Jock up your daughters

Move over Gil Grissom, Horatio Caine and Mac Taylor, there’s a new crime scene investigator in town.

Yup, following three weeks of painstaking forensic reconstruction, I’ve managed to work out what the fuck it was The View said to me when we met before their sell-out gig last month in the Dublin Ambassador.
A veteran of many a harrowing Bobby Gillespie interview, I’m no stranger to the impenetrability of the Scottish accent, but these guys take things to a whole new level of linguistic confusion (Look who’s talking, you poncey marbles-in-the-mouth Home Counties git – Ed.).
It doesn’t help matters that Steve Morrison, Pete Reilly, Kyle Falconer and Keiren Webster are terminally hungover following a party to celebrate their Hats Off To The Buskers album getting to number one in the UK. Indeed, if Being Completely Fucked were a team sport, they’d tearily be standing on a podium now with ‘Flower Of Scotland’ playing in the background.
“The guy who runs 1965 Records, James Endeacott, took us to a place in Soho where there was loads of free champagne and, well, I don’t remember much after that,” winces the luxuriantly tressed Falconer who’s dispatched a minion to find him some drugs.
“Solpadine, Disprin, Nurofen, anything as long as it gets rid of this fucking headache,” he whimpers.
To grab the top spot The View had to fend off stiff competition from The Good, The Bad And The Queen whose ranks include one of their favourite people, Paul Simonon.
“We toured with Babyshambles and the only CD we had in the van was The Clash’s ‘Greatest Hits’. I can totally understand why Pete Doherty worships them.”
“It changes every day,” joins in Pete Reilly, “but my favourite Clash tune at the moment is the Mick Jones one, ‘Stay Free’.”
“‘White Man In Hammersmith Palais’ is even better,” insists Falconer who’s responsible for the aforementioned song being blasted through the P.A. at the end of all their gigs. The Clash aren’t the only ‘70s punk and new wave legends they have a penchant for, with YouTube home to their gloriously disheveled cover of Squeeze’s ‘Up The Junction’.
“You saw that?” Reilly enthuses. “We had a covers band at school that used to play that, Stealers Wheel ‘Stuck In The Middle’, T. Rex ‘20th Century Boy’, Stone Roses ‘Sally Cinnamon’, Oasis ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’ and stuff like that. We won three talent competitions in a row so we can’t have been too bad. Actually, they want us to do it again this year for charity.”
The View had no idea back then that they’d soon be hanging out with some of the authors of those classics.
“Noel Gallagher was in the café at the place where our first EP was being mastered, so we asked him if he’d like a listen,” Webster takes-over. “He could have fucked off afterwards, but instead he hung around for an hour telling us funny stories. There’s a bit of a connection because Rob there (points at the extremely large gentleman who’s hovering nearby) used to be Noel’s security and Owen Morris who did Morning Glory and Be Here Now produced our album as well.”
“Mani’s sound as fuck too,” The View’s answer to Kenny from South Park, Steve Morrison, mutters from beneath his hoodie. “He invited us to his house, and the paint-splattered Rickenbacker he had in the Roses was behind the settee. You’re trying to act cool while thinking, ‘Fuck me, that’s the bass from ‘I Am The Resurrection’!’ We thought about bashing him over the head and stealing it, but that wouldn’t have made us very good guests!”
A check of the hotpress Guide To Rock ‘N’ Roll Etiquette confirms that striking your host with a blunt musical instrument is a serious social faux pas. Any other close encounters of the pop or rock star kind?
“Pink was in the dressing-room next to us at the Radio One Big Day Out in Dundee,” Kyle Falconer divulges, “and the lads reckoned that Marc Owen from Take That fancied me but he’s not even gay, is he?”
Not that I’m aware of.
“Towers Of London are sound too, which you wouldn’t necessarily expect from seeing Donny Tourette on Celebrity Big Brother.”
