The Lowdown On Bombay

Last time The Boar reviewed Bombay Bicycle Club it didn’t go too well. I’m sure you have all read the review. So I was a bit apprehensive of the reception I’d get ahead of their gig at the O2 Academy in Birmingham. As a peace offering I brought them Percy Pigs. ‘Cheers’ Ed said grinning, ‘want one?’ That pretty much sums up the vibe of the interview. I find Ed sitting on a sofa playing a guitar, clothes and more guitars strewn everywhere. A minder sweeps the clothes off another sofa so I can sit down. Several times during my chat with Ed Nash (bass) and Suren de Saram, (drums) Jamie MacColl (guitar) walks in. In various stages of undress.

Hi we’re from Warwick Uni
Ed: Do we know anyone from there?
You performed there, you came to our summer party in 2010, do you remember that?
Ed: Were you there?
No I wasn’t there yet.
Ed: Did we DJ or play?
You played
Ed: ooooooooh

There were a few problems that day, wasn’t there a power cut? Talking about power cuts, what’s the worse stage cock up you’ve ever had?
Wd: What’s the worst stage cock up? All the power going is pretty bad.

So Warwick uni was the worst one?
Ed: Yeah it’s one of the worst ones. That’s happened to us three times actually.

What do you do in that situation?
Ed: I think we just went to the front of the stage and just like danced around a bit.
Suren: The others always try to get me to do a drum solo. When there are problems with guitars they’re just like, Suren do a drum solo!

So how long have you been here today?
Ed: We’re been here since about 8 I think? We drove here from… where were we last night Bristol or somewhere?
(At this point a half dressed guitarist Jamie walks into the room not realising we are there) Yeah so that’s just a naked guitarist there.

So obviously you drive round in a tour bus, have you ever had a service station meeting with fans?
Ed: Once Suran like swore, well we had like a van where Suran thought the windows were one way and he put his finger up at this band and obviously they could see straight through.
Suren: They were playing the same festival as us.
Ed: And they were just standing there and we bumped into them in the service station a few hours later. So yeah that was about the worse.

Are you naughty in interviews then?
Ed: I just don’t say anything
Suran: I’d say as far as bands go we’re pretty tame.
Ed: I think we were worse when we were younger.

New video, it was a competition. So how did you choose the winner?
Ed: Well we went through and we watched every single video and I dunno this one… was kind of different to the rest. The rest were really similar. All sort of washed out and soft focus shots and pretty girls and this one was old couples in Mexico dancing and I personally thought it was the most charming one. They all looked like they were having a good time and it was perfectly edited.
(At this point a handler comes in: “Oh is this being taped? Did I just ruin something? I need jamie’s trousers, he’s still naked.” “Ed: Take him back a hilarious pair”)
Yes its just perfectly edited, they were actually dancing to the song and it was laid back.

Is there any information out there that isn’t true about you?
Suren: Erm yeah but I think we kind of started those rumors in the first place. Back in the day we used to say we got banned from loads of venues. But I don’t think we are actually banned from any. We did get banned from some hotels, Ed can tell you about that, he was involved.
Ed: We are banned from two hotels, one of the hotels we met the daughter of the guy who owned the hotel and she was like want to come back the next day?

Is that similar to that Reading Festival situation, (in 2010 BBC were sat in Yellow camp under a gazebo at about 1am as Jack Steadman played an acoustic set to around 20 people) Where were you at that point?
Ed: Probably standing around behind him drinking loads.

So you didn’t play 2010?
Suren: No we didn’t play a proper set that year.
Ed: We went to see the other bands.

Do you get to do that a lot anymore, go out and see other gigs?
Ed: We get tickets to gigs we want to go to. But I think being in a band sort of ruins the fun of it because you’re there analysing the whole thing. The guitar change overs, the show as a whole, as apposed to just going and enjoying it. And going to festivals as well, we’ve been to so many festivals I don’t think I’d go back, not for a long time. Not as a punter. When we play festivals we do try to see as many bands as we can. (Jamie comes back in, puts on one grey plimsol, then leaves again.)

Are we allowed to know the set list for this evening?
Suren: You know I don’t really know the exact set list for tonight. (Looks at Ed quizzically) We’re doing a couple of songs from Flaws because this is the first time really we’ve mixed up the acoustic stuff with the electric stuff. We used to find that very difficult, on the occasions we tried. So yeah just a couple songs from the second album, mostly the first album and the new album. We have a cool intro though.
Ed: A very surprising intro, are you guys coming to see the show?

Yeah we were coming to see the show before we managed to speak to you. Is “still” going to be in there tonight?
Ed: I can’t say, you like that one?

When you’re writing songs like “still” do you think about how it’s going to be live or is it more about how it’s going to work on the album.
Suren: Yeah we always think about how we’re going to play the songs live after we’ve recorded them.
Ed: It takes a long time.
Suran: Especially when some on the songs had taken us quite a while to work out in our heads first.

Do you drink onstage?
Ed: I normally drink vodka and diet coke, (at this point Ed sticks out his non existent stomach and pats it) got to stay trim. Nah we don’t really get pissed on tour, it’s not really worth it. Back in the day we used to get quite drunk and play but now with so many people coming to see the show, it’s not really worth it.
Suran: We had a couple of horrible experiences back in the day.
Ed: Jamie was so drunk at one gig he didn’t turn his amp on for the whole gig.

People rate success nowadays where stuff goes into the charts. But charts at the moment have moved into focusing on pop and RnB. So how do you rate your success?
Suren: Well it got to number 6 in the album chart which we were all quite shocked about, but yeah the days of indie bands being top of the charts seems to have gone…

Did you ever think about university?
Suren: Well we all applied to university with a gap year and to do the band in that gap year but during the course of the year we all withdrew our places. I guess we could always go to uni at a later point…

Favourite venue?
Brixton. We finally get to play that, my favourite venue was the Astoria, which they knocked down about 2 years ago.

What have you got to do between now and going on stage?
Ed: We have a lot of interviews and then might eat some dinner, go on stage and that’s our night. Dry the River are very good.