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Music Interviews Longview 
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| Longview |
| By Afsheen Shaikh | |
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Monday, 29 September 2003 Northern Stars Soaring to great heights with their debut album Mercury, Manchester-based Longview have set their sights to go further, as uk-fusion discovered from the band's soft-spokenly guitarist Doug Morch
 You toured for three solid months this year. How did you get through that? We’ve always loved playing live. People always ask “do you get jaded?” and it’s not really been like that with this tour because our profile’s grown. We started out quite low-key and we’ve had a lot of luck with our last single ['Further']. I think we’ve worked hard for it but it’s just good to see it grow. You saw the ULU (31 July 2003) show and we’re very proud to be able to sell that venue out - it feels like we’ve gone up that notch. In your own words, how did Longview come together? We formed 18 months ago in Manchester (I was the last to join). Manchester is a really vibrant place for music and we’re lucky enough to be part of that. We did a demo and ended up releasing it when we signed our deal last February. We released a few low-key EPs (one of which is ‘Further’ - the original demo version of our last single). We then spent a lot of time touring and getting our shit together as a live act (after we’d signed), recorded our album in Seattle, came back and then toured some more – in a nutshell!  What was it like to visit Seattle (a place which gave birth to grunge)?That’s what attracted us to it – the history of bands. Rick Parashar (who did the first Pearl Jam record as well as Alice In Chains) had heard our stuff and really liked it so he invited us over to record in a studio. The place is amazing! It’s such a vibrant, cultural city, surrounded by mountains. As far as climates are concerned, it’s very homelike ‘cos it’s like Manchester – lots of rain. We met loads of great people over there and just had a wonderful time recording Mercury. Comparisons to Doves, Elbow, Haven, Coldplay have been made. Did you expect this? I wouldn’t have any objections because they all write great songs. I’m happy for comparisons with that because the thing we’ve got in common is the songs. It’s all about the songs rather than any sort of stylistic bullshit. All these people write honestly and that’s what I think we do have in common. I can’t really see it myself though – the similarity in the sound, I suppose, is the nearest thing. What about Rob (McVey)’s voice being likened to Morrissey? Has that been mentioned to be you before? There is that, isn’t there? I noticed that. When I first joined the band, his vocals reminded me of Ride, whom I loved and I love Morrissey as well. Over the last year, Rob’s voice has taken on that quality, which I’m happy for. How do you feel about being tagged “Christian Rock” (albeit not in the same context as Creed)? Have we been labelled with that? In a review by Louis Patterson. Who’s that? He usually writes for the NME or used to... Oh, really? Well, we’re not actually Christian. Is it upon the assumption of your lyrics? I do think that’s missing the point a bit. You can talk about God and not be Christian. The theme of the songs have this hopeful, gospel feeling and the lyrics seemed right - we didn’t want to shy away from that. None of us have been to a church in our lives but I respect people’s beliefs.  What are you trying to convey in your songs and do you think that comes across?We try to convey every-day emotions and every-day life. We’re all from different places (I’m from Manchester, Rob and Aidan are from Winchester, our drummer’s from Sheffield) but the thing we have in common is that we’re all from suburban areas. We’ve lived the same sort of lives as millions of kids in this country and I think writing about every-day emotions like love, frustration and nostalgia - just things people can relate to - is pretty simple things but universal. In which direction do you propose to take the next album and yourselves as a group? The next album is going to be amazing. We’ve just recorded four b-sides over the last five days and I think we’ve progressed a lot. We may take it back to being more of a four piece and creating ambiances ourselves rather than having big string sections. I'd say, it’s going to be raw.
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© 2004-2006 uk-fusion.com
All rights reserved. Editor: Afsheen Shaikh.
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