Say hello to your new favourite band. Scruffy, spotty and with an ear for uplifting garage-pop, The View pack 10 years of rock history into riotous three minute salvos.
You’ll hear echoes of Oasis in their yearning yob anthems, strains of Arctic Monkeys and The Libertines in those gutbucket riffs and songs of struggle, brotherhood and redemption.
Fittingly, the Dundee foursome, none a day over 20, blagged their way onto the indie mothership with the assistance of alt.pop’s preeminent gadfly, Pete Doherty.
“Babyshambles were playing in Dundee so we hung around outside the venue until Pete came along and then we did a few songs for him,” explains The View’s songwriter Pete Reilly over a sandwich at LAX airport, Los Angeles. “He must have liked what he heard because he asked us to open for him that night.”
Signed after only two headline concerts to 1965 Records, a new label run by respected A&Rman James Endeacott (credited with discovering The Libertines and The Strokes) The View have acquired an impressive rag-tag of celebrity admirers. Noel Gallagher was an early fan; they’ve toured with Babyshambles and Primal Scream (during a rather surreal appearance on Sky’s Soccer AM recently Scream bassist Mani declared The View singer Kyle Falconer the world’s best frontman). And two nights ago, when The View made their US debut at New York’s Mercury Lounge, Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand was there to see what the excitement was about. Afterwards, he requested to have his picture taken with the band.
“Tonight we’re doing the Viper Room in LA but we’re not sure whether Johnny Depp is going to be there,” adds Reilly, displaying the full breadth of his talents by holding a conversation and stuffing a turkey bagel into his mouth at the same time. “We’re not that bothered because we do know that Tim Burgess from The Charlatans is coming. That’s good enough for us.”
Predictably The View’s youth and blissfully bedraggled music have earned comparison with the Arctic Monkeys. Indeed, in the US they are referred to routinely as the ‘Scottish Monkeys’. This doesn’t seem to bother Reilly especially. Asked whether The View feel any rivalry towards the Sheffield urchins, he shrugs his shoulders and concentrates on his sandwich.
“To be honest, I can understand why people would compare us, what with our ages and everything. But I’m not sure it goes any further than that. Musically, I think we’re coming from a different angle. Y’know, we’re just very different bands.”
Impartial observers may beg to differ. Certainly, The View’s debut album, Hats Off To The Buskers, shares much of its make-up with the Monkeys’ Whatever People Say I Am.... Lyrically, Reilly inhabits a distinctly Monkeys-tinged universe: he writes about chip-shop rucks, still-born relationships, the weirdly comforting oppressiveness of provincial life.
“All of that album is about growing up in Dundee,” he says. “People from Dundee will recognise an awful lot of it. Of course, now that I’m living my life in airports and hotels, it’s going to be harder. I’m going to have to start finding something new to inspire me.”
For now, The View appear determined to hold true to rock’s hoariest dictum: thou shalt party hard and often. While they haven’t yet chucked any televisions out hotel windows, or driven a Bentley into a swimming pool, there was the small matter of £4,000 worth of damage caused to a Birmingham Travelodge.
“We were staying in a Travelodge with Primal Scream before Christmas. It was 7am and someone in the band had decided they wanted to run a bath. Then we got invited to a party. So we just dropped everything and left, forgetting to turn off the bath. Of course, it flooded the room. Now Travelodge are looking for four grand from us. What can I say – we’re one of those bands who like to live it up a bit.”