Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Van

"No no no, yeah we love the tours and the festivals, festivals are mad... but am not making the mistake of letting slip to you which ones we're playing or not..." I chuckled into the microphone, another bbc interview and another early morning, but nick grimshaw always had me smiling.

"Oh come on you're telling me you can't give me any names yet?" He asked with a pout.

"None that you don't already know!" Smirked Bondy, they always had me and Bondy on interview duty. We always got the early mornings, Benji and Bob would still be in bed.

"I suppose we can give you some clues..." I started, Bondy shot me a frown, a look of confusion but he quickly caught on. "We're playing quite a few shows with a band called honeymoons.

"I think ive heard them! Theyre on our introducing stages quite a lot this summer aren't they?" He asked with a smile. "Didn't huw have the singer on his show a few weeks back?"

"Ay yeah thats the one,"

"And how do you know Honeymoons Van?" He turned to me with a knowing smirk, nodding to the lounge and mouthing 'tell me all'

"We had a night out in Camden few weeks back, ended up at their gig, was mad," grinned Bondy, "tiny little capacity venue, 100 people maybe, they took the roof off the place... lovely girls an all,"

I nodded in agreement with him, not quite grasping the concept of radio before stopping myself with a smirk.
"Yeah lovely lasses," I said, "know how to party, festival circuit won't know whats hit em I tell yous," I chuckled, a proud smile forming on my lips as I thought of Fliss and the way she was about to take those stages by storm.

"So your first date isn't till June am I right?"

"Yeah late June..."

"So that leaves you about a month of what then?"

"Dossing," shrugged Bondy with a small smirk his sarcasm hard to see through. "A lot more of this I suppose, an Vanny heres been writing a lot,"

"Is that the sound of album three I hear on the horizon?"

"Well yeah, yeah I mean I'm always writing, every day you know, whenever I get the chance, its my natural response to everything i suppose... so I mean we've had this album pretty much sorted since album two, and album one, we're always ready to go with new stuff its only the label that like us to wait you know..."

"Wow so its the label we can blame then is it?"

"Yeah yeah,"

"Definitely, screw you Capitol!" Chuckled Bondy, "yeah actually maybe we shouldn't say that, Capitol, if youre listening, I'm sorry baby, I love you..."

I cracked up at that head in my hands as I sniggered into the microphone and lost it for a moment.

"Well thats that then, there won't be an album three now will there," I laughed shrugging my shoulders still laughing at my band mate. Bondy was one of them that could always set me off, he didn't even have to say much, it was just him. He just did a lot of funny shit.

The interview carried on in a similar way for quite awhile, with fans texting in questions, mostly the usual sort of thing.

"Whats the craziest thing youve ever done?"

"The ninjas thing, or at least I want to say?" Asked Bondy looking back at me with a knowing smile because we both knew the ninjas thing didn't even cover the half of it.

"I mean anyone that's on your instagram knows thats a lie... But yeah, lets say the ninjas thing.." I chuckled turning to nick with a smile, "when we was first starting out we used to dress up as ninjas outside other peoples gigs and like set up in the car park and play to people as they were leaving... I dont know why we dressed as ninjas,"

"People would definitely remember you I suppose," chuckled Nick. I noticed a lot of questions coming up on the screen that didn't sit right with us, the producer skipping over them quickly, probably hoping we wouldn't see them. They were about the girls, about girlfriends and such. I always found that kind of thing a little tiring.

I loved our fans, they were brilliant, but they didn't half miss the point sometimes.

We'd said the girls were a good laugh, that they knew how to party, that the band were class and somehow there was the same chunk of fans who couldn't see past the idea that we were allowed female friends.

I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying anything stupid. I was after all pretty good at saying stupid things when I got riled. I saw Bondys eyes on the screen too, scanning the skipped questions with a smirk.

"Ooo I like this one, this ones a good one!" Grinned Nick pointing to a tweet that made me smile.

"Best love song you wish you'd written?" I read with a small smirk because I already knew my answers. "Lyla by Oasis, thats the best love song I wish I'd written... she's the queen of all I've seen, like forget everything else, she's literally the queen of everything, shes the best at everything, imagine meeting someone like that! Honestly its the best, I think its brilliant, I wish I'd written that!" I grinned getting carried away with myself a little, "graceless by the national as well, I love that one,"

"Anything by little comets as well for you Van," chuckled Bondy, "they released an album over the summer right, well couple of months ago and I'll tell you the truth right, he's played it so much I think I sleep talk the lyrics,"

"Yeah but that album is class though!" I grinned back biting my tongue because once again I'd almost sworn in the radio. If Fliss had heard she'd never have let me live it down, and I'd never have been able to take the piss out of her little fuck up either.

It wasn't until later that anyone brought the girls up again, not until after the show when we were sitting out with nick in the lounge, waiting on the word from management, cradling coffees to our lips.

"So come on then, Honeymoons, I know you didn't really meet them in Camden," teased Nick drawing a chuckle from Bondy when he realised that we'd been dropped in it.

"Fuckin huw fuckin stevens," I mumbled with a small smirk, "whats he been tellin yous,"

"Ooo touched a nerve," giggled nick, "only that you saw Fliss play on his show and practically ran out the room after her when she left,"

Bondy burst out laughing at this new information and I could feel myself floundering a little, uncertain how to play it cool. But I would always find away.

"Sounds to me like Huws getting prematurely excited about things again..." I chuckled softly, "we've been to a couple of their parties is all mate, they're class girls..."

"Of course when he says class girls, he means hes obsessed with Fliss..." smirked Bondy, laughing again when I shot him dagger eyes.

"I'm not fuckin obsessed alrate?!" I gasped exasperated to say the least, despairing as Nick and Bondy both burst out laughing. "God its like being back in school with yous two int it!"

By the time we'd finally received word from our management about the bands schedule for the rest of the week, I was starving and gagging for a drink. Bondy and Nick had really enjoyed getting under my skin, taking great pleasure in winding me up again.

"Where to then?" I yawned stretching my arms out. Management had informed us that we had nothing on until tomorrow when we were booked in for a full day in rehearsals before we were due to play on the Graham Norton Show.

"I'll call the lads, Blakes was on about dropping in on Katie actually,"

"Of course he was," I chuckled softly a small smile creeping on to my lips. It was adorable the way he would talk about Katie. The boys took the piss out of me over Fliss but I wasn't half as bad as Benji. He was, in the best way possible, completely in awe of her. When he spoke about her he lit up, when he looked at her he looked at her like he'd found his very own Elysium.

"So you fancy it?" Asked Bondy nodding towards the tube.

"Ay go on then," I said stretching out again, pushing my sunglasses down over my eyes. We were lucky I suppose, in the sense that we could still catch the tube and go unnoticed by the majority of people.

"We'll meet the lads there," yawned Bondy, and thats exactly what we did, when we got there however we were met with a sight neither of us could have predicted.