Razorlight played a special gig at Barfly this week and will soon be at Wembley Arena

A MUSICIAN from a major indie-rock band has warned that smaller independent music venues are disappearing, leaving fewer opportun­ities for emerging bands to perform.

Johnny Borrell, lead singer and guitarist of Razorlight, said he feared the Fiddler’s Elbow in Chalk Farm could be turned into flats after the venue was put up for sale.

Speaking to the New Journal at Wembley Arena on Monday – ahead of the band’s 20th anniversary tour – Mr Borrell said he had visited the famous venue with a view to opening up rehearsal studios.

He said: “I went round to see the Fiddler’s Elbow as it’s being sold and I was thinking of maybe starting a rehearsal studio there. It wasn’t for me at that time but I just know that one day I’ll drive past and see it has been turned into flats.

“I just think it’s really sad. It really is use it or lose it – these things we think they are around forever. I hate playing the role of doom or gloom but we think these places are around forever until they are gone.

“There was kind of a Dublin Castle, Good Mixer, Spread Eagle triangle where bands did the circuit. But things have changed.”

Razorlight, known for hits like America and In the Morning, was founded in London in 2002. Mr Borrell grew up in Camden and attended Highgate School and later Camden School for Girls.

The band played their first gig at Dingwalls in 2002 and have since performed across the UK and the world. They returned to Camden Town last night (Wednesday) to perform at the newly revitalised Barfly music venue.

The band catch up with their favourite weekly read

Mr Borrell said, as a teenager, he would busk on the Tube, making small bits of money and devel­op­ing his music skills.

“There have been a lot of strange decisions about music over the years in London,” he said. “As soon as I could play one chord on the guitar I was running down the Tube to go and busk and make some money.

“The first system that I saw adults put up that seemed genuinely egalitarian was the system of busking. You’d go up and ask the person who was playing when the next pitch was. I was 13, absol­utely terrified asking a dude in his 60s, but then he’d show you how things work – it was a beautiful system.

“It’s also how I got better as a performer and then 20 years ago they did a big sponsorship deal with Carling and made it so that you needed a licence and to be vetted.

“That’s such an anti-musician thing to do. And of course there is even more enforcement now on busking.

“The music that Londoners bring to the Tube doesn’t belong to TfL but then they have done the deal.”

Razorlight are due to tour the UK and Europe in November and December to mark two decades since the release of their second album, Razorlight.

Drummer Andy Burrows said: “No one has taken Camden’s music crown. I’m really grateful for young bands that have had that. From being 15 to being in the band, all I knew was playing in Camden. It just felt like a festival in a city for a young person. When we played the Round­house last year I wasn’t quite expecting it to feel so much like the old days. When we finished and people were walking down the street singing the songs, the place felt alive.”

Mr Borrell added: “London is the world capital of music and Camden is the heart of that. I think that will always be the case.”