Adrian Utley

Beth Gibbons

Dave Mc Donnald

Geoff Barrow

Others

Understanding Portishead

By Jaan Uhelszki

Geoff Barrow, the 007 of Retro Rock, awaits the end of the world

You'd have to look far and wide before you came across a more reclusive rock star than Geoff Barrows of Portishead. Probably all the way across the Atlantic, to a small sleepy town five miles down the Bristol Channel on England's craggy West Coast.

There's not much to recommend in Portishead, which stands on the spot of a 17th century village. It's got drab weather, shipping docks, and not much else except its proximity to Bristol, "the gateway for the Empire." For some, it's the mouth of hell. Where nothing ever changes, and people go, according to an expatriate, "just to die."

This is a city that time seems to have left behind, where people are cordial, down-to-earth, and a little shy. Just like Geoff. He and his mother moved here when he was thirteen, after his parents divorced. Mom never left. But Geoff moved fifteen miles to Bristol and picked up some work in "a dodgy rock band" playing drums on the weekends.

He got his first real job at sixteen as a tape operator at Coach House Studios where Portishead now record. This is the place where he was first asked to write some demos for Neneh Cherry's Homebrew album, and where he remixed singles by Depeche Mode, Primal Scream, Paul Weller, and Gabrielle.

Although Portishead, the band, is on the brink of international success, and could have their choice of any state of the art facility, Barrow remains here, at the place that gave him his first break. But it's not clear whether that has more to do with his hatred of change than any sense of loyalty.

Barrow is a man of deep convictions, and honest but complex feelings. He is harsh and uncompromising about his own performance; driven by an inner fire that demands perfection to quench its fires. But just as Barrows demands so much from himself, he is surprisingly gentle and solicitous with others. During my transatlantic interview with him last week, he was reluctant to talk about himself, but was concerned whether I had enough information to stitch together a story, and patiently explained some of the intricacies of how he makes Portishead records. Like sampling from recordings he makes of his own songs.

He is self-effacing to the point of pain, and doesn't seem to know his worth in the marketplace; something that is unusual, yet so refreshing in a musician. He is happiest locked in a sound studio mixing up his strange aural cocktails. Pure brisk shots of jazz, symphonic snippets, soul riffs, and liberal doses of silence. Shaken not stirred, just like the James Bond soundtracks he samples from.

Geoff at twenty-three isn't much different from Geoff at thirteen, only now he scratches and DJs in a studio instead of the back bedroom where he used to play weird bits of this and that, creating his own sonic Frankensteins, and causing his neighbors to raise their eyebrows askance, wondering what that quiet young gent was up to.

Geoff Barrow is still a quiet gent, and what he was up to is now apparent for all the world to hear. By all accounts they like what they hear. Dummy, Portishead's debut album, was named Melody Maker's 1994 Album of the Year, and their second single, "Glory Box," entered the English charts at number thirteen.

In America, the haunting, plaintive "Sour Times (Nobody Loves Me)" is now an MTV Buzz Clip, and is hypnotizing fans with its strange hybrid of hip hop breaks and spy movie samples that cut in and out beneath the unsteady, shifting sand of vocalist Beth Gibbon's haunting, suicidal refrain.

Portishead is disturbing, yet strangely compelling. Odd meowing, scratches, and bits of songs dropped into other songs create an unsettling landscape that you're almost afraid to enter. A moonscape, really. But as eerie and funereal as the songs are, they catch you unaware and lodge in your subconscious, forcing you to confront your own haunted houses. Just when you think that you can't take any more they show you the trap door. And you're back again among the living, with only a slight chill to remind you where you've been.

Barrow lives and breathes sound, constantly deconstructing songs he hears on the radio, on the television, even in elevators. Everything he hears is an inspiration, and he is continually on a quest to entrap the most innovative, evocative noises and paste them into his aural mosaics. He's a man who likes control, and feels most at home in a studio or in his flat which he shares with his girlfriend and their cat. Somehow I don't think it's a place with cheery hooked rugs and a bent wood rocking chair. As affable a man as he is, I suspect he also lives with demons.

