are on there all the time adding content and are active in doing all that stuff we don’t do. It definitely helps make a difference in that marketing and promotion stuff. But we grew up with bands just being bands, you know? I mean if you heard them and related to them and thought they were cool, you came to the show. If not, you didn’t. Here in America the bands are so much slicker than back home. They seem to always know about and always be thinking about what they should do to get their band ahead. We just suck at that stuff

    LW: You’re touring later this spring with Cage the Elephant and this summer supporting Foo Fighters. What other exciting things are on the horizon for Biffy Clyro?

    BJ: Well we’re in the middle of writing right now and that’s always exciting. That’s kind of the most fun we have…getting on stage and getting new stuff together. We’ll be going back to the UK in March to play Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer Trust benefit. And then we come back over and go on tour with Cage the Elephant. So we’ll be hanging around in America through April. Hopefully we’ll snag another tour. Then in the summer there are some UK festivals and British festivals we’re excited to play. Hopefully we’ll come back for some more US dates and get a new album out soon.

    LW: That all sounds pretty great, but there’s something else I have to know. Tell me honestly…is the Loch Ness Monster real?

    BJ: Of course it is. It’s a prehistoric f@*king underwater dinosaur. Unfortunately for you though, it’s trained to only show itself to Scotsmen.

    LW: Ok…just one more. How many times have you seen Braveheart? Do Scots actually watch Braveheart?

    BJ: Of course. We watch it every day. That’s what fuels our continued hate for the British. As soon as I wake up every day, I sit up and scream “FREEEEDOM!!!” Totally true. It gets my day started right.

    If you’d like to get up close and personal with the charming trio of Scots, Biffy Clyro will be playing at The Basement this Friday, February 18 with Moving Mountains and Ease the Medic. Even though they suck at the internet, you can keep up with the band on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or on their website, www.BiffyClyro.com.

    Lauren Wilson is a feature writer for Columbus Underground. All comments, suggestions, requests, and boozin’ invites can be forwarded to [email protected].

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