Indeed you wouldn’t. Although last month was the first time The View had journeyed to the Republic, they had a pretty good idea of what to expect.
“Where we’re from, Dryburgh, is the Irish part of Dundee,” Reilly explains. “My grandmum’s from here so if I wanted to – and was any good! – I could play football for Ireland.”
Expect a call any day now from Stan Staunton. Good Catholic lads that they are, The View have fond memories of their confirmation and first communion.
“I got loads of money,” Falconer beams.
“It’s not about money, man,” Webster counters.
“Yeah, it’s supposed to be a spiritual thing,” Reilly deadpans before dissolving into a heretical fit of giggles.
Returning to footie, is it true that ‘Superstar Tradesman’ has replaced the über-wimpy ‘Love Is In The Air’ as the song Dundee United run out to in the SPL?
“Yeah, and as soon as it did we won four home games in a row including a 2-1 against Rangers,” Steve Morrison proffers proudly.
“Less of the ‘We’!” Keiren Webster growls. “As a Dundee supporter, I’m really fucked off that United are using a song I wrote to gee their crowd and players up. The grief I’ve had over it from friends of mine is incredible.”
Non-sporting types can be forgiven for thinking that we’ve strayed into People’s/Popular Front Of Judea territory, but Dundee and Dundee United are rival football clubs with only a shared hatred of Aberdeen in common. 
“They call us Scumdee, so the feeling’s mutual,” Falconer notes.
United have already made it into hotpress by dint of Gary Lightbody being a fan and sticking a photo of their ground, Tannadice Park, on the cover of Snow Patrol’s debut single.
“They should play ‘Chasing Cars’ instead of ‘Superstar Tradesman’ then and have everybody slash their wrists,” Webster mutters.
The calibration on my Dundonian to English translatogram may be slightly off, but I think I detect slight antipathy towards Dundee’s other (adopted) sons.
“They’re just the new Coldplay, aren’t they?”
Next they’ll be telling us that they find Damien Rice ever so slightly over-earnest.
“We were on Later With Jools Holland with him, which worked out really great because we got to do ‘Superstar Tradesman’ straight after one of his slow acoustic numbers!” Pete Reilly enthuses. “Everybody was nodding off and then ‘boom!’ Tony Bennett was in doing a pre-record, so we were totally star-struck!”
Somebody who gets a collective View ‘thumbs up’ is Pete Doherty who, lest we forget, was the person who initially bigged them up in London music biz circles.
“We’re totally grateful to Pete Doherty for all he’s done for us, yet the other day I was misquoted in The Daily Record as saying, ‘We’re not like Pete Doherty, we’re not animals.’ What’s that all about?” Reilly scowls.
“They said that?” Webster barks. “Fuck ‘em, man, we’re not talking to them again!”
I vowed before starting this article that I’d avoid the words ‘A****c’ and ‘M*****s’, but like Alex Turner’s mob The View have learned at an early stage in their career how to say “no” and, when necessary, “fuck off!”
hotpress gets the former when, wanting a shot for our Valentine’s Sex & Love Special, we ask if they’d mind having their picture taken with a cutesy teddy bear holdingickle red hearts. An excellent putting of journalist and photographer in their place, which Keiren Webster goes and ruins by deciding that teddy looks lonely and should sit on his knee while we talk.
“They must have been feeling romantic that day!” the aforementioned James Endeacott laughs from behind his desk at 1965 Records’ London HQ. “They’re actually very determined about how they’re perceived by the outside world. They don’t want to be seen as ‘the next big thing’, even though that’s what they’ve become.
“You’d think with a number one album that they’d need their feet keeping on the ground, but I’m actually having to say to them, ‘Wow lads, look at what you’ve achieved!’ They’re so wrapped up in their little world that they forget how well they’re doing.”
Like all good rock ‘n’ roll yarns, the one about Pete Doherty bursting into Endeacott’s office with a copy of The View’s demo and screaming “sign ‘em!” is only partially true.