He has no desire to see the world, doesn't like playing live, isn't eager to tour, and is content to remain in "the left-hand corner of Britain," picking his way through vintage American hip-hop and soundtracks to old espionage movies until he can find that elusive, perfect configuration of sounds and silences.

Addicted To Noise: I think Portishead's music is evocative of Britain before the Beatles. Dirk Bogarde, Audrey Hepburn, French twists, Look Back in Anger, James Bond... Do you have a particular period of history that you especially relate to that all this music comes from? Do you think in terms of 1962 and wear black turtle necks and chain smoke cigarettes when you write songs?

Geoff Barrow: Oh, no. What it comes down to is­­and I know this is going to sound weird­­that we don't particularly know anything about anything. I don't know anything. I'm not into literature or even films in a big way, or other people's music in a big way. It's just something that's come out from the little parts that we like. None of us are professors of anything. Or we're not buffs of anything. We obviously like music and movies but we're not particularly into fashion and that kind of thing.

Then I guess we just have to say that you live in a parallel universe where it's still 1962.

[Laughs] No. I just think it sounds like it does because a lot of thought has gone into the album. It's like half a natural thing. The music we make is the music we make. That's what comes out. But in sense, the other half is the production. I think production is something that's been forgotten about. There's been a standard in production for so long. And I've found it so, so, so, boring.

What do you mean, a standard?

Well there's this, "I'll get a standard drum sound on that," or, "Let's get this keyboard, it sounds like a Hammond organ," or, "it sounds like a real piano," or, "I'll take a bit of this." Technology has done that, it's made people lazy. And the idea behind production is, as long it sounds clean, it sounds nice. That's the producer's job done. As for the engineer, as long as it comes up clean, and as long as the songwriter comes up with a good enough melody, and the singer is relatively in tune... and if not they can always pitch him. To me that's terrible, that's why some of the stuff sounds rough as well. To me, if a song works, it's got a vibe about it. That's one of the main things that's been lost in music today. The vibe. It creates the emotion in music. I think Nirvana were excellent in creating music that had a vibe. A hell of a lot of rap artists have vibes.

So, you know it's a good song when it moves you?

Yeah, when I get goose pimples, I know it's good. If you can rate that kind of thing, you know you're onto a good thing . You don't know whether it's just going to give you goose pimples, or whether it will give anyone else goose pimples. But you hope that it does. That's what I go for. That's why I hate bland music.

When was the first time you got chills over your own music? When did you know that you had it. There must have been one moment you knew.

There are little parts on the album that I knew. "Biscuit." I put "Biscuit" on the album because I tried to make some that's a mess, but tuneful, but emotional as well. But then I get off on things like scratches.

I can tell.

It seems to me people like DJ. Premier from Gangstar is the kind of bloke that's ridiculously good at scratching, but emotionally creating a vibe. He creates a certain air within a track. And space is also important. You're just waiting for the next thing to come in and that's suspenseful. I think also people pass too much stuff onto their tracks.

I find Portishead anti-video. You know, how video killed the radio star, because video no longer allowed you to create your own pictures in your mind to go along with the music. They provided you with one vision. Well, your songs don't need videos. They provide a soundtrack to your own personal movie. In fact they seem to spawn a movie on every hearing.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. That's why I wish we didn't have to do them.

I know this is an odd thing to say, but I agree with you.

Well don't watch it. When you see the "Glory Box" video, don't watch it. Chuck it away. Record the music from it and just chuck it away. Hopefully. I want to recut the video before it goes to the States. I'm doing a rock mix, at the moment, for the States.

I understand you and Beth Gibbons are reluctant stars. She won't do interviews and you don't want your picture taken.

No, I can't stand it. It's not what I'm particularly into. I know I'm in the business, and they say I have to. But I don't know. We wanted to be the first band that's not based on image. Just based on music. It'd be nice for a change.

And you and Beth both seem to be in that same place.

Yeah. All we enjoy is just making music. I don't enjoy the press side of it. Obviously it's nice to talk to people who appreciate your music but it's that thing, we love to be in the studio. It's weird, this is something I never thought about.

