Page 37 - Black Velvet Issue 84

BV84 pg34,35,36, 37, 38:BV84 pg37 19/03/2015 21:10 Page 4

BlackVelvetMagazine.Com - 37
everyone will notice’. So we played this show, it He tells us, “I studied an Access course while I so that the expansive periods during the day
was only four songs, absolutely amazing but was writing this record at a local college which where we do nothing, like some bands go to
again the whole time we were on stage we were is basically just sort of if you’ve been out of col- strip bars or go to bars or take drugs, I was
shaking. And then Tim had tweeted me a few lege and you want to go to University it’s a good going to read books and do essays instead.”
days before saying we want you coming on stopgap, a good way to bridge what you’re doing Would he ever like to write his own book…
stage playing ‘Sleigh Bells’. I was like ‘Yeah, I’d in your life. It prepares you for University. I had a band autobiography, we ask.
love to, that would be brilliant’. no intention to go to University, I just wanted to “I don’t know if there’s the demand or inter-
Unfortunately, things didn’t go to plan. Only do something while I was writing the record be- est. But I like to think that we get up to a lot and
Andy Burrows, who Tim had also asked, made cause it can get so easy to either go down the I do keep a diary now of what we do, I’ve started
it onto the stage. Billy explains, “As the moment pub during the day and spend all day in the pub to think that it would be really, really amazing to
came he looked over and Andy walked forward and go back and drunkenly write songs and be able to look back on these halcyon days and
and I walked forward and as I stepped forward piece things together and that clearly wasn’t the remember the absolutely incredible times we’ve
two people sort of got in my way and started way to go for me. Or I could sit and watch BBC had. But yeah, I’d like to write, definitely. I like to
talking and it was a really awkward moment of, News 24 in my underpants all day and write a write anyway. At one point I did harbour a pas-
I don’t want to say ‘excuse me’ but at the same political record which is definitely not for me. Or sion for writing as a journalist, maybe music
time, I really wanted to get on stage and it was I could go out there and do something. I could journalism, or just being one of those amazing
like a split second. I could either move them out get a job or study and I definitely didn’t want to correspondents that go to war zones and send
of the way and go on stage or I can stand here work in a coffee shop for 6 or 7 months. I back these amazing pieces of writings like the
and look like an idiot and me being me I stayed thought, No, I’ll spend a grand, go in, read 6 or characters in Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop, obviously
there looking like a complete idiot and then I just 7 books, do some studying, I’ll go home and not wanting to be a satire of it or anything. But
sank back into the corner. I could see Tim look- write the record and self demo and self-produce yeah, I’d like to take up writing one day, I don’t
ing over, I was like “I’m so sorry, I feel like an along the way and by the end of it I finished at know if I’m good at it at the moment.”
idiot now” and I felt like such an idiot for the rest the top of the class with 60 distinction credits We’re sure he is. He’s too modest, is Billy.
of the night. My friend texted me and was like and just realizing that I absolutely love reading
“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get another chance again. I was enraptured by literature as a kid. Al- here’s a song on the album called ‘Just
to get on stage with Tim Burgess again, LOL’. ways had my head in a book if I wasn’t playing TLike Jude’, which Billy wrote after read-
Cheers Mate!” the guitar. So I decided while we tour the next ing Thomas Hardy’s ‘Jude The Obscure’, about
Aw, we feel for Billy. Although we’re sure he record I was going to do a different learning a working-class man who dreams of becoming
will get the chance again. Or maybe it will be the course, ‘A’ Level English Language and Litera- a scholar. Billy sympathized with Jude’s desper-
other way round next time. Maybe The Subways ture. As a lyricist it’s always fascinating to me, ate longing to feel a part of something, to feel
will get the chance to invite Tim on stage one and as someone who writes melodies and wanted and to want.
day. chords and shapes songs and messages in Billy says, “Regardless of how I take pride
songs, how things can be interpreted, even in being non institutionalized and being a free
hen Billy’s not on stage, or in the though they have absolutely no intent in those entity, there are moments that you do want to in-
Wrecording studio, chances are you’ll certain ways, songs can be interpreted in so tegrate and you do want to feel a part of some-
find him with his head in a book. Not just reading many different ways, people own songs, so I thing. I think, just like Jude, that’s me being
for entertainment purposes but now for studying wanted to get into the linguistics aspect of Eng- melodramatic, typical Billy, as our manager
purposes also. Billy has taken it upon himself to lish as well rather than just the literary aspects. would say to me. But yeah, it’s about wanting to
educate himself a little more in his spare time. “My English literature just offsets the music be part of something, wanted to be counted. As

THE SUBWAYS