Connor: I think the thing
that makes you so popular at the moment is because you seem to appreciate every
single thing you have. Like that story you tell about Radio 1’s Big Weekend
when you got the free dressing gown from a nice hotel but none of the other
bands cared. Do you think that’s why people are joining the “force”?
Yeah, definitely. It just means so much to me. When we write songs, we want people to know what we’re going through. When I wrote Cocoon and the chorus says “fuck it if they talk, fuck it if they try and get to us.” Like people around us are like “are you sure you want to put this out? There’s swearing all over it. You’re not going to get on TV or radio with that.” I just don’t care about getting on them kind of things. I care more about 100 people listening to it and going “that’s fucking amazing. It hits me there.” Than 100,000 people listening to it on the radio and going “I like this band”. I want people to not be able to stop playing us. I remember when I used to get in to bands and I literally used to get a feeling that I need to put this song on. I still do it, every day I play The Streets and I have done for the last 10 years of my life. Every day I have to listen to a Streets tune, it’s in me. That’s why I would rather sell 100 records to people where it fucking breaks their heart in a good way than sell it to 100,000 people just because it went to number 1. Someone made a fan account for me on Twitter, and it was a proper fan account and I just tweeted them telling them that they don’t need to do that. I’m not that guy. Do that to someone else, we aren’t that band. I hate it when people feel like bands are gods. We’re just normal people, you know what I mean? We smoke weed, eat jaffa cakes and we play fifa and order dominos. We do normal shit. I think that’s why people are banking on us because it’s just like how us two are now, sitting here in a pub garden. Like if another lot of lads came up to me and said to go for a drink with them, I would. I haven’t got a reputation, I’m not a celebrity. When am I not going to be able to sit outside a pub like we are now? I don’t think there will ever come a time because I’ll do it. Even if I was massive. It just makes me so proud that the reason people like our band is because they like us, not because of anything else. Not because someone told them to like us. 100 of those people mean more to me than 1,000,000 people forcing others to like us.
There seems to be a
difference from yours to anyone else’s “fan base”. They appear to be passionate
about everything you do but not in a over-reactive way or in a forceful manner.
They don’t just want to listen, they want to be involved. Have you seen that people have been making
fan music videos too?
I do like that. You know what I mean? I used to fan boy over people so it’s definitely there but I don’t want people to get so wrapped up in it. Like we met this girl on the ferry the other day, she was shaking so much and asking for a photo. So I made her sit with us for a bit instead to calm her down. We just chilled until she was ready to have a photo and then she got up and was fine. We just said to her that she doesn’t have to react like that around us, we’re not that band. We’re normal people and that’s who we want to be.I can’t imagine how that makes you feel. I was buzzing just from seeing it myself, man. Going back to Reading and Leeds quickly, you started that rumour during your Twitter takeover about Oasis. How has that gone down since with everyone?
It’s still insane that there was a guy running round the campsite at Reading, that makes me well proud. I wish I was in the campsite. I remember doing that with bands I used to go and see and they were good bands. They were really good. I never listened to a band I got told to listen to. That’s mint that is.
I was just at Twitter HQ actually and they were saying that apparently there was a massive backlash with the Reading and Leeds thing. But I met the girl who runs the account (@officialrandl) and she's cool as fuck. Apparently the festival had a nightmare with it because everyone was asking staff and the Twitter account what time Oasis would be on. They just had to keep reminding people that they weren't due to play the festival. The whole thing lost the Catfish and the Bottlemen tag and it was just "Oasis are back."
I was just a little shit in school. I like making people laugh. I got chucked out of all my lessons at school because I'd rather make someone laugh than learn something. When they invited me to do that Twitter thing, I saw bands not even turning up for it but all I thought was that's 250,000 people. I was using it to promote our album and putting our songs up on the account. People might think that's big headed but I was like that's 250,000 people on there. Like when they invited me to Radio 1, I went in and I was on a high. They asked me what they wanted me to play and I told them to play my band. I said "every time you play us, I get a bit of money; me and Larry can go and get something to eat." But every time I hear us on the radio, I just think about where I can now take my Dad out for dinner. He's looked after me for my whole life. After every song finished on Radio 1, I told them to play another song of ours. To me, it was dead funny. I like rattling the system a bit and when I did that Oasis thing, all they wanted me to do was drum up some excitement for the festival and I did that. They went mad and kicked me off. I started thinking about changing the Twitter password for their account and just taking complete control of it but I didn't want to get kicked off the festival. At the end of the day, it made people laugh. It could have made 10 people on Twitter unhappy but it made 100 people happier. That's all that matters, as long as people are happy.
That's the thing though. It seems like people are always happy when they're around you or listening to your music. Compared to other bands, I would say there's a lot more personality in yours, even when you are not on stage. Your social media presence is brilliant - is that something you want to carry on doing and keep that connection with your fans?
It is quite hard. When you're at home and don't get much time to yourself but I carry on doing it because I want people to know how much they mean to us. It's a way of expressing all that without physically meeting everyone. I don't like social media really but I feel I owe it to everybody. I just like making people laugh. When we're at festivals and we get to go in to hot tubs and that, I want people to know we're in a hot tub. Every thing we do, there's nothing arty about it. I don't time anything to cause a stir. The Reading and Leeds thing wasn't a ploy. The label didn't tell me to do it and to get everyone talking. I did it because I do whatever I want. I don't really think about anything. Everyone who comes on to our Twitter are happy aren't they? It's nice that. That's what it's all about.
When I go and see bands, all I ever want to do is come away from a gig and go "that was one of the best nights of my life." I remember going to see a band and my cousin broke his nose at the gig because he bumped in to somebody. I took my top off and I covered his nose up then we stayed for the rest of the gig. It ended up being one of the best nights of my life and when we left, the whole broken nose thing was just a massive laugh. That memory will stay in my life forever. I want people to go away and meet a girlfriend or a boyfriend at our gigs. I met a guy in Liverpool who told me about someone he met at our gig and now they're madly in love with each other. To me, that's the kind of thing that matters. Like you saying about you crying in the crowd, I don't think you're stupid for doing that - I think that's fucking amazing. I was close to it and I couldn't because I wouldn't be able to stop. I was so proud. We must have looked like dicks in front of the cool bands. At least I can raise my kids being able to tell them that their Dad just went for it.At least you know you gave it your all if ever something goes wrong. That's something to be incredibly proud of.
I must have been to about 6 or 7 of your gigs now and it always seems like a celebration. Any other gig I go to, I feel like people walk through the doors waiting to criticise.
I always see this on Twitter. I don't know if it's because I'm in it so now it's highlighted but I don't see people coming out of any other gig saying that's the best night of their life. I've only seen that at our gigs recently. For a 22-year-old lad, to give people the best nights of their life is crazy.
I've got an album out in 5 days!
On Monday (September 11th), we're going to be recording a new music video. It's going to be a footy video - I wrote the script. We're just going to have a laugh with it. So on the day the album comes out, we're going to be playing football. If we weren't doing that on album launch, we would be playing Fifa or just sitting in our garden chilling. And if someone rings us and says it's not charted or has gone to number 1, we wont care either way. As long as people own a copy because they wanted that album and they want to listen to us. I don't want people getting it to criticise it or whatever just because it's the trend, I want people to get involved with our music. That's the way I used to buy albums. You know Frightened Rabbit? Me and my cousin used to play one of their albums every day, learn it on guitar. Everything about it was amazing. It barely sold any copies but that was one of the most important albums of my youth.I would say that about your album though. For me, it is something I know I will be listening to for many many years to come.
Yes mate! That's what I want to hear. Things like that.