You've had a lot of trouble with the media. Before we started this interview, you told me that just today a local paper in Bristol ran a misleading...

I hate it. I've just had murder from like local press today. It' s mad.

What did they say?

Usually I don't deal with local press because all they are interested in is where I'm from. It's very small minded. All they ever write is "local boy done good. He's from Portishead, he's putting us on the map." So I refuse to do all these interviews. So today in Bristol's biggest newspaper they ended up saying, "Why do all these pop stars end up being prima donnas?" [Barrow is agitated, speaking faster and faster as he recounts story.] They wrote this page on us being totally prima donnas. It's so ridiculous. I called him up and called him every fucking name under the sun.

Some of the ones I have given interviews for totally disregard what I've said and just write what they want. They make it up. This is big newspapers. For instance, they said we were at the Brits [Awards] and were really disappointed that we didn't win. And we didn't even go. We weren't even disappointed. I mean, Brits? It's really poo poo, isn't it?

Were you ever concerned that you were taking a commercial risk making music so disconnected from what's in the charts? And did you imagine the album would be such a huge commercial success?

No. We wanted to do something hopefully that was going to last a long time. Because music today it doesn't seem to have a long life span. And it has to do with something sonically with old records, that I'm really interested in. When it sounds old people always think that it's good. And it's just an idea that we thought I'm really into old sound anyway a lot more than digital modern sound but if we get something that sounds really old and it gives it that warmth, it kind of like triggers off sound thoughts in people's heads without them even knowing about it. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I've listened the album. I've seen whole movies in my head when I've listened to your songs.

We're really into making songs. Songs . That's the most important thing is the songs. I think that's what's lacking in a lot modern music. Not rock music or the kind of stuff that's based on songs, but the dance music. Like house music and stuff like that. They got rid of the songs.

You mean the beat takes precedent?

Yeah, but don't get me wrong. I think dance music is great, if you want to go out and dance to it. That's fair enough. But what was happening there wasn't any kind of dance music that was particularly going into people's stereos at home. That people were remembering. Except of course for Soul to Soul, and undoubtedly Massive Attack. But that whole thing, of things that are going to last longer, there wasn't any. But we were wanted our stuff to last longer. That's we really are into and what we think about.

You never thought you'd make it big?

To me, us being huge is really worrying.

How so?

Well, if you think about it, we've had a lot of press, the album done really well. We're just about to start a second album. And really it's kind of like, I don't know. I find it really daunting, the entire thing. That's why I try to keep out of it. That's why I try to keep out of saying too much. Or having my picture taken. I don't want to be part of that whole nonsense industry thing. I truly believe that if you have a good enough record, or hopefully what you think is good, and other people think is good. The amount of actual promotional work shall be very, very, small. When we signed to go, we wanted to break all those old models. Why do we have to do that, is there another way that we can do it, without doing that. The best part about our record company is if we can come up with a better idea, they'll let us do it. They won't just say, that's the standard way, you have to do it.

Have you always been involved in sound? I mean did you start scratching records in your bedroom as a teenager?

Yeah. It was in the mid-eighties when I became a teenager, and got into early America hip-hop or dance. We call it electo over here. Also I played the drums. On Sundays I used to play in a really dodgy rock band, and during the week, I DJ'd. Then I stopped drumming and started DJ-ing, mainly in my bedroom. Just kind of mucking around, and then I ended up about when I was eighteen getting a job in a studio in Bristol. And I started getting into using the sampler. And since then, five years now, I've been just working on ideas. It was only about two years ago that I realized what I exactly I wanted to do.

When you first saw Beth did you think she was missing part of your future? Was there a sense of destiny? What was your first impression of her?

No, not particularly. I thought she had a major voice, but I just didn't think we'd do anything together. At that point her voice was so way out for what we wanted. From what we were doing. And her voice sounded a little bit different from where she is now. We've kind of, like, changed together. Since we've been working together, we've changed so we've adapted to each other.

Was your music anything like this before? Has this been a real evolution to get this smoky nightclub sound you have?

It was always trying to be hip-hop based. Slow, heavy. Using kind of odd sounds.

