Kieran starts by telling me a little about their new album being slightly different from before and he hopes the fans will still like it. It’s more for connoisseurs of music and includes strings. He says it’s based a lot more on fantasy, not about wearing the same jeans etc, and he’s not sure yet what the reaction will be to it.

While I’m getting the microphone ready he points out some of his tattoos, including his ex-girlfriend’s lips, a heart (which his girlfriend drew on him while sleeping and so he got it tattooed) and a tattoo which reads ‘Busker’; which I presume is a reference to their debut album ‘Hats off to the Buskers’ released in January of last year.

(The riff for face for the radio is playing in the background)

Me: Have you ever tried busking yourself?

Kieran: Not really no. We played outside to people but no-one gave us any money so I don’t know if that counts as busking or not.

Me: Whereabouts were you playing?

Kieran: A load random places outside venues and stuff

Me: And your new album is called Which Bitch

Kieran: Yeah witch as in pointy hat witch on a broom and then bitch as in bitch. Kyle’s named this one so it’s what he’s come up with and it’s because it’s which bitch are we talking about as there are some songs about girls on it. But it’s just cos he’s obsessed with witches really.

Me: What gave you the inspiration to write about fantasy? Was it based on dreams or thoughts?

Kieran: I don’t know really, it was just what we started writing about. I don’t know, we’ve done the reality thing, there are still some songs with reality in it but we’ve made them seem a bit more, not just one dimensional.

Me: How was it having strings on your new album?

Kieran: It was really pretty cool, because I’m normally always against strings. If someone had said let’s put strings on it I’d say no, but we had this really good guy called Ollie from NY and he did the whole string section himself, like it sounds like a whole orchestra, but it was just him playing on his own. We were recording in Brixton and we’d email him the track then 24hours later it would come back with all the strings on it, so it was pretty cool. They’re not really, like, over the top kind of gospel strings, you know, like some people do. It’s sort of most staccato, one of the songs actually sounds like fantasia, you know that old cartoon (starts mimicking it) like that. Some of it’s pretty trippy and some of it’s not. There’s a song with Kyle singing and just one acoustic and them singing. There are ones that are really extremely different.

Me: Did you write any of them while drunk?

Kieran: Yeah we wrote all of them while drunk

Me: Are there many days on tour when you’re not drinking?

Kieran: Er, I never drank yesterday. I had a day off yesterday but Kyle and that, they kept going. There’s a couple of days off, every now and again. (Reputation as bad boys?) No, not really. We’re more just clumsy when we’re drunk, we’re not intentionally bad boys

Kieran: I don’t know. There’ll be some times I’ll have absolutely hundreds, well not hundreds but around twenty. What professionally? What makes for an alright show? I think if you go over, I don’t know, about five or six you’ll be playing a bit more sloppier than you did if you’d only had four. Sometimes you have ten, but it’d be better for you than for anybody else

Me: What are the after parties like? What do you do once you’ve finished a gig?

Kieran: Last year there were a lot of after shows but with the smaller venues you don’t really have the chance so everyone comes on the bus, for the after show. But the security’s freaking out because there’s always too many people on the bus, so I think they’re trying to organise a special VIP section in each of the venues, but that doesn’t seem to be working very well

Me: Why do you prefer playing at bigger venues to smaller ones?

Kieran: Well I don’t know, I like playing them all. I would say this is a smaller one compared to an arena or a festival. I like them all, I like all the different types of gigs.

Me: How do you find playing at festivals with other bands compared to playing your own gigs?

Kieran: It’s really satisfying if you get a whole crowd going at a festival, because they’re not all there to see you. When someone comes here to buy a ticket then they’re coming here because they’re a View fan and they want to have a good time, whether it’s really good or not. But if you get a whole festival going when they’re not here to see you it’s pretty cool.

Me: What’s your favourite festival you’ve played?

Me: Was that last summer?

Kieran: Yeah, that was last summer, yeah

Me: What started off your View are on fire chant?

Kieran: A guy at Leeds started singing it. He’s actually the lead singer of Kyle’s brother’s band, but he wasn’t at the time, he just came to the gig. He just started singing it and it really took off for some reason, I don’t know why

Me: So when you play London, North England or Scotland where do you find you get the best reception and where do you enjoy playing most?

Kieran: I enjoy playing in Scotland most because that’s where you get the best crowd, I’m not saying that because I’m Scottish or anything, it just is. We’re just like, sort of a bigger band in Scotland and most of the people in the crowd are mates so they go mental, but you get Newcastle, Manchester always good crowds. The further South you go the more reserved you get. But I’ve been to see some bands in London and the crowd don’t seem to move at all but we seem to get a better response. (Any tricks for getting the crowd going?) When you stop playing and start clapping is always good a good one. Let someone sing the chorus or something

Me: Have you ever done crowd diving?

