What would you say if I told you one of today’s hottest alt.rock bands started out as a skiffle band? I suppose you could point out the Beatles did, too. I would then point out that was then, 40 or is it 50 years ago, and today is today and people don’t do skiffle anymore. Well, Razorlight did.
Razorlight is one of the hottest, most talented bands of the post-punk revivalist generation – other notable bands include The Libertines, Arctic Monkeys, and Franz Ferdinand. Razorlight are Björn Ågren (guitar), Carl Dalemo (bass), Andy Burrows (drums) and Johnny Borrell (frontman/singer/songwriter). They came together in the summer of 2002 when Borrell and Ågren bumped into each other at a Queens Of The Stone Age gig. The rest seems to be lost in the evanescence of time and rock folklore.
In fact much of Johnny’s early career seems to be hearsay and misrepresented innuendo. It is rumored that he once played bass for The 
Libertines but was thrown out for unreliable behaviour. Johnny says this is patently untrue. It is also rumoured that the two bands wrote songs about one another, including the Libertines “The Boy Looked at Johnny” and Razorlight’s “Up All Night” – about kicking a drug habit. Could it be directed at Pete Doherty?
What is true? Johnny Borrell grew up in the posh Muswell Hill area of London and attended the wealthy public school (private prep-school) Highgate School with The Libertines former bassist and current Yeti frontman John Hassall. Johnny is a cricket fan and is purportedly a member of the Middlesex County Cricket Club. Borrell is also notoriously arrogant, making several Lennon-esque claims. NME magazine quoted Johnny as saying he was the “greatest songwriter of our generation” and “better than Dylan”. Johnny and his supporters have always claimed NME misrepresented him and took the quotes out of context.
So with all this in mind, I was expecting to be faced with an arrogant, self-important, narcissistic rock star when I had the opportunity to interview Johnny on the phone just before Razorlight’s appearance on CBS’s Late Night with David Letterman. What I encountered was an intelligent, polite, humorous man who spoke very quietly but sounded tired and a bit fed-up. He was anything but arrogant.
The first question was of course – how’s the tour going? And Johnny’s answer was “We’re not currently on tour at the moment.” Razorlight are meant to be touring with Keane. However when Keane frontman Tom Chaplin was recently admitted into drug rehab in England, Keane had to cancel their dates forcing Razorlight to do the same.
Then to add insult to injury Johnny’s favourite one-of-a-kind guitar was stolen after the flight from England to New York. But they performed their new single “America” for Letterman anyway. A song about which Johnny – a very prolific songwriter – says “I was sitting in Columbus Ohio, and it just came into my head. Just like that, completely, fully formed.”
Razorlight’s new self titled album and the much anticipated follow-up to Up All Night has been getting much critical acclaim and is a fabulous, emotionally compelling work. And what is Johnny hoping Razorlight will accomplish? “To create a place in the world that belongs to Razorlight. That is Razorlight’s. A place we can be without comparisons.”
This is no doubt as a result of those who, with their debut album Up All Night, accused Razorlight of being unoriginal and lacking any imagination. They have been accused by many critics of borrowing heavily from other bands, notably The Strokes. Up All Night polarized popular opinion. Q Magazine wrote “As with the other great British debut of 2004 so far, by Franz Ferdinand, Up All Night ripples with cocksure sangfroid and a barely contained sexual fever.” 
But in a review of the same album CokeMachineGlow said “Razorlight is nearly everything wrong with rock and roll today.”
And what was Johnny’s answer when I asked him how he felt about being called, in effect, a clone? He just laughed quite heartily and said “Well, what do you think I feel?” He went on to say that “As a musician all that stuff isn’t really a big deal because you know every other band that has ever been, has gone through exactly the same thing from the very beginning. That’s just the way it goes.”
Razorlight is available on Amazon.com now just by clicking the link above. If you would like to listen to Razorlight you can visit their MySpace space. Or you can go to the Razorlight website.
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