Gavin continued, “We realized we couldn’t just go down and rap in these Californian accents and then talk like two guys from Dundee. People in the business would think that was stupid. So we got to a point where it felt all or nothing… Two years in these characters? It required talent. We were all convinced we were the next Eminem.”
After signing to a label, they went from being in debt to suddenly having a lot of money in their accounts. They were stressed and paranoid about keeping up the act, but they got “absolutely addicted” to the lifestyle they were portraying.
Gavin said, “We needed to be friendly, fun, wild. We needed everyone to want to party with us. We felt we needed people to be with us, not against us. who you really are. I’d see a picture of my parents and think, ‘I’m not their son anymore.’ We worked so hard to make these addictive characters, and we became addicted to them.”
But, according to the Guardian, it was hard to keep up the lies. It affected Gavin’s mental health. He drank too much and developed a stomach ulcer. It also ruined their friendship, and it all ended when Billy left to go home to Dundee.
The two reunited in 2013 and released the EP Dirty Rotten Scoundrels as well as the documentary The Great Hip Hoax Hoax.
James McAvoy directed the upcoming biopic Silibil N’ Brains California Scheme’.