Morning Runner - Catch 'Em If You Can...

Not too many bands in their infancy are thrust onto a stage in front of 30,000 plus people supporting arguably the biggest band at the moment. Indeed, playing as opening support to Coldplay is just the latest episode of a whirlwind twelve months for Morning Runner. Having released a now super-rare 7”, ‘The Great Escape / Oceans’, through independent label Faith and Hope last summer, their melodic, highly-charged sound soon got the music heavyweights circling. Eventually snapped up by Parlophone, the Reading lads have blossomed on their subsequent two singles (‘Drawing Shapes’ and ‘Gone Up In Flames’) – so much so their label propelled them onto the big stage with their debut album only half written.

Gigwise duly caught up with frontman Matthew Greener, drummer Ali Clewer and ivory tinkler Fields to discuss all…

For those uninitiated with Morning Runner, their sound, as Matt puts it, is “chaotic, melodic and takes you from being loud and in your face to more beautiful parts.” Importantly, the band maintain what distances themselves from the throngs of other artists popping up at the moment, is they don’t buy into trends “It’s irritating to see so many bands doing the same thing as each other and what others did 20 years ago in the eighties,” Matt laments, “I don’t think we’re part of any scene, we always try and push ourselves to do something different. You’ve just got to be honest…… We’re not into band where people are saying ‘look at how tight his jeans are.’” Ali adds “Some of the music around now is not timeless because it’s more sceney based I’m not trying to be harsh to them bands… but with the melodies and our style we’ve got the option to make music that’ll be listened to in 5 years, 10 years time, whenever.”

Crucially, Matt suggests the key to Morning Runner’s appeal is they make a connection with their audience, as he states “We want to tell people we all experience the same stuff so our music is a celebration of not being on your own. I know it sounds cheesy but we’re all part of a big team. We hope our audience can identify with this, there’s nothing worse than going to see a band and there’s a man on stage moaning about how bad his life is.” Weighty stuff, indeed. To keep a track of all such worldly goings on, Matt confesses he keeps a daily log of life experiences, as he explains “I’ve always carried a book around with me and written things down just about general human life really, other people’s relationships, my own life, a variety of things.”

Apart from Matt’s profound lyricism, surreptitiously Ali admits that a driving part of Morning Runner’s appeal is their frontman’s “really powerful, strong voice.” Clearly shocked that his band mates have showered him in superlatives, Matt reels “I hope we’ve got more qualities than just my voice. Ali and Tom are an amazing rhythm section, while Fields is a brilliant trained musician… so the voice helps but there’s no point having a good singer if you haven’t got a good band behind you!”

Of course, Parlophone must have seen boundless potential in the band’s unified sound to put them on a bill alongside Coldplay - an experience, Matt reflects fondly on “It was fantastic, playing to the biggest crowds we’ve played in front of, it was quite an experience, hard to describe really. We were just hoping to blow away their expectations.” As expected, they found other prestigious slots with The Pogues and Ian Brown much more “difficult” to put it mildly, as Matt proclaims “They were a complete contrast really. The crowd were really different and just hard to please, some of them go to take the piss out of support bands. It wasn’t pointless though, people were coming up to us some time afterwards saying we saw you at Ian Brown.” Not quite getting into the rock n’ roll ethos, Matt says they opted out of any debauched behaviour – for pretty sensible reasons “The Ian Brown gig was soon after he had a fight in LA so we kept our heads down!”

Presently, the band are balancing writing the album with a smattering live appearances. For Matt, writing is plagued by some of the pressures of being signed to a label giant like EMI/Parlophone “Sometimes we feel pressure. If we don’t write a good song, we could get dropped, but you’ve just got to get on with it and try not to think about those things.” Despite some apparent strain, the band are happily plodding through the album, as Fields summises “I guess we’re about half way through, it’s going well. We’re on our way there definitely but we’ve still got ideas bouncing round so we need a little bit of time.”