Biffy Clyro frontman Simon Neil looks back on a whirlwind 12 months, talks turkey and stuffing, and ponders the eternal festive question about Die Hard.
Simon Neil says that 2025 "has been the quickest year ever". He and his Biffy Clyro bandmates have certainly crammed a lot in, not least the small matter of hitting Number One with their 10th album, Futique. Like the record itself, the past 12 months haven't been without their ups and downs – like a visa screw-up nixing their American touring plans, and just this week, and bassist James Johnston announcing that he'd be sitting out the band's massive UK arena tour next month – but it's also been one filled with love and music.
As he prepares to stuff himself with stuffing and go to Amsterdam for some of the city's refreshments (and, presumably, more stuffing when the munchies take hold), Simon talks us through his year, and how he's getting festive…
How would you summarise your 2025?
“I can’t believe we’re at the end of 2025, but it’s been one of the busiest, most productive years we’ve had as a band, which, after 20-odd years, is no mean feat. It's been a fucking great year when the world has been in a dumpster fire – we released a record, played Glastonbury, announced our biggest show ever. We’ve somehow managed to carve one of our best years of being in this band.”
What makes a particular year special, three decades into being a band?
“It’s the fact that we still are getting to do new things. I think if we’d been as big as fucking Metallica 20 years ago and we were playing the same shows, I don’t know if we’d be in a different position. We’re about to do our biggest show of all time next year in Finsbury Park, which has blown my mind at this stage of the band. We still love each other’s company. Now, we’re not naive – it’s taken work to get here. We care about each other. There have been battles to get here, and the journeys are always ongoing. We realise now there’s no end point where you say, ‘Cool, everything’s great! Life makes perfect sense.’ And for a few years, I was trying to find that – I think we all were.”
In June, you released Futique, your 10th album and your fourth Number One. Given that level of success has become normalised, would anything less than have been deemed a failure?
“I’m so grateful that we’re still here and that this 10th album went to Number One. I don’t think it would change my outlook musically, or what we were trying to achieve as a band, if it hadn’t got to Number One. Now, it would be nice and romantic to say we don’t need that at this stage, that we don’t need people’s approval as human beings, but we do! It’s really nice to have lots of people want to go out and hear your new record. That still means a lot to me. I know that we would still be making music if none of our albums had ever gone to Number One – it would have obviously taken a different form. It wouldn’t be as fucking non-stop, but the same amount of music would be coming out of me. I think I would probably have released more music. Because we're in the major label system and have been for a while, albums take a little while to make and to put out. Sometimes I think, ‘Fuck if we hadn’t been as successful, I would have made more music!’”
Futique is intensely personal, as Biffy records are, but this time articulates what it means to be in Biffy Clyro. Is that because you’d reached the landmark of making 10 records? Is it something you’d do again?
“I’ve realised every album is driven by some intense event. It started from when my mum passed, before we made our first major label album, Puzzle [2007]. And I think my relationship with music changed then. Only Revolutions [2009] was about getting married and trying to be a grown-up and being someone that someone could rely on. Opposites [2013] was about trying to deal with being going through [drummer Ben Johnston’s] alcoholism and how we were going to survive that. Ellipsis [2016] was literally an ellipsis of music and of thought. A Celebration Of Endings [2020] was about the societal disarray and the career disarray of fucking Brexit, and the pandemic was The Myth Of The Happily Ever After [2021]. And this one has been addressing our journey through that whole thing. I want to try and not need that traumatic intensity to make the next record. That’s a long way of saying that I don’t want to sing about this again. I want to try and shed that for the first time, and I don’t know what it's going to mean for the music going forward. And it’s sod’s law that I'll speak to you in 18 months and go, ‘It's been a terrible 18 months, here’s what the album’s about!’”
Your U.S. tour was postponed due to an issue with visa applications. As well as being a huge disappointment, there must also have been frustration over the fact this big touring machine can be felled by an administrative error?
“The thing is, it was the simplest fucking mistake. It was like one number wrong on sheaths of fucking applications. And, actually, the error was made six months ago, so we didn't see it. When we can't get on a stage to play music, I feel that the world’s falling apart. It’s so devastating. We have always just been able to, for better or worse, play through the good, the bad and the ugly, but when we get told we can't go somewhere, we cannot play, it breaks my fucking heart. We’ve had terrible luck with America over the years – whether it's me having to cancel shows for having a nervous breakdown, fucking getting food poisoning, or COVID. Now it’s a fucking visa thing. We're about to announce our shows for it. We're going back to the States in April and May. So that's the only thing that's getting me through this disappointment. But honestly, even at this stage of a band, I find it really hard to not take it very personally when the shows don’t happen. I’m disappointed for the fans who had obviously spent their money and time. I still feel like I’m grieving a little.”
You mentioned your Finsbury Park show in 2026, which very much feels like a peak of a new mountain. How are you feeling about the prospect?
“We’ve done a bunch of big shows, so I have faith in us that we can do it. I want this to be everyone's best show next year. I want it to be the best show we’ve ever done. That will create pressure as the time comes closer. It’s hard not to feel that responsibility. I’m old enough to remember Oasis playing in Finsbury Park in the ’90s and thinking it was just superhero bands that did shit like that.”
Like Rage Against The Machine playing there in 2010, to say thanks to fans when they beat The X Factor to the Christmas Number One…?
“That was so fucking badass! What a moment! And if only some wankers hadn’t lent X Factor their song the year before…”
What are your plans for Christmas?
“It’s been the quickest year ever, but also the longest. We haven’t stopped for a fucking minute, so I just can't wait to be a normal person for a few days and get fucking fat. I’m going to go and see my nephews, my nieces, my in-laws and my dad, and then me and my wife are coming back home and we’re gonna watch horror movies on Christmas night for a wee change. And then my wife and I are going to Amsterdam for a few days. I’m taking my guitar, writing a few songs, enjoying some of Amsterdam's glorious weed, and getting the headspace for the most spiritual and beautiful year that we’re going to have next year with the fans.”
What are your favourite parts of a Christmas dinner?
“Stuffing. I could eat stuffing for 24 hours a day – stuffing, cranberry sauce and bread sauce. That’s all I need. I’ll get fucking gout by Boxing Day.”
Is Die Hard a Christmas film?
“No. The only reason I say that is they don’t mention Christmas once.”
Hang on. It takes place at a work Christmas party. A dead henchman has ‘Now I have a machine gun – ho-ho-ho’ written on his shirt. Bruce Willis sticks a gun to his back with Christmas tape…
“You’re right – and there’s a Christmas song at the beginning and at the end. And there’s snow. I could be persuaded, but my instinct is to say no. To contradict what I’ve just said, Die Hard is the one movie we watch every Christmas. So I’m saying it’s not a Christmas movie, but it is my Christmas movie.”
Finally, what non-Christmas music do you readily associate with Christmas?
“This is going to be so lame, and it is, but it’s Status Quo’s Pictures Of Matchstick Men. It’s because when I got my first guitar for Christmas, that was one of the first songs I learned to play. So I listened to it and played along non-stop. So every time since then, when I hear Pictures Of Matchstick Men, Santa’s right there next to me.”
