The View

Harriet Shephard has a chat with The View, or their drummer at least.

The View
Welly 22nd October

After their year of absence, The View mark their return with a gruelling tour of the smaller venues across England. Despite being dubbed by many as ‘one hit wonders’ after the ridiculous success of ‘Same Jeans’, tonight Welly is still heaving with a rowdy and enthusiastic crowd. The new single ‘5Rebbecca’s’ seems to have evoked a new faith in the masses that The View shouldn’t be forgotten just yet.
The room erupts as The View lumber on stage sporting unruly hairstyles and the heavily Scottish greeting of ‘you al’right you crazy bastards?!’ As they launch into their set the floor moves and bodies fly, the biggest reaction of course being to ‘Same Jeans’ and the storming ‘Wasted Little DJs’ that ends the set. Previously unheard songs such as ‘Jimmy’s Crazy Conspiracy’ go down well and promise a new album that certainly won’t disappoint.
The flaw in this performance however is that the crowd contribute much more than the band. The singer and lead guitarist do attempt to interact with the crowd on several occasions, but soon discover that in Hull, quickly spoken Scottish over a noisy crowd isn’t easily understood. The View play a competent collection of songs and look like they are thoroughly enjoying themselves, but somehow still manage to look like your mates band doing one of their first gigs in the local pub. This serves as a reminder perhaps that in age of the members and as a band, The View are still very young.
Although they don’t receive much banter and response from the stage, the crowd are clearly very appreciative of what they’ve been given. Between each song and during a ‘technical difficulty’ the united chant of ‘The View, The View, The View are on fire!’ thunders throughout the room. To complete their live shows The View may just need renewed confidence and improved crowd interaction, but this performance and their new material proves we haven’t seen the last of them.


Interview with Steven Morrison (drummer)

Have you played Hull before?
Yeah we played here with The Paddington’s, then ended up at some person’s house man, we just followed them down the street to it after(laughs).

And Hull’s one of your first stops?
Yeah, but I’ve already got blisters on my hands! They’ll like leather by the end of the tour though, we’re playing pretty much every night for seven weeks. They went all soft in our six months break after the last tour, so they need to toughen up again.

How’s living on a tour bus again?
Its great, we’re got a new bus this year very comfy! We had an old one last year which was great but after you’re spent a year and a half on it its nice to get a new one. We’re on it with our crew and support band who got chucked out of the hotel room last night for setting fireworks off (laughs)

Your playing just the smaller venues this time?
Yeah and some are really small, we played Newcastle Academy last night, thought it was great then they were like yeah your playing upstairs! (laughs) It was so much smaller than this.

How was making the new album?
Ah we had a bit of a rollercoaster there, a whirlwind, chaos constantly, but we got loads of work done even though it didn’t feel like it.

Much different to the last?
Definitely more mature, the songs are a lot bigger, more intricate and a bit darker.

The albums called ‘Which Bitch?’ was this named with a particular bitch in mind?
Ah no! It could be anyone could be a guy, could be a dog.

I hear the new song ‘Jimmy’s Crazy Conspiracy’ is based on your friend’s own interesting theories?
Yeah our pal Jimmy from Dundee, he’s pretty clued up but totally manic, really into pentagrams and all that. He says all the owners of the biggest names like Coca Cola and stuff are in cult together, that the whole worlds under a crazy conspiracy.

Do you have a strong support base at home?
Aye too strong! You can’t fit everyone on the guest lists, my Mum and dad came to our last one back home though which was nice.

Is ‘Same Jeans’ still the favourite?
Oh aye, everyone goes mental for it, we may aswell rename ourselves ‘Same Jeans’! (laughs)

You get on well as a band?
Oh yeah, if theres any problems we just sort it out with a scrap. We were fighting in an alley the other day with these three people watching looking shocked, we just ran back on the tour bus when it was sorted! They looked mortified to see us going at each other.

Did you attend any festivals this year?
Er V festival and Rockness, that had beautiful scenery it was on a Loch. Could see a huge lake and mountains around it, I don’t remember much of it though (laughs) just arriving and thinking ahh this is nice.