Interviews

Incendiary speak to the mighty Duke Special

I'm certainly not saying that all Northerners are good and Southerners are bad but I will say that there's a certain instant upfront quality of connection between Northern people and Scots that certainly doesn't translate to the South.

I've been mugged before, but never at gun point. So that was interesting.

The difference is, if I had a hit and was making loads of money, the only thing in my life that would be different than it is now is that I'd probably be wearing better jeans.

Do you mean that Liverpool bands generally have a more relaxed attitude towards their music? I'm not sure I agree.

It's a good tension… the commercial thing. I mean where would the Beatles have been? I mean they became very, very creative in the studio as they went on, but if the commercial aspect wasn't so forcibly there they maybe would have gone in to the studio and masturbated.

You could say that about Arthur Lee and his music, but he still put a knife to me throat.

Jackie has always written good tunes, even back in the Yummy Furs, simple and really catchy.

People in music industry have had it too good for too long.  Maybe if records sales suffer from downloading it will force bands to be more original and make better records.

this whole production thing is just a big load of bollocks to be honest.

I kind of need to know who I am sometimes and I'm just sort of discovering that really.

They've asked me back to judge for the semi-finals. An all expenses trip to Scarborough. Sinead Quinn, who came second in pop idol a couple of years ago, is another one of the judges and Lil Chris is performing. What a plethora of talent.

As Patrick Johns did say to me "When you started humping the floor during Country Girls it made me get a little bit of a funny feeling in my winkle" I said "that wasn't my intention Patrick, although you did look gorgeous in your hat"

The Book of Campodia itself is made up of a collection of lyrics & the map of the Isle of Campodia, in which characters taken from the songs live. It's quite Brechtian in a way....

Where are the squats now? Where are the dole kids? These days you need a five year plan and a top floor penthouse in an Urban Splash Urban Identikit box room.

I mean being with a bunch of boys can be… you know you are on the tour bus and you have to adapt and ‘be' on the tour bus and embrace all that life style, or you have to react and go even further the other way and be a real girl about it.

There he is, writing songs for Jamie Cullum and Sophie Ellis Bexter and the chick from Atomic Kitten and I was thinking, ‘what are you doing? You're Andy Partridge from XTC!'

Our Christmas record was significant. John Peel flipped out and played it on daytime BBC and that was a huge thing for us. This one feels like we took a bigger chance and some people might not like it. That to me is satisfying.

I'd prefer to keep people guessing.

We had to prove to ourselves that we wanted to make this kind of record. It was made in a studio situation that wasn't “live”. In the past we all played together. With this one we laid it down, part by part. And you can hear the space that ensued through the recording.