It was all going so well. Me, playing as Arsenal, enjoying a one-nil lead, albeit to a rather fortuitous goal. But I could sense the momentum had changed, my brow moist, my palms so slippery I was having difficulty stopping the controller from squirting out of my grasp.
That was when Larry, self-proclaimed Super-tech of rising Indie rock band Catfish and the Bottlemen and best friend of lead singer Van McCann, staged a three-goal comeback in the last fifteen minutes with his beloved Chelsea.
The FIFA gods were mocking me for their daily entertainment. Heart-broken, I muttered ‘good game’ and shook Larry’s hand. But by the end of the formalities, I began to count my blessings; at least this interview wouldn’t have to start with an official public apology – common FIFA etiquette for any defeat by a five-goal-or-more margin.
I was catching up with Catfish and the Bottlemen at the FIFA 15 Soundtrack Event, held in a swanky London office. The Wales-based band made it onto the popular video-game’s soundtrack this year, a true badge of honour for their front-man Van, a FIFA enthusiast and avid Manchester United supporter.
But we’ll come onto that later. First I had to enquire into the band’s sensational rise since the start of the year. In 2014, they’ve had three singles, all premiered by Radio 1’s Zane Lowe, welcomed a new band member in guitarist Elaine Bond, signed a deal with Island Records and now their debut album, The Balcony, hits shelves on September 15th. So my first question to Van was simple;
Have you been able to keep up with the Rock ‘n’ Roll pace of it all?
It’s been hectic. We’re all getting about two hours of sleep every night, it’s been like that for the last two years. It’s mental but it’s exciting.
More importantly, have you been able to keep up with the football at the same time?
It’s really hard to. We always miss games because we’re travelling. We have to check up at the airports and stuff. I’ve not really seen much of the start of the season; I’ve seen the first two Manchester United games, which I wish I hadn’t, and that’s it really. It’s hard to keep on top of it.
How was the album-making process? I hear some of it was composed in a Bed and Breakfast?
Yeah, pretty much all of it. We live in the back of a B&B, it’s class. From the ages of about 17 to 21 I just wrote, wrote and wrote, so when it came to doing the album we had a hundred-odd songs to pick from. At the label everyone went ‘take the first twenty songs, we’ll use them straight away’. So it was kind of spontaneous really. I think the album is class, the tunes are perfect in terms of capturing 17-year-old to 20 year-old life.
What about working in the studio, you know, like normal bands?
We didn’t really write anything in the studio. We changed a few things but everything was pretty much done and we wrapped it up in about three-and-a-half weeks. I don’t like being in the studio. I don’t like being in the same place for too long – unless there’s FIFA – so we kind of just smashed through it as quickly as we could and made sure everything was honest.
And how was linking up with Jim Abbiss (producer of Adele, Arctic Monkeys, Editors, the Kooks)? He’s already got quite a CV.
He’s a beast. Me and him clashed big time but in a way that just got the best out of us. He used to tell me things I didn’t want to hear and me the same to him, but always productively. We’d just fight our way through songs, but it was class because he wanted to put his stamp on it and I didn’t want to lose my identity within it, so it worked really well.
Where did the album name, The Balcony, come from?
It kept coming up throughout my life. I remember reading a poetry book when I was a kid by TS Elliot and I stopped at a poem called The Balcony. I don’t know why but it made me read it. To me it screams enormity, it feels like you’re looking over a beautiful city. When I wrote Cocoon, I went to New York and stayed with these girls in their apartment. I used to go up on the roof every night to write lyrics, overlooking the whole of New York, and I just thought, ‘the Balcony is a mint place’.
Are there any tracks yet to be released we should be particularly listening out for?
There’s a track called Hourglass which is the slow song on the album, and that’s the only song I’ve ever had to chase. Normally they take as long to write as they do to listen to, like three or four minutes, but that one took me a few weeks to get. It’s all one take; the guitar is slightly out of tune and it’s all not quite right but it’s in the middle of the album and it takes you off on one.
And there’s a tour coming up to support the album, where are you guys playing?
Everywhere. We’re going to America in two weeks for a month, then we come back for the first half of the UK tour which has sold out and in the middle we’re going to Europe before coming back for the second half of the UK tour, which is also sold out. So, everywhere man!
Is touring and performing live the band’s biggest strength? You guys seem to do a lot of it.
Big time. I never got into the band to sell albums or singles or get rich or famous. It was all about playing live and filling venues, seeing people go crazy and sing along.I used to watch gigs to my dad, I used to be in that crowd, so now it’s just an amazing feeling. To think ‘I could be the puppet master of this’ – it’s always just made loads of sense to me.
Everything we’ve done is to sell out gigs. I don’t know if our album will even chart because we’re still a cult band, but the gigs, we’re playing 1,500 capacities and selling them out in two weeks. The live shows are on a massive scale compared to where we’re at as a band. It’s all word-of-mouth, people are going because it’s a party.
As well as all that going on, you hit the festivals this year, Leeds, Reading, Latitude, Ibiza Rocks and Bestival to name a few. Did you develop a favourite festival by the end?
Leeds. We played Reading the night before and it was absolutely class. It set the bar really high, and we were over all the questions like ‘how many people are going to turn up? How many people know us? Are people going ping stuff at us?’ Then we played the gig at Leeds and it was just mental, everybody was buzzing. There was a moment, everyone was there – all our management and the label – all crying and that. It was a nice feeling.
So amid this exceptionally busy 2014, have you found time to play FIFA?
Any day off I play FIFA. My girlfriend lives in Scotland and she came down for a weekend, the only weekend we get off, but I pretty much cancelled on her because I wanted to play FIFA all day. It was grim, I felt so bad, but sometimes you need to.
