The View
2007 looks to be their year... now if only they had a tour bus

(From left) Kieren Webster, Steven Morrison, Peter Reilly, Kyle Falconer

Courtesy of BMG

Dundee, Scotland is the type of place where, for fun, young people either play soccer or get drunk on cider—or both. So say singer Kyle Falconer and guitarist Pete Reilly as they squeeze into a well-appointed, if sterile meeting room at record company BMG’s Aoyama offices. Their first visit to Japan is also, it turns out, Falconer and Reilly’s first time outside Europe—and it’s an eye-opener.

In addition to promoting their new album, Hats Off To The Buskers, as part of the bill for promoter Creativeman’s British Anthems event, they’ve been sampling the culture, which apparently included teppanyaki and a bit too much sake the previous evening. “Last night was pretty rough,” admits Reilly. “I’ve been on tour for the last month, drinking every night just because it’s there and it’s easy. I’d never woken up with a splitting headache until today.”

Booze seems like a good place to start the discussion, as The View take their name from their local pub, the Bayview, where they first emerged out of the beer vapor. “A lot of bands have names with a big meaning behind them, like Joy Division,” explains Falconer. “We just took the name from the pub where we used to practice. We were stoned and it sounded good. There was another band called The View, so we made an agreement with them that the first band to get signed gets to keep the name. And we won.”

The View later got banned from the pub for riding a scooter across the bar, but the subsequent move to larger venue The Doghouse was to be a fortuitous one. It was there that they got their big break by cornering and busking for Babyshambles badboy (and Kate Moss partner), Pete Doherty. “We gave him a CD and he said, ‘Well come on the bus,’” recalls Reilly. “We never thought anything of it, but he must have passed it on to [record label manager] James Endeacott, because later we got a phone call from James from London, and he said ‘I’m interested in you.’ It was kind of weird. Everything just clicked.”

Get them started talking about Doherty, and they’re off. “All the press is wrong,” sputters Reilly. “He’s such a nice guy. When we were on tour with him, he asked us how much we were getting paid, and we answered 100 pounds a night. He started to give us 500 pounds a night off his own person. He’s a beautiful person and a genius. His lyrics are amazing, and people should write about what a good musician he is instead of his drug problem. Fair enough he’s got a drug problem, but so did people like Jim Morrison.”

Inviting The View to tour the UK with Babyshambles wasn’t the only way Doherty helped propel the band into the public eye. Last February, drummer Steve Morrison was arrested with Doherty for driving the wrong way down a one-way street in Birmingham. Already wise to the ways of fame, Falconer notes in his thick brogue, “It was good bad press, because it got us on the front page of the national newspapers.”

Still bearing traces of their start as a Beatles and Oasis cover band, The View also have a wildness about them that recalls American garage rockers like MC5 or The Stooges. This comes across in singles such as their “Wasted Little DJs,” the video for which, recorded at The Doghouse, reached the top of the UK MTV/NME charts the day it was released last summer. “It’s about two girls,” relates Falconer. “When we first started our gigs were mental. They used to come down and dress mad and go crazy. They also do DJ sets. They’ll put something on and then run off the stage and dance to their own tunes and then just before it ends they’ll run back again and put another CD on.”

The View may still be young and wild at heart, but they’re in it for the long run. “I think we’ll exist in ten years because we’ve known each other since we were like, 5,” says Reilly. “We’re not one of these bands that came together through university. We’re a real band, and we’ll stick together. There will also be loads of differences on our albums, it won’t just be the same shit over and over again.”

Now, it seems, all they need is a proper tour bus. “Every band has a mega tour bus, and we’ve just got this van,” he complains. “The record company is like, 2007 is going to be your year. It’s going to be amazing! We’re like, well get us a fucking bus then, put your hand in your pocket. You can’t write tunes on a van.”

Club Quattro, May 28-29. See concert listings for details. Hats Off To The Buskers is available on BMG.

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