Music: Bombay Bicycle Club
Jeff Hemmings talks to guitarist Jamie MacColl
Named rather inappropriately after an Indian restaurant in London, BBC have nevertheless risen through the ranks of indiedom, continuing to make exceptional, thoughtful and often euphoric music. It’s been a hell of a journey for this unlikely rock band who initially broke through via Virgin’s Road to V Battle of the Bands competition in 2006.
Guitarist Jamie MacColl, singer and songwriter Jack Steadman and drummer Suren de Saram met at school when they were 15. With the addition of bassist Ed Nash the line up was complete, but it wasn’t until they left school in 2008 that they decided to immerse themselves fully into music.
So Long, See You Tomorrow is their fourth long player, and another unqualified success. Between 2009 and 2011 they released three albums, but this one has been three years in the making, and one they self-produced. “We were our own worst critics,” says guitarist Jamie MacColl, about the making of the record. “If something wasn’t good enough we didn’t need to be too diplomatic. There are no fillers on this one. But we’re like a family, really close.
“We took more time recording this one – it’s our most experimental and honest record yet. Island [their label] just let us get on with it.”
Steadman is the main writer, but MacColl, who comes from the MacColl-Seeger family lineage would often send him some inspiration in the form of books and poetry. And with his education having being unexpectedly cut short by the
demands of music, he’s looking forward to rekindling his formal education “I really wanted to go to university, and I thought I would. I thought I would follow my mum, who did English. But I am going to do an open university course, get some intellectual stimulation.”
With his grandfather being the great Ewan MacColl, and his Grandmother Peggy Seeger (his uncle was the recently deceased Pete Seeger), does folk music play any part in BBC? “Ewan died when I was a just a few months old, but Peggy sang lots of folk songs for us kids, and we’d listen to it in the car, but I don’t think what I or we do is folk music. I don’t think people make proper folk music anymore.”
Concert Hall, Brighton Dome, Tuesday 18 March, 7pm, £20.50
