Johnny Borrell - Reputation, Controversy, Charity Work

Reputation, Controversy, Charity Work

Borrell has sometimes been regarded as having a very arrogant attitude towards the press and is famous for his proclamations of his own abilities. However, like many other artists who come across negatively in NME interviews, Borrell and supporters have accused the magazine of misrepresentation and emphasising quotes out of context.

Borrell has made numerous contributions to charity. Razorlight recorded ‘Kirby’s House’ for the 2005 Warchild album and played London, Royal Albert Hall shows in 2006 and 2008 for The Who’s Teenage Cancer Trust events (in 2008 the band performed ‘Summertime Blues’ with Roger Daltrey). In 2006 Borrell started to work for Friends Of The Earth’s climate change campaign ‘The Big Ask’, a relationship which has continued through 2006’s show In Trafalgar Square for the ‘icount’ campaign to playing at FOE’s November 2009 Hammersmith Apollo fund raiser. Razorlight were deemed to be one of the highlights of the 2 July 2005 Live 8 charity concert in Hyde Park and continued to support Borrell’s global warming concerns by taking part in the 7 July 2007 Live Earth event at Wembley Stadium. Borrell is one of the few new generation stars to have appeared on the cover of a national UK newspaper because of his political views. On 4 November 2006 his essay on climate change was the front cover story of The Independent. Razorlight have also regularly supported Nelson Mandela’s 46664 Aids charity. In July 2005 the band flew to Tromso, Norway to play a 46664 fundraiser. Mandela invited the Razorlight to perform at his 1 December 2007 World Aids day concert in Johannesburg, which allowed the band to visit township AIDs projects. Borrell also worked with environmentally friendly charity Global Cool on their 2007 green campaigns.

They also played at Mandela’s July 2008 90th birthday celebration fund raiser in Hyde Park. Through his love of cricket (he appeared on the cover of Time Out’s cricket edition in August 2005 holding a cricket ball) Borrell has become friends with some of the English cricket team including former captain Andrew Flintoff who asked Razorlight to play at the inaugural night of his charity, The Andrew Flintoff Foundation (Of which he is a patron) in July 2009 at London’s The Hurlingham Club. Borrell also played charity shows for Nordoff Robbins, and Save The Children in the latter part of 2009 and in September duetted on ‘Je Suis Venue Te Dire Que Je M’en Vais’ with legendary singer Jane Birkin as part of a fundraiser for Kenyan children’s charity Anno’s Africa.