The Great Hip Hop Hoax Page #8

But Gavin is like

a full-on perfectionist,

so even if he doesn't like a slight

beat or how he sounds on a song

or how Billy sounds on a song,

Gavin is willing to scrap the whole

song and start from scratch.

It was Gav's way or no way.

Can you use the best one of them,

and then I'll do another one?

He is difficult to work with.

Whenever I've recorded with him,

he's been a nightmare to work with.

My mama knows, my papa knows

Everybody knows we're just losers...

They could have been famous

ten times over

if he'd just said yes

to a few things.

We missed our window to release

the record, for sure.

I suppose they couldn't

really just release.

Gavin was always kind of

self-sabotaging himself really,

because he was thinking, "If this

releases, what's going to happen?

"As soon as that does come out,

it might end everything. "

Do you think he stopped anything

ever coming out? -Yeah.

At that point,

we weren't on the same tracks.

Bill would have been happy

if the first release went out.

Whenever the release windows were,

whatever the shape of the band,

whatever with music sounded like,

as long as he was able to rap

and get famous he would be happy

with that going out in any way.

Sony merged with BMG and a lot

of people got made redundant.

The executive responsible

for signing them

was a victim of the merger process.

If you're signed to a major record

label and you haven't got

allies who support you,

it's very hard to progress.

The label was sitting there

looking at who makes money,

who doesn't make money,

and unfortunately at that point

we hadn't been given

the opportunity to make them money.

This A&R came in, and he

showed us complete disregard.

He was just kind of, "Look,

we're not going to get rid of you,

"but we're not really sure

about this. "

"Don't think you are believable,"

I think is what he said.

I really just wanted to jump over

the table and strangle him

and scream in my Scottish

accent in his ear, you know.

We were then told that it was

going to take about six months

for all the paperwork to go through

with this merger,

which meant that we'd be on hold

for another six months.

Had we just went ahead and put

the original version of Loser out

it could already been out,

and within that six months

been on tour, or been releasing

elsewhere in the world.

But we were on hold now.

It happens all the time, because

these artists, they come along,

and they're young

and they've got a dream.

And they're focused on the dream.

And they always get f***ed over

on the business

because they're not looking

at the business,

they're looking at the dream.

While looking at the dream,

this other guy is looking

at the business.

They're not looking at the business,

so how can they know if they're

getting f***ed on the business?

There is always a moment when

you're developing creative people,

if they don't have success

before that moment passes,

they often don't have success.

Once someone at the top

has told all the foot soldiers

that that band is probably on its

way out, the phone stops ringing.

You can't get hold of people.

And I remember thinking at the time,

because I've gone through it before,

"This feels like that time again. "

No-one will really say,

"This isn't working. It's over. "

We'd write songs, write songs,

write songs,

but we couldn't get in

to record the songs.

So that period was very,

very frustrating.

There's only so long, especially

when you're hungry to get out there

with what you've got,

that you can do that for.

Bill had this relationship

up in Scotland,

and that was going well, whatever.

We'd already been married

half a year.

Mary was pregnant with Brandon

at the time,

and we needed the security.

This was going to be security,

once this song comes out,

and once everything is out,

it's all going to blow up

and we would be sorted.

That was my attitude.

So he was starting to ransom

himself, like,

"I don't know how much longer

I can be around this any more.

"I can't keep doing this forever.

"You keep putting releases back,

I can't be here. "

So it was like, "Well, you should be

here as long as it takes

"for this to happen,

for this plan to work, you know?"

I realised how close we'd come

to getting our music out,

which is what we always wanted,

was our music being out there.

They were living a door apart

from each other in the house,

but they didn't speak

for days at a time.

I gave him a date, and said,

"If nothing happens by this date,

"then I'm leaving. "

The date came and gone and another

date was put and another date,

and I kept putting new dates on it.

"OK, May. If nothing happens by May,

that's it, I'm out of here. "

"June. If nothing happens by June,

I'm out of here. "

It just went on and on for months

until the point where

I just thought, "Enough is enough. "

The lie drove me and Gav from

best friends to hating each other.

The war had become between us.

The war with the industry was gone,

it was a personal war.

We f***ing hated each other's

characters.

We had a really horrible fight,

and I was like, "How the f***

can you leave?"

He was like,

"I'm going to be a dad. "

"How can you be a dad?

You're an addict!"

He was like, "You're an addict,

you're on pills every five minutes

"to stop you from sweating,

to stop you going to sleep,

"to help you go to sleep.

You're a f***ing addict. "

And I'm like,

"But you're a f***ing addict... "

No-one has those fights

if you're friends, you know?

I think at that point you realise

the friendship is over, kind of thing.

We got up in the morning,

me and Mary.

We packed up the car,

and we drove it back up to Scotland.

I didn't want to walk away,

I didn't want to leave.

This was my dream

since I was a small child.

But I knew I had to.

Just the way, at that point,

he was talking about it,

like he had no attachment to it.

This wasn't a thing that

we had gone through together,

we hadn't just done all that.

It was just, "I'm gone.

"I can just get rid of this

from my life in a second. "

That's the thing that drove me

absolutely crazy.

I felt like he'd came along

on this plan

which was good for as long as

it suited him,

and then once he had

lost faith in it,

screw everyone else that was

a part of it, I'm offski.

But I was the captain of the ship,

so I had to go down swimming.

He phoned me a couple of days after,

because we had a big show to do.

They were playing some festival,

and if Billy didn't come back then

he was going to destroy everything

that was important to Billy.

I think he was at breaking point,

you know.

He was angry

and he wanted to hurt Billy

the way Billy had obviously

hurt him.

By leaving.

I think he realised

that without Billy,

there was no more Silibil n' Brains.

And I just told him straight

I wasn't coming,

I had no interest in coming

and he was on his own now.

I wasn't prepared to come back down,

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