Kieran: Oh yeah loads of times. Loads and loads of times. Haven’t done it on this tour yet, but we’ve got more stuff to think about now though. I’ve got the earphones I wear on stage now that I listen to the whole band through and they cost me like 5000 pound or something. High-tech so I don’t want someone to pull them out. (Any times not been caught properly?) There was one time, the first time we went to Japan we were at doing indoor festival and Ordinary Boys were on after us and me and Kyle were steaming, like really badly steaming and during the ordinary boys set we started dancing and jumped into the crowd and no-one caught us at all, we just landed on the ground. It serves us right though

Me: Where have you played outside or the UK?

Kieran: We’ve done Japan, we did do America until we got banned. Um, we’ve done Australia and like Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, like Italy and Holland. We’ve done all Europe basically and Japan, Australia, America

Me: Is there any chance you can get the ban changed for America?

Kieran: Yeah, we’re working on it. We’re working on it right now. Me and Kyle got quite a prestigious American award for song writing so that’s supposed to maybe help us out and we’ve not been in trouble again since, really, so...

Me: When would you like to go back?

Kieran: I’d hope to go back the end of this year. Do another big tour of Britain with decent sized venues, do the festivals and then hopefully we’ll go back to the States or something

Me: So you’re planning on doing bigger venues after this album’s out?

Kieran: Yeah I think so. I think we’ve got it pencilled in.

Me: What was the plan with doing smaller venues this time?

Kieran: It’s just kind of like where we started off with smaller venues so we thought we’d do it again and we have this thing to always make sure our tour lasts longer than anyone else’s in NME. So there’s a lot more small venues than big venues. We’ve always got the longest tour. (Any rivalries?) I slagged off the Keiser Chiefs when I was drunk once. It was my first interview with NME and they brought us beers and got us drunk so we’d say stuff. We started saying stuff we weren’t meant to and I started slagging off the Keiser Chief’s album, which I don’t like, but I’ve met them at festivals and stuff and they’re really nice guys so I take that back.

Me: Have you always wanted to be in a band?

Kieran: I’ve always wanted to be in a band yeah. I think so, since I was about 14, 13-14

Me: What got you to where you are now?

Kieran:  I don’t know we just started as a band in Dundee. We did the Babyshambles tour and that helped us out a lot

Me: Have you had a highlight of it all so far?

Kieran: I’ve got a few highlights. I think Glastonbury was good but I can’t really remember it, but I saw myself on TV and it looked like I was enjoying it. T in the Park, I loved that, and the rides on the helicopter. We played like a headline show. What other highlights have I got? Last year there were a few on tour, there’s too many good memories

Me: What about lows?

Kieran: Ah, there’s far too many of them, I don’t know. I can’t really complain about any of the lows because it’s all my own fault

Me: Have you had many slip ups on stage?

Kieran: Yeah, I decked it on stage a good twenty times. I fell at one of the arenas which hold, I don’t know how many people – probably thousands and thousands and thousands. I walked on and said ‘hi my name’s Kieran’ and slipped and fell on my arse. What else have I got? The first part of the tour with the Vines and everyone hated us, they wanted us to get off. When I came on and said ‘hi my name’s Kieran’ they all shouted ‘ah your zips down’ and I was like, argh

Me: You’ve said before that your influences were Crowded House, Beatles and Squeeze – do you have a favourite song from each?

Kieran: Actually they were more Kyle’s influences, but I can still give you one.  It would be Private Universe, Revolution first version and Up the Junction are the best singles

Me: So what would be your main influence?

Kieran: The Clash, The Ramones and stuff, I don’t know, don’t ask me to name any of them

Me: You were also on Soccer Am last year – how did you find that?

Kieran: Yeah that was alright, because normally when you’re in a band you usually work at night, and everyone’s normally drunk and stuff, but we had to get up really early in the morning to do that. Kick footballs about and stuff. Have a game of football with the kids, it was cool different from a messy night out. It was funny, all the camera men and everyone are hilarious

Me: How do you find radio and television interviews?

Kieran: We’ve had loads of radio interviews and television interviews. I prefer the radio ones because they just hold out a Dictaphone and there’s no camera, so you don’t have to make sure you’ve shaved

Me: What about phone interviews?

Kieran: They’re the most annoying interview to do because there’s always crackling lines and stuff

Me: Finally what are you planning to do now to get ready to go on stage?

Kieran: My mates have just come so I’m going to go to the pub and catch up with them as I haven’t seen them in a couple of weeks. Get ready for the show and the next one tomorrow we’re playing in Hull