Back to Beth: and you two hit it off immediately?

Yeah. But there's four members of Portishead really, not just Beth and me. There's Dave McDonald and Adrian Utley. Adrian is an excellent jazz player. He also plays bass, and we work on musical ideas together. In fact he's a more musical person than I am. So when it comes down to old samples like what I need to create something, we work on together. I get him to play something and then we work on it. He's also a good producer.

Plus he's older, and he knows more songs to sample from.

Exactly. He always wanted to play odd kind of spy music, and that kind of tremolo guitar. But because he was a jazz player nobody was particularly interested. So when we clicked, it was excellent. Because that's what I was looking for.

So it wasn't you who had this consciousness of wanting to recreate an old James Bond movie kind of atmosphere? Did that come more from Adrian?

It was weird. Because within hip-hop it really began to change into sampling soundtracks. There was some really good breaks and beats coming out of soundtracks. And they started using them in the States. And because you're always looking for samples, when you run out of soul records to look through for breaks, you start looking at rock records, looking at film tracks, sound tracks, looking all around. And I'd sampled soundtracks before and gotten some weird sounds from them. And Adrian came around, and he'd always been into that, always been into the Ipcress File and stuff like that, and he got me into that side of things.

Do you ever go see the movie after you sample the soundtrack?

No, In most cases I haven't seen the movies.

You work like a hip-hop producer?

Sort of. Basically within hip-hop the way it works, if you have an old record, say from James Brown, and there's what we call a break, which is like an intro only of like the beats and the bass line just on its own. And that is sampled, and the beat is put into a sampler, chopped into little parts, and arranged so the guy likes it or whatever, and then music is put on top of a rap. But the way we do it now is we don't exactly sample from records. We stopped doing that now.

What do you sample from?

What we started to do, and did on seventy percent of the last album, was we actually played ourselves, and then put it on vinyl, and sampled it back again.

So you sampled from yourselves and cut out the middleman. Did you cover a song?

No we actually wrote the songs ourselves.

That was derivative of a time or style you liked?

Yes, exactly, "in the style of..."

Why did you go to all this trouble?

What happened was, within hip-hop, if you sample a beat, that records out there, so what happens is a week after, someone else might use it, and that takes away your fresh sound. So we prefer doing it our way, because then you end up with an original sound, and if someone ends up with the same sound as you, you know they've taken it from you. We still used a couple of samples on the album like Isaac Hayes.

So pretty soon you'll be your own cottage industry. You're always loo ...

Yeah, that would be nice.

Would you say Portishead has a distinctly British sound?

It takes sound from everywhere. It has more of an American influence than anything else.

If you were going to deconstruct your sound, what part is American?

I don't know. It's difficult to say. But I'm into hip-hop mainly, into American hip-hop. Like A Tribe Called Quest. And then you got the real serious soul guys like Isaac Hayes, and then you've got the great jazz guys that really influence Adrian. And then you've got someone like Lalo Schifrin, who's a film score writer from the '60s and then on the European side you have bands like Can, and Gong, and orchestral, strange spy film kind of a sound.

Will you continue that old spy movie sound on your next album?

No, not really.

Do you have a different mood, or theme for your next project?

No, not really. We most likely will. But the way I see it, I'm not going to go out looking for the new Portishead. I think that's the wrong thing to do. We've only just started our career. I don't think we really have to make a big change like that. When you have a rock band, and they play guitar, and they have a guitar sound, that is their sound. When their second album comes, it's the same sound, you know what I mean? We want to do the same thing, but for some reason, because we use samples, people expect something a lot more progressive than the first album.

So you think people expect you to change personas from album to album.

I think they do, but that's wrong. Obviously there's going to be a natural progression, but I'm not going to go looking to find something that has to be on the other side of the world.

Hopefully you'll get to evolve at your own pace.

That's hard. I saw this thing on TV. Bands get very little chance to evolve nowadays because there's so many other bands out.

Especially in England, bands are always battling for their place, or to keep their slot. It's always a case of the Next Big Thing.

As long as we can become established so we can keep releasing albums, that's all I ever wanted to do.

