It’s no easy feat to make work that truly lasts the test of time, but even though 20 years have passed, the enduring nature of Razorlight’s career-defining second album, Razorlight was never more clear than during a quiet evening in Covent Garden. Band members Johnny Borrell and Andy Burrows brought the laughs and the art to fans as the duo played an exclusive set and told the crowd stories behind the band’s catalogue. The night was part of the band’s celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of their self-titled second album, which became one of the biggest indie-rock albums of the early 2000s and featured hits such as “America” and “In The Morning”.
The intimate show attracted fans from far and wide, including Gavin & Stacey creator and actor James Corden. The sense that something special was in the air was more than confirmed as the duo performed stripped back classics from their discography including “Golden Touch”, “Stumble and Fall”, “Before I Fall to Pieces” with the same abandon, chaos and sincerity that endeared whole swathes to their music, and still do.
Off-stage, the duo are earnest and as witty on stage as off it, with the two recalling the magnitude of where their work has taken them over the past two decades.
“When you’re a band, you keep it really simple,” muses Borrell, perching on a couch in a cozy hotel room in Covent Garden. “You focus on on what you do, which is which is writing songs and getting on stage and performing them. And um, the cultural stuff that goes around it and how it connects and stuff like that is is just something that’s so out of your control.”
Such reflections continued on stage a few hours later Borrell revealed the origins of several songs to the delighted crowd, revealing how simple musical ideas evolved into some of the band’s best-known tracks. The pair also spoke candidly about their creative partnership, their years apart, and the reunion that brought them back together in 2021 after more than a decade of estrangement.
“I think back then it was this chaos, you know. Everything’s chaos apart from what you can control, and what you can control is what you bring to the music, you know,” Borrell said, prior to the concert.
The evening’s event also celebrated the recent release of “Lost in America”, a newly unveiled demo version of the band’s UK No. 1 single “America”, as well as their upcoming tour, which will see the band perform the full Razorlight album together again for thousands of fans around the world. The album itself truly cemented their place amongst the shelves of indie-rock lovers on every continent, with the record eventually going 5x Platinum.
Yet in the time since their whirlwind breakout, the music and media industries have changed near-unrecognisably, with social media and streaming platforms throwing many an artist for a loop as they continually adjust to ever-changing metrics.
However, for Borrell and Burrows, their love of their craft has remained a constant, keeping them grounded and philosophical through over two decades of the music industry’s inevitable peaks and troughs.
“We’re all trying to get our head around this, you know?” tentatively begins Burrows. “You said streaming has developed… I mean [for us] streaming didn’t really -“
“Didn’t exist!” interjects Borrell.
“I remember there was a lot of chat about Napster, though!?”
A brief chuckle riding on memories over a time long past quickly make way for a characteristically measured reflection on the start of music today.
“We were lucky….” Burrows adds. “How brilliant it was that we got to experience a time where there was that kind of focus on stuff. And I don’t know if that’s better or worse, no idea, but it was a thing for sure, you know?”
“You sort of get to a point where you actually don’t think about the music industry, which is great as a musician, because that’s where you start,” continues Borrell. “Then you start to have some success, people start coming over to you and talking to you about, “Oh, your record’s gone to number X,” and, you know, “You could go to number one,” and “You might sell this many tickets.” Now then, wow, suddenly you’re in the music industry.
And you don’t really care about the music industry, but it’s almost like people want you to care about the music industry, and you know, if you have a certain level of success, you can get to the next point where you just stop thinking about the music industry, because that was not what you were interested in in the first place. And you go back to just thinking about music. So that’s almost the Holy Grail for a musician, to be in it, but not think about it.”
His sentiments rang true as the two played little covers of songs such as Extreme’s “More Than Words”, resisted a song suggestion from the crowd for a rendition “Sweet Caroline”, and bounced between quips and pure, good old music.
As the evening wound down with a rendition of the iconic ‘America’ (featuring the crowd singing along to every word), it’s heartening to remember that many artists truly do transcend the churn of the modern music industry altogether.Certainly not while the lyrics of such tracks continue to feel more timely than ever; and certainly not while there are still those whose hearts beat in time with their music.
“That album, I don’t know, it was really fun,” says Borrell, in a final, parting reflection. “It was, for me, it was an amazing thing, you know… it was just, the whole thing was a big, collaborative experience. And we ended up with something that was much bigger than me, and it’s still around; you know, we’re very grateful. People are still talking to us about it, and we’ll see how the song does in the next 20 years.”
With a world tour ahead and new music on the horizon, it would take a brave person to bet against Razorlight filling venues in another 20 years: with audiences still singing every word back to them.
Razorlight will be on tour in 2026 featuring all four classic members – Borrell, Burrows, Björn Ågren and Carl Dalemo – as they perform the Razorlight album in full. Find tickets at http://www.razorlightofficial.com.