Razor-lite

Million selling albums, celebrity girlfriends, debaucherous revelry, charity gigs. Razorlight seem to embody all that is required for rock canonisation so why do the press constantly paint lead singer Johnny Borrell as a twat? Real Groove goes in search of the real Johnny Borrell.


RG: Tell us about Slipway Fires.
JB: A lot of the album is the sound of us live in a room. It's live vocals, live drums, live guitar, live piano, all as it went down on the day. That was something we really wanted to capture as much as possible.
RG: How do you see the band and how do you want your band to be seen?
JB: What I wanted to do with this record in terms of where the band is going or whatever is to completely check out of any kind of competition or 'this is the class of 2009' or whatever. I'm not even thinking about my career. I just got to this point where I thought I don't give a flying fuck about record sales, about ticket sales, anything, fame, celebrity, I don't give a damn.
RG: In terms of the band there has been animosity. Do you think a certain sort of creative tension helps?
JB: I think the only thing that helps music is if you mean it and if everyone in the room means it then yeah there is going to be a greater tension.
RG: Do you think you get a bad rap?
JB: It's nothing I can really complain about, but then there are people who print outright lies about you. I'd love to sit down with everyone whose written lies about me and find out what that's about but you just can't do it.
RG: So what are some of the lies?
JB: Well when our album came out there was a news story about me getting some of our lyrics tattooed on my arm (rolls up sleeves to show nothing). But that's a straight up lie isn't it? So now when I go into interviews I either get 'oh tell me about your tattoo' or 'I heard you don't like tattoos'. Another example, we did a gig at the Union Chapel the other day and the fucking equipment broke down. I sang the whole thing a capella in front of 400 people and everyone had a great time. But then in The Sun or something like that the next day it said that I had a big strop and it's just not what happened. But in my position what can I do?
RG: Do you think the media likes to use up its stars and throw them away?
JB: Yeah but I also think that if somebody had never met you and wants to say something about you, by definition it's going to say more about that person than it does about you. But probably the only thing that pisses me off is people who think that I'm precious and I don't have a sense of humour about things. Because that's the most important thing. I mean I care about music, I really care about the music we make. I care about the music that every band makes, I care about music fans. I care about music and I have a lot of love and respect for it. But I don't give a fff... I'm not precious about Johnny Borrell. I'm not precious about Razorlight. You've got to take the piss out of yourselves. This is the wrong career to take too seriously.
RG: What does the album title mean?
JB: I'm not explaining it is the current policy because it's not even out yet. I know what it means and some people work it out, some people don't, which I quite like. It's the nature of this album though, you've got to come to it and figure it out you know.