To have a long career?

Yeah, to just keep on doing it.

Was there ever anything else that you wanted to do?

No! There's nothing else I could have done. I was pretty useless at school. I wanted to be a graphic designer except I'm color blind. Then I couldn't have done an office job, because when it comes down to it, I'm absolutely useless when it comes to dealing with either reading or writing.

Maybe you should consider that a plus, and most of your genius is channeled into your music.

Don't use that word.

I think you sell yourself short. I had you pegged as an intellectual.

Seeing as I haven't read a book since I was eight, I don't think so.

People get their information in different ways. You probably get yours aurally; it comes to you through your the medium of sound.

Well thanks, but I don't think so. The only thing I do extremely well is I analyze music a lot. I hear the way they recorded it when I listen.

Do you ever just listen to music without analyzing it?

Not particularly. Maybe just some rap tunes, but very rarely. When it comes down to sound I rate people like Lenny Kravitz highly. A lot of people slay him, but I don't. I think he's an incredibly talented producer.

Will you continue that old spy movie sound on your next album?

No, not really.

Do you have a different mood, or theme for your next project?

No, not really. We most likely will. But the way I see it, I'm not going to go out looking for the new Portishead. I think that's the wrong thing to do. We've only just started our career. I don't think we really have to make a big change like that. When you have a rock band, and they play guitar, and they have a guitar sound, that is their sound. When their second album comes, it's the same sound, you know what I mean? We want to do the same thing, but for some reason, because we use samples, people expect something a lot more progressive than the first album.

So you think people expect you to change personas from album to album.

I think they do, but that's wrong. Obviously there's going to be a natural progression, but I'm not going to go looking to find something that has to be on the other side of the world.

Hopefully you'll get to evolve at your own pace.

That's hard. I saw this thing on TV. Bands get very little chance to evolve nowadays because there's so many other bands out.

Especially in England, bands are always battling for their place, or to keep their slot. It's always a case of the Next Big Thing.

As long as we can become established so we can keep releasing albums, that's all I ever wanted to do.

To have a long career?

Yeah, to just keep on doing it.

Was there ever anything else that you wanted to do?

No! There's nothing else I could have done. I was pretty useless at school. I wanted to be a graphic designer except I'm color blind. Then I couldn't have done an office job, because when it comes down to it, I'm absolutely useless when it comes to dealing with either reading or writing.

Maybe you should consider that a plus, and most of your genius is channeled into your music.

Don't use that word.

I think you sell yourself short. I had you pegged as an intellectual.

Seeing as I haven't read a book since I was eight, I don't think so.

People get their information in different ways. You probably get yours aurally; it comes to you through your the medium of sound.

Well thanks, but I don't think so. The only thing I do extremely well is I analyze music a lot. I hear the way they recorded it when I listen.

Do you ever just listen to music without analyzing it?

Not particularly. Maybe just some rap tunes, but very rarely. When it comes down to sound I rate people like Lenny Kravitz highly. A lot of people slay him, but I don't. I think he's an incredibly talented producer.

Did you know he says he got his first influences from Kiss?

Kiss? You're joking. That's mad. The thing is people really have a go at him for being a rip-off merchant. But there's millions of bands doing that; he's the actual clever one who can actually make it sound like the original. The thing of it is, he's the only one who has a sound that hasn't been reproduced in twenty-five years.

So in his own way, he's captured the sound of a certain era of time, and I think Portishead has done the same thing.

What we like to do is come up with something more original than just that. There are so many people doing retro stuff. But because they don't get the sound right, nobody thinks they're ripping anything off.

What do you think about Oasis, who actually admit that they put on Beatle songs and write over the top of them.

They're the exception to the rule. I rate [praise] them. I can't help but rate them. Because the thing of it is, they just know where they're going, and they just know what they're doing. I think they're out to conquer the world any which way they can. They'll blatantly say they rip people off, they've slayed a lot of older musicians in the world who are well-respected musicians. And I think it's about time that they did get a slaying. Some of them have had it too easy for too long. I think they are the kind of band could be around for many years. They'll only get better.

