John Moore, the guitarist in Black Box Recorder, adopts a weary tone as he tells this story. “Our daughter said to us, ‘Have you heard of Billie Eilish?’” His response was not what she was expecting. “Yes,” he said. “She’s fucked up our retirement.” This spring, he, Luke Haines and vocalist Sarah Nixey (the mother of said daughter, though she and Moore are long separated) will return to the stage for the first time since 2009, in part thanks to their streaming numbers going stratospheric after Eilish posted videos of herself listening to their 1998 debut single Child Psychology.
The song, about a disruptive girl who has refused to speak, been expelled from school and fallen out with her family, is typical of Black Box Recorder’s obsession with psychological breakdown in a peculiarly English, often suburban and middle-class setting: stories related by Nixey in her sparkling yet deadpan vocals. It’s a mix that later broke Black Box Recorder into the UK Top 20 with 2000 single The Facts of Life, and produced three albums that still stand apart from the rest of British pop.
