For 70 per cent of most years, Biffy Clyro are either recording in Los Angeles or touring the world.
Scotland’s biggest band – Simon Neil and twins Ben and James Johnston – have lived in a suitcase since they
left Stow College at the start of the noughties.
But Covid changed everything and the band were plunged into depression.
Simon admitted: “Like everyone else it really messed us up. I suddenly began to think is music even important?”
Drummer Ben struggled the most. He put on a stone and a half and stayed up at night and went to sleep during the day.
He said: “It’s the first time ever we’ve had no schedule to follow. There was no routine whatsoever. We all got super-depressed. There were dark times and it was hard as hell.
“You are going from being on stage and having all this adulation and then that completely goes. You start to question your worth on every level.”
On the back of two back-to-back No1 albums Biffy were riding high in 2019, recording eighth album A Celebration of Endings, as they usually did, in LA.
Back in the UK they were ready to release it in May 2020 with a full touring schedule to follow. Then Covid hit.
The album was pushed back to August and became their third UK No1. They postponed their UK and European tours including a huge Bellahouston Park in Glasgow gig which was meant to be their glorious homecoming event in 2020.
It was pushed back to 2021 twice, finally going ahead in September at Glasgow Green – marking the biggest post Covid gig in Scotland.
Like other people having to furlough, the trio initially enjoyed the enforced strangeness of being home but after two decades of being told what they would be doing and where, the Ayrshire lads’ lives began to unravel.
Ben in particular found it hard to find a routine. In 2020 his brother James did lots of woodwork and Simon, 42, got an F1 simulator.
Ben said: “I finally took up running which pulled me out of a hole a bit.”
Usually he’s away most of the year and the last two years were the longest time Ben, his wife, their son and their cats have spent in each other’s pockets.
Ben, 41, said: “It was definitely a test of the relationship with the wife but we passed with flying colours. In turns out we actually like each other and get on as people.”
However, by 2021 the band members were struggling. Simon started writing just to keep his mind
occupied.
They converted a shed on a farm they’d used for practising into a studio and wrote their ninth album, The Myth of the Happily Ever After, documenting its making for the Amazon Prime Video film, Cultural Sons of Scotland, which streams from today.
Ben said: “We were rudderless. Lost at sea for a while. Thank God we got to make an album. We are so very lucky that we can do that.
“It made me appreciate so much what we have when so many folk couldn’t do anything.”
Simon added: “If I don’t have something activating and engaging my brain that’s when I can start to go into a spiral.
“I felt like there was a big gaping wound in my mind. I felt empty.”
While the group have made 10 albums – nine studio albums and a soundtrack to the film Balance, Not Symmetry co-written by Simon, none has been wholly made in Scotland and most were in Los Angeles.
Simon admitted: “It’s always been important to go as far away from home and feel like we’re in a part of the world where anything is possible.
“We’ve always been on the move and I’ve been scared of stopping in case it stopped the inspiration.”
The film shows the boys, producer Adam Noble and Simon’s guitar tech Richard “Churd” Pratt, making Biffy’s first ever Scottish album – not far from Simon’s home town of Ayr and the twins’ home in Kilmarnock.
The film shows them reconnecting with Ayrshire and reaffirming the strength of their bond.
Simon said: “I’ve known the boys since they were seven. They are twins so it’s almost a two-piece in that regard.”
Turning the farm shed in Ayrshire where they had rehearsed for 15 years into a studio was a turning point.
Ben said: “Originally it was just a shed and freezing cold. We had to plasterboard the whole place.
“It wasn’t a place to hang out. It was a room with a few monitors so we could hear ourselves.
“We did our tunes, practised and then left. We never sat around and chatted. Then before this album we had to get it studio ready.”
As well as draping walls with flags and banners thrown on stages around the world, the twins and Churd made it more liveable, creating a control room and a kitchen and living room.
Infinity Land Studios – named after their third album – was born.
Summing up the last two years, bassist James said: “So much has changed yet so much hasn’t. It’s still
us in a room trying to make each other deaf.”
The film will also see Ben’s cooking skills as he becomes the team’s chef with a menu that included a lot of haggis, salmon and Tapas Tuesdays.
He said: “Cooking is something I’m passionate about but this was almost camping-style cooking. I had two gas stoves and a microwave so I had to be inventive. We had no oven.”
The documentary was to be a making of the back-to-basics album but the boys, recording close to home, got to look back at their early days and talk about where they grew up.
Simon said: “Looking back I’m so glad we stood alone in our small towns because it gave us this strength, identity and gang mentality we wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
Early on the group even turned down a major label record deal to keep their name – the meaning of which they’ve never revealed.
After three albums in three years the trio are ready to play live.
After two acoustic shows in Scotland next month – at Glasgow SWG3 and Dundee’s Fat Sams – the group are hitting the US in April and May, returning in June to headline Download and the Big Top at the Royal Highland Centre outside Edinburgh before spending autumn touring Europe.
Ben said: “I can’t wait to get out there and see some faces again and make the connections we’ve missed so badly.”
● Biffy Clyro: Cultural Sons of Scotland streams on Amazon Music Unlimited and Prime Video from today.