I find your music more challenging to listen to than Oasis. I like both bands, but I keep finding new things I haven't heard on your album.

Yeah, we've put some trapdoors in our music.

More like mazes and monsters.

Well, I'm glad you're saying that.

Have you ever wanted to write lyrics?

No. I don't get involved with Beth's lyrics.

Is she really that depressed?

Naw, absolutely not. Basically what happens is I give her a backing track and she writes what she gets off the backing track. And I don't particularly write a happy backing track, so that's the way it turns out. If I were to write a happy, happy backing track it might be slightly different.

Is Beth a particularly serious personality?

I don't think we're all particularly happy, surely. But what is there particularly to be happy about at the moment. Especially in our country with the state of our government, the way it's actually working. It's just one big joke. The English people have actually given up. And every month something else is taken away from them. And every couple of months their actual rights and freedoms are taken from them. And nobody is even putting up a fight.

Can you pin your hopes on a Labour government next time?

It would be better than the Conservatives, but then again, you just don't know what happens when they get into power, they might act the same way, because there's that much money, they're under that much pressure, they' re doing this and doing that and getting away with it.

What about all these anti-monarchists?

That's because the gap between rich and poor is getting bigger and bigger.

So it's not about Charles and Camilla, then?

No, nobody gives a toss whether he's shagging somebody. Fair play to him if he does, he's only human. It's like this whole thing, there's not poverty like there is in America, but it's getting pretty bad. And though it's not unusual for us, but it's getting quite dangerous. England owned a third of world. The Great British Empire. Thank God that's over.

You mean people didn't lament the end of the Empire?

No, it's good. Thank God. In all honesty we enslaved people, we shot people, we destroyed whole races of people.

To change the subject, would you rather stay in the studio or are you comfortable doing live shows?

I like to stay in the studio, but live is another side to it, that I do. But I hate traveling, I can't stand traveling. But when it comes down to just meeting people from somewhere else that are into your tunes, that is the one absolute bonus of playing live.

Your hatred of travel, is it due to just not being able to control your surroundings, or do you hate planes?

I just hate leaving everything. Leaving my girlfriend, my flat, my cat; security basically, and actually being somewhere I don't want to be. I'm not interested in seeing the rest of the world, to be quite honest. I really don't want to see the rest of the world. I'm really quite happy where I am.

Have you toured at all? Around Europe and the UK?

No we haven't. We haven't really played anywhere. We don't particularly like playing live, because we have to try so much harder to create the same kind of atmosphere. And sometimes very, very rarely, we fail. And I don't like that. The thing is I like everything controllable. Everything that we put out is controlled. And when you're playing live there isn't that feeling. It's totally uncontrollable. You have about fifteen per cent of control, and fate is guiding the way.

Maybe your record company will understand that you don't want to take the show on the road.

It's the whole thing about the music industry and promotion. It does my absolute head in. Why does it have to be like that, who set it up? I understand that people don't know us over in America, and you've got to sort it out. But there must be a better way.

What was the first record you ever bought?

I don't know what the first record I ever bought was, but the first record I ever heard was called "The Laughing Policeman." It's a bad English comedy record, and all it is is this tune with this bloke laughing. It's horrendous. It's from the 1930s, I think. But it was the first record I ever remember noticing. I didn't really notice music until I heard that on the radio once. No lyrics, no words.

I think this could be very revealing. I think you're a little more twisted than I thought.

No, not really.

Is there someone you were in another lifetime?

Don't know, someone pretty boring.

Stop picking on yourself. I'll rephrase it. Is there any particular period of history that you would have liked to witness?

I sometimes think it would have really, really nice to have gone back there.

Where? When?

[He ignores me, and continues on.] Should I tell you why?

I'm on pins and needles.

You would go back with the knowledge you have now.

You mean like The Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court . Kind of like getting into the way-back machine?

I like the idea that if I went back to King Arthur, that I would know the world wouldn't destruct. Living now, I don't know whether the world is going to blow up in front of my eyes.

You're saying that if you went back, you'd know that their wouldn't be a global catastrophe.

