Biffy Clyro: "In mourning, you feel every day a dozen different things …" | The music

OAfter a covered June afternoon in a Scarborough park, Biffy Clyro's technical team is currently testing a new stage set. Jumbo plastic water jets that can be ingeniously illuminated from the inside have been stacked to create an imposing wall. The atmosphere is a mix of Tetris and disaster relief, which seems appropriate. For the army of fans who have helped propel the Scottish trio of non-convulsive rock people to reliable arena fills, Biffy is a group that could save your life.

Behind the scenes, singer Simon Neil is in a box dotted with health indicators: bananas, Berocca, or even a plant or two. After years of attending Neil and the twins Johnston, James (bbad) and Ben (drums), invariably perform a shaved game at the waist, it is almost disconcerting to see him in a sweater. He is on leave, but busy, eager to talk about Biffy's unexpected detour in the cinema. "I do not want to look like a wanker," says the 39-year-old, "but I would love to do a movie someday."

In May, the band released by surprise Balance, Not Symmetry, an eclectic album of soundtracks that zigzag between hot rock and delicate piano instruments. The film of the same name was presented at the Edinburgh Film Festival last month and is due out in August. A collaboration with the independent Welsh filmmaker Jamie AdamsCaitlyn, an American student – played by Laura Harrier of BlacKkKlansman – is trying to finish her final year at the Glasgow School of Art while facing the death of her father. It is emotionally crude, but often agreeably dreamy, with sequences where the soundtrack takes over while the characters seek an emotional or hedonistic release.

Adams approached the group in July 2017 with the idea of ​​building a film around a bespoke Biffy album. Neil, the main songwriter, was intrigued but initially skeptical. "I did not want it to be just someone who thought," Can we use your name and your fans? " "Not that we are Beyoncé or anything," he says. "I did not want it to be a musical, I did not want to name the characters of the songs. I wanted the record to be his own thing. It had to exist by itself, just as the film had to exist by itself, but also feed on each other. "

At about the same age, Adams and Neil had overlapping tastes in movies and music, but they also discovered that they had both lost their mothers in their early twenties. Discussing how they had managed – or not – had become the heart of the story. "We kind of made some connections," Neil said ironically. "A lot of fun discussions about grief." In hindsight, they realized that their artistic activities had helped them overcome the serious emotional consequences. "We already had a channel for that, and that's why, in the movie, Caitlyn is a painter. She has this kind of connection with her art, like me with music and Jamie with the movie. It was really important that we keep this. Because if I had not had music, I would be a completely different person. I would have cried differently.

Neil was also intrigued by Adams' naturalistic approach of encouraging actors to improvise at the moment while working from a general plot plot. "We held a dozen brainstorming sessions over the phone," he says. "I would send a melody to Jamie and he would tell me what he felt about the music." In the end, Neil shares a credit for the film, which surprised him but delighted him after six intense months. "In everything we work on, you have to engage fully and have almost the impression of drowning," he says. "You're struggling with all of this, then you take air and all that makes sense, and I felt it was what Jamie was doing too."

Return to October 2018 and the filming of Balance, Not Symmetry is in full swing. A cavernous arts hall in Glasgow has been transformed into a conference room and filled with a host of extras young students, with stars Harrier and Bria Vinaite, the star of The Florida Project group, discreetly arranged in a middle row. In general, you can expect to find a director who coordinates the plans for a nearby video village, but as the conference progresses, Adams stands behind his traveling senior cameraman as if he was a team of two people.

Adams has been a thrifty and prolific producer of improvised comedies led by a woman – including Wild Honey Pie !, with Jemima Kirke, and Alright Now, with sometimes Shield's agent Cobie Smulders, but Balance, Not Symmetry is a return to his more dramatic roots. "When I started, I was trying to be like [Federico] Fellini, trying to be incredibly artistic, "he says during a break between two formations. "I was 27 years old and had just had my first child and my wife said," Can you possibly make movies that could be sold? People that people could watch? ". That's what put me on the road to comedy. "

Since his teens, Adams had the idea of ​​making a film that reflected and channeled an album. It was simply a matter of finding the right artist. It was finally his brother, a musician, who brought him back to Biffy, a band Adams had been inundated with when he saw them for the first time in 2003. "I really liked their music and I knew to how exciting it could be create a movie with that really epic sound supporting it. Then we started talking properly and the fact that Simon had also lost his mother … it was after this discussion that we really worked on the functioning of the story. "

Although their tone is very different, the conceptual touchstone was Quadrophenia, Who's 1973 double rock-opera album, which would become a film six years later. "The idea has always been that the album comes out first," says Adams. "So, the fans will have heard the songs and have their own feelings about them and they will bring all this when they come to see this new interpretation."

How was it essentially to hear his own personalized album of Biffy Clyro? Adams smiles. "It was very exciting," he says, "but when Simon finally sent me all the music, it put a bit of pressure because I had to deliver my part. those people you meet in life and you say, "Oh my God, being like you would be amazing, but also very scary." He can not control the fact that he's full of ideas, genius and energy. "

Back in Scarborough, Neil distractedly used the word "chuffed" to describe his feelings about the end of the film and can not briefly forget the sound of Partridge-esque. "Totally happy – chuffed!" He shakes his head and resets himself. "Proud. I am proud. Divided from the film, the soundtrack of Balance, Not Symmetry is even larger than Biffy's usual album. "The music is really eclectic because in mourning, you're not only sad, but upset, you feel a dozen different things every day," says Neil. "Some days, you feel very tolerant and later, you may feel like you just want to stop it.

Neil also credits Adams for pushing him out of his usual discomfort area. "At one point, Jamie was telling me," This scene must feel like a climax of joy "and most of my songs have a real sadness, even the happiest ones, so I had to consciously be a little happier. Fortunately, the recording sessions also had clearer moments. "It was one of our most entertaining moments in the studio, our producer Adam Noble was really dedicated to it, working day and night – we were throwing him everything, whether it was a ukulele, the Step recording or screaming through a megaphone.

The title was originally intended for a book on which Neil was working half-way, a phrase that made him vibrate in his head for years. "It's a kind of mantra for me, I say it myself when things do not plan," he says. "Things are never going to be perfect, it's about finding a balance. As soon as I spoke to Jamie, he loved it. I think some producers were the type: it's terrible, it's too wordy … who has a comma in the title of the film?

The same week, the soundtrack came out, Biffy officially started recording their next studio album – their eighth – in Los Angeles. After their last two albums made their debut at No.1, there is a certain level of expectation, but Neil seems impatient and energetic. "I just loved going out the Libra album to do its work and then the movie will come out and do its job, rather than telling us about it six months in advance," he says. "It was really nice to leave, to listen to music, we are already working on the next one." After making friends with Danny Elfman and Clint MansellNeil is also optimistic about upcoming film projects. "The next step would be to try to make a soundtrack less of one side of the song, to build on some of my old violin lessons."

Given the current Hollywood mania of rock biopics, it is surely only a matter of time before the best Ayrshire exports are treated the same way. Matt Cardle, the 2010 X Factor winner who took Biffy by proxy with his Many of Horror cover, would probably be ready for a cameo, as well as Nick Knowles, who dropped Biffy in the movie I & # 39; A Celeb last year. Neil laughs.

"We might need to do some more legendary or iconic things before we can justify that. But never say never. And who could play them? James McAvoy seems to be a long lost Johnston brother.

"McAvoy is shouting," Neil says. "But just bring him to do what he did in Split and play against us three."

• Balance, Not Symmetry goes out in selected theaters on August 1st