The opposite of famous-for-five- minutes bands, Biffy Clyro are festival veterans who chose a step-by-step ascent to the main stage, they tell BRIAN BOYD
THERE'S BEEN something hearteningly old-fashioned about the rise of Scottish three-piece alt-rockers Biffy Clyro. They've been going for almost 15 years and have come up the "tiny independent label, bigger independent label, now on a major label" route. Each of their five albums to date has outsold the previous one – the one before last, Puzzle, went gold, while their current offering, Only Revolutions, has gone platinum.
They’re also veterans of the festival circuit and are one of the few bands around who can say they’ve played every different stage at T in the Park and Oxegen. Twins Ben and James Johnson have enjoyed both festivals both as punters and performers and have, in a manner of speaking, seen it all.
“Our festival life has been a mirror of our recording life,” says James. “As the albums did better, so we got better slots at Oxegen and T in the Park. It’s why, even today with the band doing well, we take nothing for granted because we started at the very bottom rung of the festival ladder and have moved up through the different stages very slowly.”
“We’ve gone from playing the unsigned tent to the main stage,” says Ben.
“It’s funny to notice all the differences. When you play the unsigned tent, you have to hump all your own gear, you’re corralled off into a separate area and you can’t mix with the bigger bands. But then as you move up the bill over the years you see things getting that bit easier for you. First you notice you get given a dressing room, then you start to get meal tickets and a proper rider. And then the ultimate is when you’re playing the main stage and a golf buggy transports you from your dressing room to the stage.
“And having experienced all that – you have more respect for T in the Park and Oxegen,” says James. “You see some bands at the festival who just arrive on the main stage on their very first time there, and they don’t seem to appreciate it as much as we do. We’ve had to work our way up to get the passes we can flash to get into the stars’ area, but we know what’s it like when you’re turned away from everywhere because you’re just the crappy band on the unsigned stage.”
Their stage-by-stage ascent to the top of the festival pile exemplifies how they have gone about becoming one of the most popular rock bands around. "We started off putting out stuff on a small independent label and it was when we were playing an unsigned band stage at a festival that someone from Beggar's Banquet saw us and signed us up to a record deal," says Ben. "The albums we did with Beggar's got us into the top 50 of the album charts and then we signed with an offshoot of the Warner label and the big breakthrough came with the Puzzlealbum which went top 10. At this stage we had dropped some of our prog rock excesses and gone for a more straightforward approach but still with something different in the sound."
“And now we’re coming back to Oxegen with our most successful album,” says James. “We’ve already been in Ireland – back in May we were the first live webcast from the 02 but Oxegen has always been something special for us. We’ve played so many different stages over the years and really seen the festival develop. We’re very much part of it now and feel that the festival has helped us grow up as a band.”
