A Mo' With The View

The publicity trail can be a long, arduous and dull journey. The need to promote your product is an essential part of any musical career in this day and age but it’s not always an exciting experience. Answering similar questions or just not really giving a shit can really affect your mood and interest levels. It was on this trail, Gigwise spoke to Stephen Morrison, drummer with Dundonian mob The View. Our conversation will touch on, albeit very briefly, new singles, new album, the shiteness of The Kings of Leon new album and at its most lucid, fellow Dundee bands. The interview will be punctuated by yawns, audible groans and a general malaise, the cause of which Gigwise can’t be sure but disconcerting it certainly is. 

The View’s story has been well documented. Slip Pete Doherty some songs and get record deal. Sign with Pete’s mate James Endeacott and 1965 records. Release catchy singles and follow with a charmingly ramshackle album. Obviously the process may have been a little more complicated but that’s the gist of it. They released Hats off to the Buskers in January 2007 after two successful singles, Wasted Little DJ’s and Superstar Tradesman. The album went on to sell 300,000 copies and venues were sold out and thrashed across the country. So this brings us bang up to date, it’s brief but so is the interview so it all fits together.

On October 27, The View release their really rather good single 5Rebeccas, “It just tha new single”, is Stephen's in depth insight into the single and you can’t argue with that really. He is clearly struggling at this early point. It’s the lead single from their eagerly awaited second album. It will be called Which Bitch. The reason behind the album being called this became lost in the ether and the thick Dundonian brogue of Morrison’s. It will be hitting shelves in “Just January”; no definite date has been decided.

The difficult second album was not something the View faced, all things considered it seems it was a walk in the park, as Stephen outlines, “We just went for it, plain sailing, it was great”. The View are renowned for their ramshackle arrangements and rough charm of their songs, 'Which Bitch' promises to be altogether more organised brew, “every song has got a wee bit of production on them.” Producer and erstwhile band mate (he played keyboards with them occasionally) Owen Morris is back on production duties and the band are certainly aiming high with this record, “it’s definitely moved up a notch”. The drummer feels the View are now an entirely different proposition from the young inexperienced lads entering the studio to record Hats Off To The Buskers, “We’re like a total different band, we’re not even the same.”

A possibly worrying development is the inclusion of strings and orchestra sounds on a number of tracks, “We brought them in from New York to play some strings and that, get them to send them across.” Often the sign of a band expanding their sound and ego’s but the drummer seems completely detached from this kind of notion, merely commenting, “It's brilliant”, we’re just going to have to trust them on this one and hopefully things won’t go a little Coldplay, then.