Beatles 24/7

Simon Neil on overhauling the band’s sound while centring their approach on basic decency…If, by some superhero future-vision, Simon Neil was able to see the condition of the world that ‘A Celebration Of Endings’ would be released just one year after writing the record, Biffy Clyro’s ninth studio album might have sounded something a little different.
“A lot of the lyrics have become so much more relevant during isolation while being locked down at home,” says frontman and genius behind Biffy’s lyrical magnum opus, Simon Neil. “I have a slight distance from the record this time since we’re not out performing it every single night.” 
Gaining a colossal tide of die-hard fans since their fresh beginnings two decades ago, Biffy Clyro have pushed their way to the forefront of British music. A slew of nominations have come their way, to prove that the Scottish trio have had one hell of a ride thus far. But now, back at the very roots of their fruition, they’re only humble about the journey which led them here.
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As Simon calls me from the band’s hometown of Kilmarnock, Scotland, admittedly wrapped up in a dressing gown mid-afternoon, he realises that this is the first time in Biffy history that the three-piece have ever celebrated an album release at home, surrounded by family.
“We’re normally half way around the world at this moment,” Simon laughs. “But there’s something so liberating about it. It stripped things back to the essence for me, making this album. All I care about currently is making music; me, Ben and James. My family are healthy, everything else comes and goes.”
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He relays the troubles he was faced with when creating the album; relationship breakdowns and the likes, all feeling minor in the face of the current world. But now it creates its own meaning, all eleven tracks melding together in a wave of gritty riffs and orchestral merit; with a conventionally Biffy ring to it.
The record’s finale boasts the enormous ‘Cop Syrup’ – a six-minute mega-track which runs through a spectrum of sonic influences, dubbed by Simon as “non-sensical, but hopefully also completely sensical”. Having recorded some of the tracks at Abbey Road Studios, the three-piece paid homage to their musical predecessors with the use of old equipment. “I remember sitting there after recording ‘Cop Syrup’ thinking about how I just played this orchestral punk-prog maze on a Beatles piano,” Simon muses.
“I cannot overstate how magical that place feels,” he continues. “Our producer is a Beatles fanatic, so he was there asking things like ‘do you have this desk from 1961?’ or whatever. It ended up taking over three days of recording just plugging in old Beatles equipment, and none of it even worked,” he laughs.
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Although Simon’s on-stage demeanour always resembles that of a celestial rockstar, his Spotify playlists stay true to the more softly spoken man behind the mask. From Tina Turner to Phoebe Bridges, his current music selection flaunts a range of unexpected influences. “For the last couple of months I’ve been obsessed with the new Fiona Apple record, it just sounds so free!”.
It wouldn’t be a far cry to assume Simon were a doting activist with an excitement and passion in his voice that only a songwriter of his magnitude can convey. “We’re going to lose a lot of the complications and things we were carrying coming into this,” he theorises about the world post-pandemic. “Sometimes I talk about the record and it might sound political, but it’s really just about decency.”
Even with 25 years of music under their belts, Biffy Clyro are still finding ways to stay original. Consistently enticing with a new latitude of sound and what feels like a lifetime of stories behind each album, there’s something so faithfully Biffy with each release. ‘A Celebration Of Endings’ is the perfect product of a time in which music is needed most.
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‘A Celebration Of Endings’ is out now.
Words: Gemma Ross
Join us on the ad-free creative social network Vero, as we get under the skin of global cultural happenings. Follow Clash Magazine as we skip merrily between clubs, concerts, interviews and photo shoots. Get backstage sneak peeks, exclusive content and access to Clash Live events and a true view into our world as the fun and games unfold.

