Interview No Rest For The Wicked: Biffy Clyro

When most artists decide to take a bit of downtime between records, it’s usually marked by a long stint away from social media, maybe a holiday, or just a bit of good old-fashioned quiet. What isn’t normally involved is the making of not one but two new records on the side.

However, for Biffy Clyro, that turned out to be exactly what would happen. Having released seventh album ‘Ellipsis’ back in 2016, they soon hit the top of the charts, securing themselves as one of the UK’s Biggest Rock Bands™ once more, and subsequently set off on a world tour of giant venues and festivals for the best part of eighteen months. But rather than deciding to put their feet up until LP8 came calling, they soon confirmed plans for two new projects. First up, the trio swapped their noisier offerings for the more stripped-bare MTV Unplugged tour, which would later birth its own new release; then, they turned their hand to film scoring. That soundtrack, ‘Balance, Not Symmetry’, landed last May.

Back to the present day, just a few weeks into a new decade, and Biffy are ready to pick up where ‘Ellipsis’ left off. “Like most records, there’s always a real fear that potentially what you’re doing is going to be the worst thing you’ve ever done, which I think probably gives me a certain level of comfort,” laughs frontman Simon Neil, as he sits alongside his bandmates in a record label office. Yet, as it turns out, the process of making both their MTV Unplugged and ‘Balance…’ records worked as more of a palate cleanser than they’d potentially anticipated. “Putting out ‘Balance…’ last year, it liberated us, and made me remember the pure joy of writing music,” he admits. “[Albums are] all so contextualised normally. You know, this [new album] is a big record release, so by the time it comes out, we’ll have talked it sideways, whereas with ‘Balance…’, we didn’t have to talk about it at all. That really influenced and infiltrated this record a lot more than I think we’d have anticipated.

“[It was the same with] ‘Unplugged’ as well… We loved that tour, it’s a lot of fun to do a tour sitting down - and clothed!” he chuckles. “But it made me realise that we’re not at that stage as a band yet. I knew when we did it, some people would think, ‘OK, Biffy will become that band now.’ But with ‘Balance…’ and this record, they’re a reaction to that. No, we’re not maturing in any way! We’re still unlearning in every way possible.”