Biffy Clyro had an “existential crisis” in lockdown.
Frontman Simon Neil has admitted he and his bandmates – twins Ben and James Johnston – had doubts about the “value of music” and felt like “three unemployed amateur musicians” amid the global health crisis, but instead of wallowing in self-pity, the heavy rock trio took the negative thoughts and channelled them into their “positive” new album, ‘The Myth Of The Happily Ever After’.
The ‘Wolves of Winter’ rocker told The Sun newspaper of the past year or more: “Ben and James didn’t see each other for the first three months of the pandemic, which is the longest time apart in their entire life.
“It was weird enough for me not to see them so I can only imagine what a head f*** it was for them.
“So to be able to get back together and have a bit of normality and feel like musicians again was inspiring. We’ve been doing this non-stop for 20 years and we lost our purpose.
“We all had an existential crisis, and questioned whether music had any value. I questioned everything and manifested it all into positive energy on this album.”
The Scottish group’s upcoming ninth studio album is set to arrive just over a year after chart-topper ‘A Celebration Of Endings’, on October 22, and Simon insisted they never intended to record another LP, and didn’t even tell their record label that they had recorded it at their remote farmhouse in East Ayrshire.
The 42-year-old singer said: “We didn’t stop after ‘A Celebration Of Endings’.
“Making that album and not being able to tour it meant the creative energy was still there and so by the tail end of last year I’d written a bunch of new songs and before we knew it we were like, ‘F***, we are working on a new record’.
“And it was an amazing feeling as we’d felt like three unemployed amateur musicians for the past year.”