Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Fliss

"I guess I tried but I just can't find a way," i sang into a microphone, legs crossed whilst saffy sat beside my playing acoustic guitar, mumbling the backing vocals into her own microphone.

We were aiming for lofi though for today and today only we were also just aiming for anything that would get us through one radio appearance without a single mention of Catfish and the Bottlemen.

It wasn't that we didn't love them of course but since we changed our sound, since Alice had left the band, since Kitty and Benji had been seen snogging after the Cardiff gig by one of their fans, it felt like people only wanted to know about us to know about them. As if they thought we had all these secrets to spill.

"She's the sweetest queen i ever saw," i sang, focussing on the glass screen in front of us, shooting a smile at the bbc introducing host I recognised from over a year ago.

It was good to be back, good to have come full circle, it felt good to know we'd have a home in that studio if everything else fell through.

All of us were in the studio today, even Jazz with his brushes tapping away on just the one drum. Kitty on a second guitar crammed in the corner. It felt like we were back at uni, felt like we were all squeemzing into one of the tiny breakout rooms in the basement.

"So before we get onto any of the interesting stuff like oh I don't know, how much you've missed me, I've got to take a moment to thank you for coming back at all because I hear we've actually interrupted you mid tour..."

"Give over," i grinned, beaming back at Huw, "thanks for havin us back like, its ace being back," i smiled as I fiddled with my guitar to get it back in tune.

"Its a pleasure girls as always, you brighten up this studio everytime you come in, but this tour then, UK and Ireland with the 1975! Thats big right?"

"yeah its fab," i beamed feeling a little strange about my enthusiasm. It was fab, playing shows everynight, high with my mates, the four of us a tighter family than we'd ever been before, but I couldn't help compare it to touring with the lads, our lads, and it just didn't weigh up in my mind. "We're dead grateful to the boys for havin us, its been brill,"

"Every night gets better," nodded Jazz who seemed to be picking up where Saff seemed to drop out. She'd been quiet this morning and though at first I'd put it down to lack of sleep i was beginning to suspect it may be something more.

She didn't seem unhappy, more preocupied. I had a feeling i knew why but I didn't want to push her on the Bond issue. I wanted to see her get her own way for once, the same as everyone else, but I knew perhaps a little bit better than the rest of our friends that forcing her to do something too soon would end horribly for both of them. It didn't occur to me that perhaps she'd given up on the idea completely.

"And they like us, at least i think they like us," i said correcting myself quickly, "we weren't sure whether people were gonna like us now that we're you know..."

"Sad," smirked Katie, her one word of the interview drawing self aware grins and giggles from us all.

"No in all seriousness though its class to be back on the road and you know back on the airwaves," i wiggled my brows as i spoke holding back another laugh.

I always found the interviews so strange. The idea that we were just talking really, having a conversation and thousands of people were at home or work just sort of eavesdropping in.

We talked for awhile, about the new material we'd been working on, what it was like touring with Matty and his mates, whether we ever intended to play a headline tour of our own.

Talking about that made me realise quite how lucky we were really, because when you thought about Honeymoons as a band and what we had to our name, it wasn't much at all.