Steve:"After the last album came out, how long was it before you started piecing together the vision for the next one?"
Alex: "The first one we did on this album was 'No Distance' after an horrendously heavy night in Barcelona. About July or August 1997 ..."
Damon: "Well, that's another version of it. It's not really what it's like now ..."
Alex: "But that was the kind of start of it."
Damon: "Well no. I'd say the start of it was ..."
Steve: "Are you gonna have a domestic?"
Graham: "We've had loads of interviews individually, where we've each said how we remember the album developing and so when we get together, we think everybody else is talking nonsense. (all laugh)."
Damon: "Yeah, exactly and it's the first time I've heard how Alex starts his interviews. It's a bit of a shock to me and I'm, well ..."
Steve: "Stunned?"
Damon: "Completely, because that is the last thing on the record. It was one of the last vocals and lyrics to be done. The actual basic tune had been written but it was no where near to what it is now."
Steve: "That's why Blur work so well. Selective memory (all laugh). When did you decide to use William Orbit as your Producer ?"
Damon: "Well, he did a couple re-mixes that picked-up on some of the more obvious things about Blur as a band. Nobody else, not even us, spotted this stuff before. It was nice that he saw something and drew it out.
"We wanted a change and the songs I'd written were very different in that they're very personal. It was a risk but we just sort of went into the studio with him and he sat back, taped everything we did and we sort of built it up from there."
Steve: "How do you spark off each other in the studio?"
Damon: "It's been very instinctive because literally, everyone just looked at the demo songs at the same time as William - I had a slight advantage in that I knew the songs I'd written.
"So, a lot of the stuff you hear on the album is how we reacted initially. William was in studio 13 and just taped everything - each of us had our own feeds into tapes. William recorded us and then took away everything we played. Actually, Graham probably felt that sense of 'where's it all gone?' than anyone.
"It was only after two months that the whole thing would be brought back into perspective. It made it really exciting because when it was played back, we were able to listen to our music in a way that we'd never been able to listen to it before. I remember listening to 'Battle' in the way I listen to other people's music - it was a real treat 'cause you're not often given the chance to do that with your own music."
More coming soon... this is by no means the end of the interview. It will be up as soon as I have time, which could be anytime, I still havnt finished the Parklife Program from Lamq Live.