Raise-a-mite

RAZORLIGHT wildman Johnny Borrell is desperate to settle down and become a DAD.
The singer, who has been linked with a string of women in the past, can’t wait to hear the patter of tiny feet.
And he admitted he’s jealous of bandmate Andy Burrows who became a dad for the first time in April to baby Chloe. Johnny, 28, said: “Who wouldn’t envy Andy’s life? He’s got a beautiful partner, a beautiful baby. Any sane man would like that happiness.”
Andy’s fiancée Stephanie and daughter have already been on tour with the band. Johnny added: “It’s magical having them around.”
The singer—once linked to Hollywood star Kirsten Dunst—has a new mystery girlfriend but insists his ladies’ man reputation is rubbish. He said: “I’ve always been serious about the girls I’ve dated. I haven’t slept around, not since I was a teenager.”
But Johnny admits he does sometimes still yearn for his carefree days.
Monster Boots, a song on new album Slipway Fires, has the lyrics: “It was all so simple, like it was long ago, and you could fall in love with anyone you know.”
Johnny explained: “There’s no consequences when you’re young. It gets impossible to do that when you’re older, because you want it to mean something. Or I do.”
The first three songs on the album—Wire To Wire, Hostage Of Love and You And The Rest—were written to chart Johnny’s break-up last year with an ex-girlfriend, believed to be Fabiola Gatti.
“Those songs are me straight up talking to . . . someone,” teases Johnny. “They’re variations on the same theme. I don’t know if they should be seen as a trilogy but they’re in that order for a reason, and it was important they started the record.”
Loudmouth Johnny is known for bragging that Razorlight are the best band in the world. But it’s an image he sends up on North London Trash.
Johnny, who lives in Camden, North London, said: “I’m not going to whine about anything, as I helped create that image. When our first album came out, I told every interviewer that I’d die if I didn’t write these songs. Of course that was rather dramatic. But, hey, I was a very dramatic 24-year-old!
“What it ended up with, though, was me reading the papers about Johnny Borrell, a cartoon that had been created. It was a bizarre caricature of a bumptious, careerist, facile monster.
“Even Private Eye wrote a story about me! I thought, ‘Shouldn’t you be bringing down the government?’ Anyway, this ultimate uppity North Londoner I was reading about called Johnny Borrell, it was perfect material for a song.”
Johnny shrugs off the idea that the relatively poor sales of Slipway Fires, which entered the chart at No 4, were down to a reaction against his public image.
“All the great bands have gone through the same thing,” he says. “The only thing to do is keep your head down and make sure you make the best music you can. And we’re going to spend the next six months on tour, proving to people every night what a f***ing great record we’ve just made.”