“What happened is that I went to see Pete play a show in Birmingham and his crew told me about this great band they’d come across in Dundee. I then spoke to Pete who said, ‘Yeah, they were amazing, you should check ‘em out’, so I got their manager’s number and asked him to send me a CD. I really liked it and in November 2005 asked them to come down and play at this monthly night I was doing in Brixton. I assumed they’d played Glasgow, Edinburgh and other places in Scotland but, no, it was their first time ever gigging outside of Dundee. They were fucking amazing so the next week when I left my A&R job at Rough Trade – which I’d been planning to do – I flew up to Dundee to check ‘em out on home turf. I thought I’d be seeing them in a local pub in front of 30 or 40 people, but there were 200 kids in there who knew every word to every song going absolutely mental. I was thinking, ‘How come I’m the only person outside of Dundee who’s heard about this – apart from Pete Doherty!’ The attitude in Dundee seems to be, ‘If the music magazines want to go on about Glasgow and Edinburgh all the time, fine, we’ll just do it our fucking selves.’ I’m sure The View had ambitions to go beyond their hometown, but first and foremost they wanted to be big in Dundee.”
Were the likes of ‘Wasted Little DJs’, ‘Superstar Tradesman’ and ‘Same Jeans’ already written at this stage?
“Yeah, the set they’re doing now is pretty much the one I heard those two nights in Brixton and Dundee,” Endeacott resumes. “Though it’s only just out, Hats Off To The Buskers was actually recorded last May, so most of the songs on it would be a couple of years old. A bit frustrating for the band in terms of having to sit on ‘em, but great ‘cause they’ve had time to start writing for album number two.”
How did The View’s Brixton gig compare with James’ first sighting of his other number one signings, The Libertines?
“I don’t think anything could ever compare to when I first saw The Libertines,” he admits. “That was like, ‘Oh my god, done right it could change the way people think about making indie records’, which in fact is what it did. The View are a natural extension of what I saw in The Libertines – they’re like The Libertines’ kids.”
Being so young and teeny-tiny – there are no Niall Breslins in The View – does Endeacott feel paternal towards his charges?
“Very. So much so in fact that despite having a stinking cold and really needing to be in bed, I’m going down to the gig tonight in Southampton just to see that they’re alright. No matter how well it seems to be going, I need to give ‘em that hug and little kiss on the head and say, ‘This is fucking amazing!’”
Anyone who needs to dab their eyes and blow their noses at this point in the proceedings should do so. While Pete Doherty is testimony to the booby-traps that await young musicians with new-found wealth and adoration, The View seem to be well capable of dealing with whatever comes their way.
“It’s like Jools Holland. I’ve been to the show with other bands who’ve fought and fought for the opportunity and because of that become overawed and don’t deliver. These guys, on the other hand, have had it fall into their laps so it’s no big deal and they aren’t nervous. The reason it’s fallen in their lap, of course, is because they’re brilliant at what they do.”
Given the art school indignities that have been heaped on us recently – The Horrors, anyone? – it’s refreshing to come across a young band that values songwriting over eyeliner, haircuts and trouser-width.
“Oh, it’s like the nicest glass of orange juice you could ever have!” Endeacott coos in agreement. “If The View are sending out a message it’s that you can sell a lot of records on your own terms and without compromise.”
Back in Dublin, and The View aren’t in the least bit embarrassed about their doting surrogate dad.
“He was crying last night at the Ulster Hall and saying how proud he is of us, which I’m not sure you’d get if you were signed to Warner Brothers,” Pete Reilly recounts. “The crowd was amazing. There’s a breakdown in ‘Same Jeans’ and from front to back all you could hear was clapping and cheering.”
And that dear reader is where we must leave young Steve, Pete, Kyle and Keiren for today. A bugger to understand, but impossible to ignore, ’07 really is shaping up to be The View’s year.
Pics: Graham Keogh

Hats Off To The Buskers is out now on 1965 Records.