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Fifty years ago, the Beatles went through rock’s most famous breakup. Inside the heartbreak, the brotherhood, and why the music still matters
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Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney declares in a new interview that there is a lot of “pressure” involved in making Instagram profiles appear interesting.
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Grand Analog is a raw collective of seasoned record collectors, musicians, and self-described beat junkies with music described as “a beautiful mess of rap’n’roll, dub, and soul.” Their latest release, 2013’s Modern Thunder received critical acclaim upon its release and led to the band signing with Jillionaire of Major Lazer’s new label, Feel Up Records. As for The Good Boys, this three-piece focuses on music’s golden past by nurturing the sounds and aesthetics of early innovators like The Beatles and The Beach Boys. The Good Boys celebrate a time when a dapper group of men dressed in suit jackets and neckties could turn a room of well-behaved teenagers into a teeming frenzy.
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Tracing the K-Pop idols’ challenging path…A week after this interview, the members of K-Pop group A.C.E. – Jun, Donghun, Wow, Byeongkwan and Chan – will meet their fans in concert. Like everything in 2020, it’s a streamed event but any opportunity to be in the company of their fanbase, Choice, is an important one. “Being with our fans who love us makes us feel even more complete,” says Chan, the youngest at 22. “That’s our driving force.”
This isn’t a new sentiment for them – like all idol groups they are vehemently passionate about those who support them – but there’s a deeper poignancy considering the challenging path A.C.E have walked since their debut in early 2017. Choice, they say, almost in perfect unison, have always been what’s kept A.C.E mentally strong in the tough early days when money and resources were limited, and when none of them knew where their careers were headed during long waits between releases.
So finding ways to be with their fans, whether through writing album tracks dedicated to them, video call events or digital concerts, aren’t just sweet gestures or business acumen, they’re lifelines.
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There’s also an understandable frustration: due to Covid-19 restrictions, for the past five weeks A.C.E have been performing to TV crews in empty studios as they promote ‘HZJM: The Butterfly Phantasy’, their first record in eleven months, which is a substantial period in K-Pop. The bittersweet irony isn’t just that there are more eyes on A.C.E than ever before, but that this is some of their finest work, from the exquisite teaser images shot in water tanks to live performances so uncompromising they deserved an audience present to leave breathless.
The EP’s title riffs off the Chinese fable, ‘The Butterfly Dream’, its opener is entitled ‘Golden Goose’ after the Aesop tale, and the lead single – “Goblin (Favorite Boys)” – bases itself around the playful, golden bat-waving goblins in Korean mythology. The video teaser – simply entitled ‘Opening Video’ – features dark fairy tale staples like spells, thorns, fruit and blood. Byeongkwan considers their affinity for tales to be a natural, effective fit for their song’s messages and “the good thing is that everyone knows the stories so it was easy to tell the story in a modern way.”
“Whatever you do, do it your way, don’t blame anyone / Be your style, your color, be one of a kind” raps Wow on “Goblin (Favorite Boys)”, a towering, muscular slab of pop-rock.
“There’s one message that we wanted to convey the most – don’t lose yourself no matter what happens,” says group leader, 26 year old Jun. He’s known for a physical, sometimes surreal, wit and elastic, spontaneous expressions but, equally, he takes his leader role seriously, dwelling on his replies. “A lot of people press forward because of their dream or because they’re being pulled along by someone or even because of competition. And because of those factors I think a lot of people forget who they are or what they like.”
Competition, and maintaining one’s identity in the thick of it, is nothing new to A.C.E who took part in the parallel-running survival shows Mix Nine and The Unit, designed to raise the profiles of lesser known groups at the time (Chan won a place in The Unit’s temporary group UNB and was absent from A.C.E’s 2018 promotions). During Donghun, Byeongkwan and Wow’s audition for Mix Nine, YG Entertainment’s CEO Yang Hyun-Suk made a snide remark about A.C.E’s eye-catching short shorts during performances of their debut single, ‘Cactus’. Main vocalist Donghun didn’t miss a beat, calmly pointing out YG’s own boy group, WINNER, had worn similar shorts for their own promotions, leaving the CEO speechless. To sass one of K-Pop’s founding fathers, the man who, for a short while, held their future in his hands, was wildly audacious.
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Donghun laughs at the memory. “I was like, ‘Whatever, I don’t care’,” he grins, “because we were confident in our dancing and singing skills, and the only thing we’d talked about [prior to the show] was if we show the world what we have, we’ll not regret it. So we didn’t worry.” This freedom of feeling is a vital part of the group’s DNA, from their busking days and the covers – whether it be 5SOS or Blackpink – they still release, to their vlogs and YouTube diaries in which they’re frequently chaotic, raw and unpretentious.
A.C.E are the only group signed to their label, Beat Interactive, which has helped smooth a way for their autonomy, but this alone doesn’t quantify the carefree authenticity of A.C.E. The first factor, Donghun says, is that “the company trusts us and just lets us make our contents.” The second is desire. “Above all,” he adds, “we want to show our daily lives, to talk about our offstage stories and natural sides.”
And while these are such advantages of a small label, the disadvantages can be intense. K-Pop is a costly business with comeback expenses running into the hundreds of thousands of pounds. Donghun has never experienced stress when “competing with other groups or other programs. The hardest time was when we didn’t know when our next album would come out, that was the only fear.”
