Gigwise Interview

“The View, The View, The View are on fire!” is the chant that has been echoing around venues up and down the country as The View tear through the leaving a path of youthful adoration behind them, and it’s hard to disagree with the sentiment. Describing The View’s effortless appeal is like describing a colour or a feeling, impossible as it’s so natural; perhaps it’s the anthemic songs, manic live act or simply the fact that they infuse the classic spirit of rock ‘n’ roll - young, rebellious but ultimately fantastic. The View occupy a world devoid of stylists, stage school and pretension, they are a band for ordinary people, people who want to have fun and sing along at the top of their voice. Gigwise spoke to Kieran from the band to get to the bottom of just how important his band are.

Speaking from perhaps the loudest tour bus known to man, Kieran is in an upbeat mood following a gig in York the previous night which he describes as “Mad, I had to hold onto the side of the stage to make sure I didn’t fall off. A really good night”. Which leads us neatly into our first question, what is a typical View gig like? Kieran replies “People just go mad down the front, we play with a lot of energy, and we feed off the fans so if they are up for it we play better”

Time for a quick history lesson in all things View related, forming roughly eighteen months ago in Dryburgh, a small town outside of Dundee the boys began their musical careers as a covers band, Kieran will now carry on the lesson “We started rehearsing in a pub and getting our songs together, after that we began gigging around Dundee. There isn’t a lot to do in Dundee so forming a band gives you something to focus on, the more gigs we played the more fans we got and then record labels began to become interested, it’s all moved very quickly” Scotland and in particular Dundee are a massive part of The View, from their thick dialect and colloquialisms (See the chorus of ‘Wasted Little DJ’s’) to the tales of heroin addicts (‘Skag Trendy’) and unemployment (next single ‘Superstar Tradesman’) Kieran goes as far as to say “I don’t think there is a song on the album that doesn’t relate to Dundee somewhere.

Speaking of ‘Skag Trendy’ the infamous tabloid fodder Mr Pete Doherty holds a pivotal role in the story of The View, Gigwise asked Kieran to tell us how they met and how he has helped, “I gave him our demo at a gig in Dundee and he took us onto the tour bus to listen to it, he really liked it and let us support him at Babyshambles gig that night. He passed our demo onto James Endeacott (Rough Trade A&R man) and then a few months later he asked us to do a whole tour with them, we owe him a lot we are really grateful”. As if touring with Babyshambles wasn’t enough, The View have moved a rung up on the hedonism ladder and are about to embark upon a nationwide tour with Primal Scream (Both Mani and Bobby Gillespie have declared The View as their new favourite band). Gigwise wonders if there is a Bobby Gillespie equivalent to the infamous ‘Bono Chat’ bands get before supporting U2, sadly Kieran informs us that no advice is given just “lots of encouragement” and we all know how much Primal Scream like their encouragement.

It’s fair to say that The View are up for a laugh and causing a bit of mayhem along the way, for example they were ceremonially thrown out of the pub in which they used to rehearse because Kieran rode a scooter off the bar onto the dance floor- his defence? “It was just a little push scooter, nobody got hurt”. Also in the first reported instance of ‘Guerrilla gigging” since the heady days of The Others, Dundee’s finest played a gig in the toilet of a venue after iForward Russia! pissed them off. Gigwise is intrigued as to what one of our favourite bands could have done wrong? “Basically they threw us out of the dressing room we were sharing, we just wanted to have a drink with them but they were having none of it, so we went into the toilet of the venue and started playing acoustically, everyone came to see us and iForward Russia! had nobody to play to” Like we said, mayhem seems to follow them around.

Pete Doherty’s influence runs right through The Views career, from the songs they play that are clearly inspired by the good ship Albion, supporting Babyshambles and even as far as getting signed. James Endeacott, the man who signed The Libertines to Rough Trade has begun his own label, 1965 Records and made The View one of his first signings after Doherty handed him the bands demo. So what was it about James and 1965 that attracted The View? “He is a fan first and a boss second” says Kieran, “there were other labels interested and they would send people to the gigs and they would be at the back in their suits but James would be down the front with everyone else shouting “I love these boys!”, that’s then we knew he was right for us.”

With an album recorded and set for release in January, recorded with the man behind ‘Definitely Maybe’ Owen Morris, The View look set to hit intergalactic heights, so what can we expect from the album? “Well working with Owen was perfect because we are all massive Oasis fans and he really helped capture the sound we wanted. We want the album to be like coming to one of our gigs”. Tentatively titled ‘Hats Off To The Buskers,’ we await the album with baited breath.

As the unparalleled success of Arctic Monkeys has shown it doesn’t take much more than a pocketful of tunes and a bucketful of hype to make yourselves into the ‘Biggest band in Britain’, with ‘Wasted Little DJ’s crashing into the top 20, sold out gigs, festival appearances and a sexual encounter with Kate Moss surely a whisker away we wonder if Kieran is comfortable with his band’s high speed ascendance to the top, “We just go with the flow really, do what we can and play to as many people want to see us. It’s unbelievable but in a good way, we are all having the time of our lives”

Gigwise had a few questions regarding the current music scene, bands they like, bands they don’t like etc etc but Kieran’s answers are distorted on our Dictaphone by the wailing of police sirens. Quite what was happening we don’t know, perhaps the other band members decided to ride scooters behind the bus jet ski style or maybe Whiskas of iForward Russia! fame was foiled in a revenge attack on the band, whatever it is we are sure it was debauched and steeped in rock n roll folklore.

We leave the chat when the sirens die down and reflect on a band that is certain to divide opinion. On the one hand they are young, exciting, exhilarating, hedonistic pretenders to the rock ‘n’ roll crown, on the other they could be deemed derivative, obvious and clichéd. This hack, however, is firmly in the camp of the former, believing that The View are the best thing since sliced Oasis and sure to hog our stereos for the rest of 2006 and that’s before the album is even released. Alex Turner? You have competition my friend.

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Make sure you check into www.gigwise.com on the 29th August at 12pm to speak to the guys online. Keep checking the site for more details