The original members of Razorlight have reunited after a decade apart.
Johnny Borrell, Björn Ågren and Carl Dalemo formed the ‘America’ group in 2002, before being joined by drummer Andy Burrows two years later, and they’ve announced they have all been back in the same room for the first time together since 2011.
As well as working on new music, Razorlight have announced a special live-stream gig on June 2.
On getting the band back together, Johnny told The Chris Evans Virgin Radio Breakfast Show with Sky: “Here we are in the studio and we’re going do some new Razorlight stuff and the big news is that we’re back with the classic lineup, so I would like to introduce to my right, the incomparable Andy Burrows.”
Andy added: “We are back together. It’s amazing. I didn’t think this would happen in a million years… this feels very special.”
Frontman Johnny, 41, reflected on their split and admitted he craved a normal life after years of non-stop touring.
On their breakup, he said: “I think it was really, really, really confusing but I just couldn’t say that because my whole reason for existence at that point was to deliver songs and to go out and sing them which is a very dangerous thing when you start to identify with your job more than who you are.
“I was disappointed, definitely but I think the reason I wasn’t really getting into how I felt about it was because, most people, having been raised in a culture where asking yourself what you feel about anything is the last thing you ever do. I can remember the first time anybody actually, a friend or anything, asked me how I was feeling about something and I was about 25 and it was my friend Francesca in Italy and she said, ‘Okay, so you’ve made it as a rock star but how are you feeling?’ I almost fell off my chair. I thought well, I’m going to take some time and it took me about 10 hours and a couple of bottles of Grappa and we got there.”
He continued: “We hit the road for about six years in early 2004. Just touring and touring and touring which on the one side makes you the best musician you can possibly be. On the other side it’s amazing and fun when you’re 23, 24 and suddenly all these doors are open and you’re going around the world … and really, really confusing after about four, five, six years literally thinking, I’d just really like to make a bit of toast or something.
“When we started doing it, it was our first job so you don’t know what’s normal and what isn’t. It’s a pleasure, I’m not going to complain about it in any way, but when it got really tight and you’re trying to do eight hours of interviews and shows every day in different countries … There’s a lot of pressure. You just think, well that’s normal. It must be normal to try and live on a bus with three other blokes.”
In 2020, guitarist Björn re-joined the band and Johnny admitted at the time that he was hoping to persuade bassist Carl to make a comeback.
Razorlight’s last studio album was 2018’s ‘Olympus Sleeping’.