A.C.E’s main comebacks have consistently been nearly a year apart. They filled their days with practising but time took on a painful slowness and Donghun admits that between 2018’s “Take Me Higher” and 2019’s “Under Cover”, he struggled. Jun empathises; he too has gone through “coming to peace with feelings of hardship and tiredness” on the long run-ups to albums, teaching himself how to see situations more positively. “That resulted in a deeper relationship between our members and [with] our skills, which allowed us to grow,” he says.
Their musical journey has been an exciting though creatively unpredictable one – from hardstyle techno to bubbly pop and blustery hip hop. It’s with the rock-tinged “Under Cover” and “Goblin (Favorite Boys)” that they’ve found their surest and flashiest footing, however, Jun, who trained for nine years before debuting, has no inclination to rest on his laurels. “It’s true these two songs showed the best performances of A.C.E but we haven’t wanted to limit ourselves to any genre since we debuted and we’ll try more diversity, we want to experience new stuff.”
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Byeongkwan agrees: “The genres have changed but the story hasn’t changed at all. On the next album I’d like a chance to challenge popular genres, such as Latin.” Wow is far quieter than his bandmates today but, given he’s the man who smouldered and thrusted through “Black and Blue”, it comes as little surprise that he’d “like to try hard rock”, much to his bandmate’s delight. Chan throws up devil signs, launching an onslaught of air guitar, Jun furiously drums, Donghun and Byeongkwan adopt The Beatles’ 1960s strumming head wobble, and Wow, with a sidelong glance, laughs at them.
Their trajectory in terms of charts and fandom numbers hasn’t always shifted in tandem with A.C.E’s growing sonic triumphs. A quick scan of stan Twitter and you’ll find the terms “slept on” or “underrated” frequently attached to their name. During this year’s On The Road, a series following A.C.E on a short trip, Donghun quietly noted that no one recognised them as they travelled, thus he needed to work much harder to raise their profile. “It’s not frustrating to the point where we want to give up or anything like that,” Wow interjects. “But we can have a hard time when the results don’t come out as well as how much we practised.”
It’s perhaps a strange crossroads to stand upon, to be loved so loudly and fiercely by their fandom, yet feel small in the wider scheme of things, but for Donghun it’s a better place than where he’s been. “At first I wanted to succeed sooner but I got resentful and frustrated,” Donghun says, neat in a black turtleneck sweater. “As time went by, [I realised] success is how hard I try and how happy I am every day. Living with the precious people around us is really important.”
The restlessness for momentum still lingers in their two youngest. Byeongkwan names himself and Chan, who listens intently and fidgets incessantly, as the most impatient of the group. “Honestly, at times it’s helpful because I can prepare non-stop. But it’s not helpful when I’m physically not in good condition, or on the psychological condition of our members,” muses Chan. To balance it out, his idea of what success looks like has evolved. “That we debuted and we’re doing what we love,” he continues, knees bouncing as he speaks. “Also being able to do what we want is fulfilling our desires.”
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Adds Byeongkwan resolutely: “After debuting, we shared all our goals and we’ve helped each other so much. As a team, we have only one goal and we go together.” What is this singular goal? Jun, Chan and Donghun begin speaking on top of one another. It’s not so much a squabble as a minor cacophony and ends as abruptly as it started. Byeongkwan pulls a face. “Ok, maybe there are too many goals….” he smiles as Jun doubles over laughing. “But there are so many groups nowadays,” Byeongkwan says resolutely, “we want to exist and last for a long time with our fans.”
A.C.E’s camaraderie is, for want of a better word, tenderhearted. For all the roasting and roughhousing that goes on between them, they’re also gentle and attentive with each other – ask Donghun for one of the biggest challenges he’s faced, and he says it was Chan’s absence from their “Take Me Higher” promotions. That’s not to say, however, life is always peaceful. “We’re all good when we’re at the dorms,” says Chan, “but when it comes to practice, we want it perfect so our opinions crash into each other. That’s the only thing we have arguments over!”
Byeongkwan insists they’re more “discussions” than anything else. A loud sigh escapes him. “Sometimes we fight dramatically, but we figure it out by talking.” Jun comes at it with level-headed practicality. “The best team gets stronger when they face difficult situations and win them together,” he opines. “That’s what we do. We have conflicts but we learn how to respect each other. It makes us more mature.”
This year has already been transformative. They’ve seen a 200% uptick in album sales. They performed at the Oscars afterparty for ‘Parasite’ (“We were so excited and still can’t believe we were there. After that we got more confident and it shows on stage,” recalls Byeongkwan), and scored their first nomination for first place on a TV music program. “Unfortunately we didn’t win,” smiles Chan, “but it was a really good memory.”
To get here, they’ve had to strive when others may have run out of strength. Theirs is a resilience and tenacity that began long before A.C.E debuted but continues to this day, and why the humble cactus – able to survive the harshest physical conditions, the title of their debut single and a recurring motif in their subsequent work – is their inner symbol. “The cactus has the meaning of being about our own self,” says Jun. “A cactus spends a lot of time and effort to make one flower bloom, and that really correlates to us in the way we’re achieving our dreams.”
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Words: Taylor Glasby
Join us on the ad-free creative social network Vero, as we get under the skin of global cultural happenings. Follow Clash Magazine as we skip merrily between clubs, concerts, interviews and photo shoots. Get backstage sneak peeks, exclusive content and access to Clash Live events and a true view into our world as the fun and games unfold.

