Bombay Bicycle Club Interview - Some Bike It Hot

Currently firing on all cylinders thanks to the success of their chart-busting, February-released fourth album So Long, See You Tomorrow, life in Bombay Bicycle Club seems pretty sweet right now.

However, when we caught up with BBC’s drummer Suren de Suram, he reveals that he’s just getting over an incident where the wheels very nearly came off for the indie quartet.
“We had a little bit of drama at Glastonbury this year,” he laughs. “We did a festival in Luxembourg and were driving from there to Glasto. Our bus broke down in the middle of the night and we were all like – ‘FUCK, what do we do?.’ We ended up getting lots of cabs. It was quite excessive! We got cabs from where the bus broke down to Lille station, then the Eurostar from Lille to St Pancras and then a cab all the way from St Pancras to Glastonbury. It was quite an expensive trip but we got there in the end.
“Our set on Sunday was everything we hoped for though. When you play massive slots like that you get quite nervous and start worrying about what could go wrong, but nothing did thankfully.”
With Bombay Bicycle Club very much in “festival mode” right now, Suren reveals that he’s grown to love playing those huge stages.
“Over the years we’ve learned how to ‘perform’ at festivals,” he offers. “It’s a very different vibe to playing your own shows. We’re not big pop stars who know how to put on an act even if they’re feeling bad. We wear our hearts on our sleeve. Sometimes that doesn’t go down too well when you’re playing to a crowd who aren’t necessarily there for you, but as we’ve grown and, I guess, matured, we’ve learnt how to approach
festivals better. It’s all about tailoring your set to the event.”
In just a handful of days' time, Bombay Bicycle Club return to these shores for a sure to be awesome show at the Longitude Festival in Dublin’s Marlay Park. After performing a string of more intimate gigs across Ireland late last year as something of a warm-up for this year’s schedule, Suren tells us he is excited about coming back.
“Our Irish tour last year was great. I always enjoy playing in Ireland. I’m one eighth Irish myself, so it feels like a homecoming. Hopefully, we’re going to stick around at Longitude as long as we can. Bonobo’s playing. I want to watch Ben Howard, on after us and Sam Smith as well. He has such a fantastic voice.”

Bombay Bicycle Club appear at the Longitude festival at Marlay Park, Dublin on July 18.