I know that I'll be dead, but I know in history I would have lived and basically even if I would have lived a really, really long time in King Arthur's days, I'm not going to see the world blow up, because it never happened. Because I know from history that it never happened. But we don't know now whether it will.

I know that I'm older than you are. When I was growing up we had drills for the event of bombs, but with the end of the cold war I didn't think that people were afraid of the bomb now. Did you have bomb drills when you were at school?

We didn't have the drills. We had a program at school after this program called Threats, about the bomb going off. We did think that it could go off. Especially about the time that the Russians shot down that Chinese aircraft, and that was recently the closest we have been. The thing is that has played a large part in shaping who I am. The nuclear thing. I think it's not so much now. But the '80s was the last time it really did come on strong. And that still stays with me now. I believe... well I think if we all make it past the year 2000 we'll all be all right.

You know I have a theory. When the fear of the bomb was most strong was the early '60s, just about the time that the music you were sampling from...

That's weird. I personally believe that we're going to have some real problems before the year 2000.

I hope you're totally wrong.

So do I.

Do you consider yourself very religious in the face of this.

No, not at all. Desperate more than anything. But I wouldn't turn to religion to alleviate it.

But you turn to music.

Yeah. I personally think there will be some strange things that will be happening. I really do believe that. It'll be more like hysteria. Obviously we hope it doesn't happen. But I think there will be some very, very odd things from people.

You don't think the threat will come from Russia do you?

The thing is, it actually won't. I think there's a lot of things going on and the maddest thing is at the moment, personally to me, is the worry of China. In 1997 when Hong Kong is handed back to the Chinese, I hope they see there's enough money in there not to do anything silly. And I hope they don't try to take back some of the land Russia has of theirs.

Is there any misconception about your band you'd like to clear up?

We just want to make music. We're not out to slag anyone off, or confront anyone or do anything that would be bad.

You're not into any of the rivalry?

Just take us for the music. If you take myself and Beth, and put us together, or me, Beth Adrian and Dave together and then you listen to the album, and you look at us, you'd think, "No, it ain't them." Because it's a sound thing, it's not about how we look, or what we do. It's just the music.

Is there a motto you have? Something that helps you cope.

I say to myself, "Just calm down." I used to count, it's weird, I don't do it so much now, but I used to count to ten twice, count to twenty twice, count back from ten to zero twice, then count from twenty to zero twice. Then that used to calm me down. I'd do it to knock out things from my head. I try and calm down, I am obsessive, and have suffered from panic attacks, and nervousness.

Exercise helps, too. When in doubt there's always endorphins.

I'm going to do some exercise, especially when I'm on tour.

An actor who would play you in your life story?

Pee Wee Herman with long hair. Brad Pitt because everyone would think I was good looking then.

You are good looking. Somehow I don't think you take compliments very well.

I don't take them very well at all, I don't know what to do with them.

Maybe that's a good thing, especially if your band is poised to be really huge. Humility is refreshing. Right now your art does speak for you and I hope it continues to. So don't change, babe.

One thing I will say; I won't change. I analyze everything. Not just music, people's views. And I analyze my own personality, but everyone does, don't they? But thing is I know what I hate to be, and I'll never be it. And I can see it and it's not me, and it never will be me. And people have said that to me in the past. And if we do get really successful right, I mean I would just hate that.

I have the feeling you're fueled as much by what you don't want to be as you are by what you want to be.

Definitely. We're lucky we can see what we don't want to be. That's the way I look on music, and the way Beth looks on music, as long as we're happy... I know for a fact, I know really, if Beth isn't happy with what's going on in the music industry, she'll quit. Stop. She'd stop tomorrow. I just know that. I haven't got to be running around making her happy, because it won't be one of those things that'll make her unhappy. It'll be a personal feeling. Because she's real level-headed. It'll be one of those things that she'll turn around and say, "look I'm not enjoying this." And if I said, "Can I sort this out," and she says, "No, I'm going to give up." There's nothing I can do.

Does that make you nervous?

Not really, because I know it would be something serious. I mean, we do talk a lot so the thing is I probably would sort it out. But if she really, really did stop enjoying it I'd let her go.