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Hear our selection of the music legend’s best songs after the Beatles
The post 10 John Lennon Solo Classics to Celebrate His 80th Birthday appeared first on My Site.
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Once a Beatle revered as a hero, Lennon’s legacy has become as complex as it is staggering on what would have been his 80th birthday.
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Beatle John Lennon was born Oct. 9, 1940. We celebrate his legacy in his own words.
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Harris and Pence lock horns in vice-presidential debate
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris last night accused Donald Trump of “the greatest failure of any presidential administration” in history during a US election television debate. Hitting back, Republican Vice-President Mike Pence said the Democratic plan for the Covid-19 pandemic amounted to “plagiarism”. The Washington Post said Harris came out on top after keeping “the focus on Trump”.

Kamala Harris: will she help or hinder Joe Biden’s campaign?

New restrictions expected as hospital beds reach capacity
Covid-19 restrictions are expected to be tightened in parts of England early next week, with the closure of bars and restaurants on the cards. A ban on overnight stays away from home could also be imposed, as hospitals in some parts of the country run out of dedicated Covid-19 beds, the BBC says. The UK yesterday reported 14,162 new cases and 70 deaths. 3,145 people are currently in hospital with Covid.

Cabinet split: the lockdown hawks and doves in Boris Johnson’s top team

George Floyd murder suspect released on bail
The former US police officer charged with the murder of unarmed black man George Floyd has been released on bail. Court records show that Derek Chauvin posted a $1m (£774,000) bond and was released on Wednesday morning. Chauvin, who was filmed kneeling on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, is due to face trial in March on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

Ten defining images of the George Floyd race protests

Brexit ‘is sending UK towards dictatorship’, judge claims
The government’s approach to Brexit could send the UK down a “very slippery slope” towards “dictatorship” or “tyranny”, a former president of the Supreme Court has claimed. Lord Neuberger drew specific attention to the Internal Market Bill, warning: “Once you deprive people of the right to go to court to challenge the government, you are in a dictatorship, you are in a tyranny.”

The Brexit timeline: key dates in the UK’s exit from the EU

Could a Covid vaccine be available in UK next month?
Coronavirus vaccination jabs could be offered by the NHS as early as next month, The Sun says. Leaked documents have revealed a plan for hundreds of NHS staff to be deployed to administer inoculations at five sites across the country. However, delays to the Oxford University vaccine trial in the US mean that it could potentially be forced to restart after regulators have explored its side-effects, The Times says.

Human trials of Oxford coronavirus vaccine paused over ‘spinal-cord disease fears’

September was world’s hottest on record
Climate experts have revealed that last month was the hottest September on record around the world. Scientists at the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said surface air temperatures were 0.05C warmer than the year before, while parts of Britain hit 30C in September for the first time in four years. The record temperature for the month is 35.6C, set in Bawtry, South Yorkshire, in 1906.

Climate change: what is ‘the point of no return’?

‘Isis Beatles’ suspects appear in US court
Two Islamic State (Isis) suspects have appeared in a US court charged with the killing of four American hostages. Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, believed to belong to an Isis cell nicknamed “The Beatles”, are accused of involvement in kidnappings in Iraq and Syria. The men, who appeared in court via video link, have denied the charges.

Isis Beatles facing ‘fate worse than death’ in ‘America’s toughest jail’

World Bank warns that extreme poverty is rising
The World Bank has warned that extreme poverty is expected to rise this year for the first time in more than two decades. Defined as living on less than $1.90 (£1.50) a day, the pandemic is expected to push up to 115 million people into the category, as the crisis compounds conflict and climate change. The projected increase would be the first since 1998 during the Asian financial crisis.

Coronavirus: five ways the pandemic is increasing global inequality

Herd immunity would have saved more lives, study claims
Herd immunity could have saved more lives than lockdown, a study from Edinburgh University has suggested. Reanalysis of the Imperial College London modelling that led to the nationwide lockdown shows shutting schools and preventing younger people from mingling may have had the “counterintuitive effect” of killing more people, The Telegraph says.

Coalition of scientists call for herd immunity plan – so could it work for the UK?

Evacuations in Russia as munitions depot bursts into flames
Russia has evacuated more than 2,000 people from neighbouring villages after explosions at a munitions depot in the Ryazan region south-east of Moscow. The blaze was caused by a wildfire nearby and caused munitions to explode. Hundreds of firefighters were battling the fire into the evening as flames and huge clouds of smoke emerged from the depot, which is believed to house 75,000 tonnes of munitions.

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