3RRR (FM)

Interviewer : The band seems fairly established in a style now, I mean, the difference let's say between Three Imaginary Boys and Seventeen Seconds was a pretty dramatic one... and obviously the similarity between Seventeen Seconds and Faith is pretty close...

Simon : Hem... It tends but we haven't sort of like established a sound now because we never wanted to establish a sound. Like in the beginning of the 80's, Killing An Arab was a sort of like a typical Cure sound and then it moved on to A Forest, right ? But we don't want to get a typical sound and that's why on the new single (Charlotte Sometimes) it's a totally different production as well. It's us and Mike Hedges again.

Interviewer : He's the guy who has worked on all your records, isn't he ?

Simon : Yeah. I mean, we could have make Faith sound totally different. It's really easy, all you have to do is to fuzz up the guitar. But I mean, there was no point 'cause that was the sound that we wanted. But obviously, we aren't going to do what people expect and stick to that sound. Because it's horrible getting a sound that identifies you somehow.

Interviewer : It seems some of the singles you released, like A Forest, have been pretty up-tempo and the general moods of the albums, like Faith certainly, was sort of medium to slow tempo actually. Is that a sort of direction of the band ?

Simon : I don't know. Because we never take in to consideration tempo, I mean, like we've two slow ones, we've got to do two fast ones... We never know what a song is going to end up like until it's finished. When we go in the studio, we like to go in with a really loose idea and build it up. Obviously we go with the skeleton of what we've got but build most of it in the studio.

Interviewer : Was the last album Faith recorded in Morgan studios again ?

Simon : That's a really horrible story. We were in Morgan, we did the backing tracks. And as a favor, we said we'd change studios and go somewhere else so another person would be coming and recording in it.

Interviewer : Is Fiction still in Morgan ?

Simon : No, it's got moved to Montagu Square. And they're very upmarket now... Mick Jagger's old flat is where Fiction Records now is. (laugh)... God... Lost all credibility... Yeah, we started off in Morgan, and then we did Faith and someone else came in there. Which was a big mistake 'cause then we couldn't find... We moved to Abbey Road, which got a new studio in it, which we were one of the firsts two to use. And after a week, we sensed "something's wrong here". And getting various technicians in, they found and discovered that they built it wrong. So we wasted about four days in there. Which we had to pay for. And then we moved to three other studios for about a day at the time. Which was really a joke.

Interviewer : Do you have a sort of manager and stuff that handle your financial things ? Or is it Parry's job or... ?

Simon : Hummm. We haven't got a manager but Chris Parry looks after us a lot. It's all between us, Chris Parry and Ita who works at Fiction as well. Yeah, that's it.

Interviewer : What about the costs of making records, in term of the budget that would be available to you. Is that going up a lot ?

Simon : Costs studio do. But really we don't spend that much money in making LPs. I mean, not on purpose. If we need to spend about two months in a studio then we would. But we just normally finish quite early and don't spend that much. All three albums have only cost what it costs Spandau Ballet to make their last video. Which is a really weird fact.