Biffier than thou

Where: The Warehouse, Vancouver
(Bryan Adam's Studio no less)
Recording: 4th Album
Producer: Garth Richardson
(R.H.C.P & R.A.T.M)
Title: Puzzle
Label: 14th Floor
Website: www.biffyclyro.com

Why did you want to record in Canada?
Says Simon Neil: "We thought of a bunch of people we wanted to work with and they were all over this side of the pond, so it was always going to be away from home. we spoke to all kinds of producers - Butch Vig (Nirvana producer of Garbage fame) was one - but garth was the one we had the best vibe with. There was a point when we considered doing it in LA too, but we thought there woud be too many distractions. But it's not so bad up in Vancouver - it's quite like Britain in a way. We're also going to be doing some recording in Garth Richardson's home studio which is up in the mountains just North of Vancouver and you have to take a ferry to get there, so it's virtually as isolated as you can get. It's the first album we've done that hasn't been produced by Chris Sheldon, so not having him there took a few days to get used to the way he works, but I think Garth's doing a great job and hopefully we're going to make the album of our lives together."

How many songs have you written for the album? "There are about 40 songs written, out of which we're going to record about 15 or 16. We actually had an entire album ready to go around this time last year, but due to our record company problems, we had to bin it because if we had done the same songs now, we would have been sick of the songs before they'd even come out. That's part of the reason we work so fast; we get bored with our own songs so easily. In an ideal world, this would actually have been our fifth album, but it wasn't meant to be.

For a band as prolific as you, having all that time off must have been hard, right? "Oh yeah; how can you be a band if you're not playing or recording? There was a period of about 6 months when we were just waiting on the lawyer's to sort everything out (BC were previously on Beggar's Banquet). It was a total pain in the tits and you start to worry that there's not going to be an end to all of it, but hopefully it will be worth it in the long run. The fact that we are doing the album probably shows that it was worth it already. It's such a cliche, but the business side of being in a band really does suck the life out of you."

What kind of direction do you think this album will take you in? "I don't know how much you might be able to hear in the album, but the fact that we've been listening to lots more different music than we usually do is probably significant somehow. We've had stuff like the Cars, U2 and the Police on recently, which is the sort of stuff you usually dismiss when your younger. I still think the album will sound totally like Biffy, but for the first time we've had the budget to really indulge our ideas, so there's an orchestra involved, a saxophone on one track, and parts of the album are pretty over-the-top. I think overall it's a darker album, too."

Biffy Clyro always seem to have great song titles, so what have you got this time? "Well, some of the best ones include 'Drop It, Dickhead', 'Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies', 'I'm Probably In Your Pocket', 'Semi-Mental', and '9/15'."

Why is the album called puzzle? "Because it's going to baffle everyone!"