The View are a Scottish indie rock band. They incorporate various styles such as punk, pop, alternative rock, pop punk, powerpop and folk in their music. They are best known for their 2007 single “Same Jeans” which reached number 3 on the UK Singles Chart. The band are currently signed to 1965 Records and their first single, “Wasted Little DJs”, was released on 12 August 2006. The single entered the MTV2/NME charts on 9 July 2006, eventually reaching number one on 13 August 2006. On the same day, the song reached number 15 in the UK Singles Chart.
The View released their debut album Hats Off to the Buskers on 22 January 2007, which entered the UK Album Chart at number one the following week. It was nominated for the 2007 Mercury Music Prize.
SUNDAY 05 APRIL
THEKLA BRISTOL The Grove, Bristol BS1 4RB Doors 6:00pm Ages 14+
There’s a story Kyle Falconer tells that is particularly illustrative of he and his band, The View. In relating it he goes back to a day last summer. He was entertaining his band mates performing handstands in the kitchen of his flat. He lost balance, he recalls with a cackle, toppled and crashed down into an open dishwasher, impaling his foot on a carving knife. Bassist Kieren Webster took a photo of the resulting injury. It is a close-up of Falconer’s left foot – the handle of the knife protruding from the ball, the blade buried three inches into it. Here’s the deal. These days we bemoan the dearth of proper, death-or-glory, Devil-may-care rock’n’roll bands with tiresome regularity. Bands that exist for the thrill of living life to its fullest and that operate entirely on instinct. Well, The View is precisely that kind of band and they’ve been here all along. They don’t conform, don’t adhere to rules or make things easy on themselves. What they do is make music fired by passion and soul and joy. The simple details of their story are these: school mates in Dundee, singer/guitarist Falconer, fellow songwriter Webster, guitarist Pete Reilly and drummer Steve Morrison formed the band in 2005. Within two years they’d torn up stages supporting the likes of Primal Scream and The Babyshambles and released a hugely successful debut album, Hats Off To The Buskers. That debut fitted the post-Libertines music landscape of the time. The easy thing to do next would have been to stick to the formula. The View instead made a more challenging and diverse record called Which Bitch?, which ran a gamut from ramshackle folk-punk to sea shanties. After it, came the slick, sophisticated guitar pop of 2011’s Bread And Circuses. Great records both; but overlooked too – blame as much on the fact neither pandered to expectations, on a break down in relations between the band and their then record company, and perhaps too on the sheer wilfulness of The View themselves. Now, a year older, and maybe a little wiser, The View are back with new label Cooking Vinyl and a new album, Cheeky For A Reason – recorded in Liverpool with producer Mike Crossey (Arctic Monkeys, Foals) and the best thing they’ve done.
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