Rate your FIFA obsession out of 10…
10. Well, nine because we can’t get to it enough. We don’t have it put into the dressing rooms but if we could, we would. Only me and Larry play it religiously though – when we get home we play it all night.
Who’s the best FIFA player in the band?
VAN: Me.
And the worst?
VAN: Bondy, our new guitar player. He’s so crap man, he’s terrible.
How about the worst loser?
I’m pretty bad when we’re about to go on tour. Larry gets all like “you don’t want you as the loser and me as champ for the whole tour”. I’ll beat him all day but in the last game he’ll beat me, so for the whole month we’re on tour he’ll be sitting on his bunk grinning like “what’s it’s like not being champ?”
And of course, the reason we’re here today – your single ‘Cocoon’ made it onto the new FIFA 15 soundtrack. How did it all come about?
We Tweeted FIFA asking if they could get us on the soundtrack. I don’t think bands appreciate it enough; when it comes out I’ll put a FIFA logo on our drum kit! I’ve never seen a band say ‘thank you, we’re on the FIFA soundtrack, go buy it’, so I said to the band we should promote it like mad. I Tweeted FIFA, and then our fans started getting involved, trying to trend the hashtag #getcatfishonfifa, so FIFA picked up and listened.
I’m more excited about that than anything; any tour, any album. That’s our childhood dream. It was massive for us growing up.
So our readers know what to listen out for, if Catfish and the Bottlemen’s sound was any footballer, past or present, who would it be?
Danny Welbeck. I love Danny Welbeck. Because he’s just a normal lad – he’s not a superstar – but he plays at the biggest clubs in the world. Everyone says ‘what’s Danny Welbeck doing there?’ and I think that’s what our band is like.
And how would you define Larry’s role in the band set-up? Would Super-Roadie be an accurate description?
He calls himself Supertech. I call him ‘Rock the Rider thief’ because he always used to come in and steal all our food and drink. But he’s just my mate. One night he said “pass me that guitar, I’ll carry it to the van,” and the next night it was “pass me your guitar, I’ll put it in the case,” and the next night it was “I’ll tune your guitar tonight.” It developed like that, until a point where I’m passing him guitars, he’s stringing them and giving them straight back to me.
We only started paying him two weeks ago – he’s worked for free for the last couple of years. We decided to give him a job instead of getting a guitar tech, because he worked his arse off and learned it all. He just became really good it at. You should see him at festivals bossing meat-head 40 year-old roadies around!
“Now onto the serious stuff,” I said to Van, an avid Manchester United fan, whilst trying to subtlety alter my posture as if we were both on Football Focus. What do you make of Louis van Gaal?
Well, his face looks like it’s pressed up against a window. He’s not been [at United] long enough to tell, but clearly his record is unreal. I just think he needs to get used to the team. It was left in a poor state and there’s this whole black cloud over him already but I think we’ll end up really high this season. We’ve got some good players.
And Wayne Rooney as captain, the right choice for you?
I don’t think so. I don’t like him – he gets a cob on. For me he’s lost his childish side. He’s lost the reason why you play football in the first place, and he plays like a player now, not like Wayne Rooney. I think he’d be better in midfield, pinging balls about like Pirlo.
Who would you have named instead?
There’s no real strong candidates. I’d take Phil Jones; he looks like a leader, he’s aggressive, he clearly cares about playing football, but he’s not going to play week-in-week-out. He’s not quite there yet. But I’d still say Phil Jones, if they made him a first choice centre-back.
The Red Devils have spent a ridiculous £150million this summer, also known as 4.3 Andy Carrolls. Which signing stands out for you as someone who can make a real difference?
Falcao is meant to be insane isn’t he? I never judge a player until they come to the Premiership because it’s a completely different game. I like Luke Shaw, and I like the idea of Marcos Rojo, but I’ve not seen him play. I liked who we had already though; Adnan Januzaj is going to be a top player. Herrera looks like a talent too.
We’ll see. Falcao’s the obvious one but everyone thought Marouane Fellaini was going to be decent, everyone thought Ashley Young was going to be decent.
Where do you think you’ll finish this year?
I thought we were going to finish first until the start of the season; I really thought it would be one of those United moments. Top five I reckon. On paper I think we’ve got the best team in the Premiership but Chelsea are class at the moment, Manchester City are great, Arsenal are good too. I think Arsenal might win it – I might put a bet on that.
Who’s your favourite United player? Past or present?
Paul Scholes or Roy Keane. There’s no players like Keane anymore. Scholes though, he played all of his career with one eye didn’t he? (Paul Scholes has continually denied allegations that he’s partially blind, but famously suffered from recurring eye problems throughout his career) He’s nuts, Paul Scholes! Imagine what he could do with two eyes!
And finally, on FIFA, I’m known throughout the London borough of Bexley (and small parts of Greenwich and Lewisham) as the Emulsifier. What’s your FIFA nickname?
(Van calls into the other room to ask Larry for some advice, who is now trouncing another budding journalist at FIFA. A brief discussion takes place) ‘The wrong kid died’. Have you seen that film Walk Hard about Johnny Cash and his brother? His brother dies and his dad says ‘the wrong kid died’ because he was the best kid. So I always say, the wrong kid died, as if the best part of me died and you’re stuck with the crap one.
Catfish and the Bottlemen’s new single “Cocoon” features on the soundtrack of EA SPORTS FIFA 15.
The demo is available to download NOW via XBox Live and PlayStation Network. The band’s debut album, “The Balcony”, is available to download from iTunes.