INTERVIEWS
RADIO 1 INTERVIEW


Has your naivety ever been damaged by this industry?
About this time last year it was severely damaged. Two years on a tour bus and a lot of pressure, being away from home for two years kind of got to us and I had a bit of a breakdown in Chicago. Then I lost my voice and we thought we'd never get into the studio to write this album.

Is Reading 2000 where it started to go wrong?
After Reading we literally got in the bus, drove to Berlin, did another German tour and went straight from that onto a US tour, which wasn't good. The crowds and the band we were supporting were all wrong. I said I was going home. It was a full-on hair metal, Guns and Roses style band, and it was a total mis-match.


Did it get to the point where you were going to pack it in?
Not packing it in, but packing it in for the day. There's a song on the album called Starbucks and it's about that really. I was told by a doctor that I had to have six months off otherwise I'd never sing again. That's just harrowing for me. I'd taken it for granted and never thought about it before. The NME had been telling me for years that I couldn't sing, but when the doctors proved it (laughs).


I remember sitting in Starbucks and thinking I don't want to do anything else, I can't do anything else and it made me realise… you've got the best job in the world and you'd die for it. Stop crying about it and get on with it. All those things have made us a stronger band.


Clip of 'Something's Going On', from the new album.


You were never a band who were in the right place at the right time, but the musical landscape seems to have changed almost in your favour.
You realise that the musical landscape has changed as soon as you put MTV on, these days. I think Kerrang TV and MTV have helped, and the fact that Radio 1 are playing rock bands on daytime for the first time in a long time.


How much do you see your music having changed since 'How Ace Are Building'?
It's just got stronger as we've gotten stronger as a band. We are more confident and in your face. We didn't want to make another glad-to-be-here record. We wanted to make a statement and a really in-yer-face record.


That sounds like it was written through gritted teeth!
When we have toured 'round the world it's like... being ashamed to be British. People saying 'you're from England, look at the music you're playing in England. It's all crappy boybands'. We're the laughing stock of the world.


You're in America there's all these great rock bands and pop bands like N'Sync and Backstreet Boys and Britney, and you come back here and it's Hear'Say and watered down drivvle. I mean I'm all for good pop music, but it's good cos I think a lot of kids have reacted to that and want bands whose names they can write on their folders and desks at school. You're not going to write Hear'say on your desk unless you want your head shoved down the toilet!


'Hifi Serious', the LP title; does it come from an Alan Partridge show?
It's a bit more hifi and a bit more serious and it's a good shop to buy your gear from.


Tell us about the tour.
The tour kicks off on the 18th February in Virgin Megastore in London and we've got Rival Schools and A on the same bill, a right hot ticket! It's gonna be wicked!'