The View

Profile: The View
Words: Matt Thompson

The View Are Inspired

Whatever your vantage point, you can’t not have noticed The View last year.
A constant fixture on the gigging circuit for what seems like forever, these four Dundee scruffs took to 2006 like teenage boys take to the Long Blondes, gaining plaudits, fans, hit singles and dubious notoriety along the way.
“It’s happened quicker than we ever imagined,” drawls Kyle Falconer, the band’s singer and guitar player in a broad, barely decipherable Highland slur. “These past few months we’ve seen every shit hole in Britain, and the amount of promo we’ve done is just weird. Everyone keeps telling us we’re supposed to treat it like a job now, but I think ‘fuck that’. Being in a band ain’t like having a job. Someone else can worry about all that. I just wanna do all the stuff that made me wanna to be in a band in the first place – having a good time and enjoying myself.”
And well they might. For while it may look on the surface like the band are negotiating the typical indie route that leads either to the lap of Johnny Borrell or the scrap heap, it’s actually been quite different. Firstly, they weren’t signed by pimping themselves to The Man. Instead they wrote songs for mates, played youth club gigs in Dundee and tried desperately to impress the ladies – with varying degrees of success.
It wasn’t until one of their mates convinced them they were actually quite good that they even realised they had some potential, with their masterstroke coming one evening when bass player and co-vocalist Keiren Webster camped out ahead of a Babyshambles gig and handed a homemade demo tape to Pete Doherty. As luck would have it, Doherty was clear-headed enough to pay it due attention and so impressed he invited the band to play bottom of the bill that night. Perhaps more remarkable still, he even remembered to alert his friend and one-time boss James Endeacott, who quickly made the band a priority project on his newly formed 1965 Records label.
“James is top man,” mutters Keiren, by far the least understandable of all the band. “When people found out he was interested in us we suddenly had all these fucking suits coming around talking about how they could make loads of money with us. James was totally different. He’s old school and passionate. He still does 7” deals and only works with the bands he really likes. When we play, even now he’s down the front, jumping up and down going ‘I love you boys’.”
Now imagine Snow Patrol’s label boss doing that. Imagine also Snow Patrol’s boss allowing his band to take a graffiti artist and professional shoplifter on the road with them. It sounds ridiculous, but two such characters are part of The View’s entourage of touring mates.
“They’ve been with us from the first rehearsal and are part of the band,” defends Kyle. “They come with us to all our gigs. You can tell all the towns we’ve been to ’cos you see their graffiti tag everywhere we’ve ever played.
“And they thieve like most people shop,” he continues. “Honestly, the other day we stopped off at this petrol station and they had away this £50 radio controlled car.” “It was mental,” interrupts drummer Steve. “We were on tour with Primal Scream at the time and Mani kept guard for ‘em!”
As you can imagine, the band have had the odd run-in with the law. Firstly, they were banned from the Bayview Hotel from which they took their name after riding a scooter across the bar; then, back in 2005, Steve was the subject of much police – not to mention press – attention when he was arrested driving a stolen car with the aforementioned Mr Peter Doherty. More recently, guitarist Pete enjoyed a visit from the rozzers after flooding two floors of a travelodge when he forgetfully left the taps running at his own, private, after show hotel room party. It was “an honest mistake”, he says, but a costly one – the band were landed with a £2,500 repair bill for the misdemeanour. “We’re stupid ’cos we get fined and fined and fined for daft stuff like that,” he explains. “We’ve been fined for drinking in the street, pissing in the street… ah, it’s just stupid. We’re gonna have to stop doing it though ’cos we’re coming to the end of our bundle of money now and soon all our advance will have been spent on fucking fines.”
Well, it’s not only fines. Recently, the band have also had to employ the services of costly security staff at gigs, because, as Pete says: “We’re great at pissing off venue bouncers. When we’ve had a few drinks we get in fights too, so the record label is making us pay security people to stop all that happening.”
Clearly, the band know very well how to play hard – and it’s this last gang in town mentality that has earned them plaudits in the shape of Primal Scream, Noel Gallagher and countless rock’n’roll fans – but they’re anything but work shy.
Having rounded off an enormous 80-date tour just before Christmas, the four-piece spent almost all of last year on the road, playing their own shows as well as support slots with the likes of The Kooks, iForward Russia!, Primal Scream, Baby Shambles and the Undertones. They also managed, somehow, to find a spare three weeks to record an album with legendary Oasis producer, Owen Morris. “It’s like everyone keeps telling us we should be knackered,” says Kyle. “But to be honest, we’re just really excited about it all.”
“That recording session came from nowhere, really,” Pete continues. “We didn’t plan it. We were told the studio was free and got asked if we fancied doing some tracks.”
The spontaneous nature of those sessions typifies the LP itself. Recorded mainly in the early hours, after daily sessions in the local boozer, all 14 tracks were completed in just a few takes. “We got drunk loads and worked till 10am some days,” emphasises Kyle. “It’s a really raw album and that’s good ’cos there’s no point releasing something that sounds nothing like our live set.”
They had an eventful time finishing the record too. “To start with Owen hated us and was storming about, saying how he didn’t need all our shit,” Kyle carries on. “But after a couple of days he was taking us down the pub and calling us all ‘geniuses’. When we finished we all went out in his jag to chase rabbits around the fields – he came round to our way of doing things in the end.”
The locals weren’t quite so impressed – “someone from the town hall phoned up the record label saying we must leave,” explains Keiren – but your ears will be. ‘Hats Off To The Buskers’ is a riotous 40 minutes, filled with the most unadulterated rock n roll dancing tunes since the Libertines breathed new life into the genre.
The fact it’s all come so easy suggests Owen Morris may be right too –these ruffian lads really could be geniuses.
“All the songs were pretty much finished before we were signed,” says Pete. “We never thought about doing an album, we were just writing songs to play round our mates’ houses. At one point we were writing a new one a week. And we’ve never really scrapped any more than two songs or so. It’s all been pretty good, you know?”
Yeah, we do know. And if such a prolific streak continues, appreciatively, we’ll be admiring The View for a long time yet.
‘Hats Off To The Buskers’ is released on 1965 Records on January 29th.