Surviving commercial success

THE irony is not lost on Biffy Clyro’s Ben Johnston.

“We’ve been in a band 16 years,” he says. “For most of that time we travelled around in a small van and played tiny venues. We always got on. Then we started to have some success. And we stopped getting along. We went through a pretty bad spell there.”

In the end, it was endless touring that nearly did them in. Six months criss-crossing America in 2011 drove a wedge between the three members of the Scottish hard rock group. By the time their US odyssey was winding down their future was in genuine doubt. They could barely stand to be in the same room.