BAND
On a Cricklewood backstreet there is a beacon amongst the broken down, brick ballasted vehicles and the regiments of roller shuttered garages. A shining bright light box bearing the baffling legend COMPANY IMAGE ANDORT. Behind the sign is a refuge. It was here that, in 2009, Longview came to die.
In the history of Longview we find encapsulated, the story of the music industry in the 21st century. The band was born in Manchester in the autumn of 2001 and in the autumn years of the industry as we all knew it. The young band got involved with a tired old major label regime that was chasing its tail as digital youth was pulling the rug out from underneath. Whilst balking at the hoops Longview were made to jump through by their label 14th Floor, front man Rob McVey, drummer Matt Dabbs, bassist Aidan Banks and guitarist Doug Morch somehow managed to carve out an impressive live career and one critically lauded album named Mercury.
The bands relationship with 14th Floor culminated in a busy 2005 when, after three and a half years of touring and after the third releases of both the album and it's lead single Further, the label decided that its marketing strategy of trying to mould the band into the various shapes of the posturing flavours of the months just wasn't cutting it. It was time for the second Longview album. The band went away that dark November to a small Island off the west coast of Scotland to begin work on something that would take over six years to finish.
Early 2006 saw the band deliver nine new songs in demo form to 14th Floor, among them the live favourite Fires and the towering crescendo of Why? This period also saw the band meet and recruit a kindred spirit - electronic wunderkind Ulrich Schnauss. The excitement within the band for this new collaboration, the new material being written and the possibility to expand the band's colour palette, was not reflected at the offices of 14th Floor. With every new track delivered there came a fading of the £££££ signs in the eyes of the label. Instead of nurturing a growing talent, 14th Floor knocked back every single song with the reasoning that - because it didn't sound like Franz Ferdinand - they couldn't get it on the Radio. The band was tied to a label that wouldn't release their music. The strain was too much for one member, drummer Matt Dabbs, who left the band in order to support his new baby girl in mid 2007.
Having slipped into a stagnant stalemate in Manchester, Dabbs's departure was the catalyst for change. The band relocated to London to search for his replacement. In a new studio space in Hackney, Longview continued to craft new material with a liquid array of drummers. Finally realizing that the label would never share the same vision as the band eighteen songs later, the band took legal advice and sited breach of contract on the part of the label to break free from the deal. Longview were finally released from 14th Floor in the Spring of 2008.
Liberated, the band geared up to finally make the record they wanted to make. From a long list of over 40 songs, 16 were chosen to hone and the band decamped to Dartmouth, Devon to spend July and August 2008 working on the album with Rob at the helm sharing production duties with Adrian Hall. The new found positivity took the band on a UK tour that September and the studio productivity continued into the new year. By March 2009 the album was nearly ready to go. That's when the band fell apart.
The pressure of the previous four years came to a head in Austin, Texas. The band were there to perform at the SXSW conference but the workload of getting to that point had taken its toll on an emotionally shattered group. Aside from the shows the band spent the trip fragmented and inwardly pointing fingers. On their return to London, Longview didn't speak for months. Again they changed location, to the COMPANY IMAGE ANDORT building. But it was just a home for the equipment. The album had been abandoned and the band was just a theory.
There was hope in the rough album mixes. Enough to inspire the band to play the odd show here and there. The band limped on into 2010 until the legs gave way. In September Ulrich left the band to concentrate on his various other projects. Then, in the winter, Longview decided enough was enough.
It was a digital spark that reanimated Longview. The members had gone their separate ways. Rob had set up CIA Studio in the Company Image Andort building and had started to build on his production career. The rest of the band pursued other musical projects and career options. Meanwhile messages of support for Longview were still arriving in the band's inbox every day. A quick search on you tube revealed the depth of affection the fans still had for this band that hadn't released a record for nearly six years, many people had posted their own videos and artworks for Longview's catalogue. The band was no more but it seemed to have taken on an online identity without its members.
Mere months after calling it a day, Rob and Doug were having conversations about starting new projects. One afternoon in late spring 2011, the pair met at CIA to run over some new song ideas. By the end of the afternoon it was clear to both that what they were playing was new Longview songs. The band made the decision to reconvene and to search for a permanent replacement for Matt. What was clear now in the full blossom of the social media era was that the identity of Longview was in the people that love the music. The band made a decision at that point to fully hand its identity over to these people. All future artwork used to represent Longview would now be produced by the audience. www.longviewmusic.com would be the portal to realise this.
Francesco Mendolia came to CIA Studio in the late summer of 2011 and immediately the band felt it had come home. The band distilled into a four piece again with Francesco on the drums harked back to their early incarnation and sounded more vital than ever. As Longview enter 2012 they do so as the incendiary live act they always were. The lost album tracks emerging for the first time appear with the widescreen scope of Mercury but with the orchestral strings replaced by the other worldly synth arrangements of Ulrich. The band has grown up. To get here has been an incredible journey.
GALLERY
