What exactly is the function of the little instrumentals without a name (there are stars on the sleeve instead).
RYAN: Whenever we are in the studio we just do something, play as much as possible - for instance when we were waiting for the producer to do something. He would meanwhile record it. Those are basically little studio jam sessions.
STEPHEN: The funny thing is when we first heard it we didn't even want to put names for those on the cover. Just like OASIS did on their last album - they have this instrumental which appears three times. We liked that. One of the star-bits on the record is actually a song now, called "Deep blue".
RYAN: Did you see the broadcast of OASIS playing the Edinburgh festival to 250.000 people? That was amazing. Was I mistaken or was that RINGO STARR on stage there? They played "Octopusses Garden".
But speaking a little bit more about SHALLOW: What would be their approach on songwriting then?
RYAN: We sometimes have to sit down to practise our old stuff to have it ready for the live shows. But then we start playing and before you know it we have a 15 minute jam session and then we have a new song.
STEPHEN: That's a problem with the next record, because we have so many songs. It's about 30 right now.
JULIE: You know after we recorded our last record we actually had enough songs to record a new one. And we are ready to go.
JASON: We are addicted to writing songs. And that is our main problem. I mean it's a nice problem to have, but sometimes we will have to go back to the old stuff and listen to it to remember it.
So how do the lyrics fit in there (most of which are written by JULIE)?
JULIE: I usually do them 5 minutes before we record. Sometimes at least. I never write the lyrics ahead of time. The song is usually first. Sometimes when I write a vocal line I hear words in my head that will go in certain spots. We wrote this song for this radio thing and didn't have any lyrics. And the guy who was recording it went "You don't have any lyrics?" and he was freaking and thought it would be a real disaster and I went "No, no, it's cool" and sat down and wrote the lyrics in about 10 minutes. It's no big thing. And then I went and recorded it.
RYAN: That's the thing about being called SHALLOW. Our only message is that we have no message. It's like with the BEATLES. You know, when they started they just wanted to hold your hand.
JULIE: We want people to enjoy it. We don't have lyrics that preach things to people. It's just about being happy and enjoying our stuff. We want people to figure out for themselves what it's about.
RYAN: It's more the flow of words and their sound that's important rather than the contents.
JULIE: Since it's so simple you cannot say. It's not that you could say that this song is about blah blah blah or anything. Well, I have in my head a certain image. I know what I'm singing about but I won't tell anyone else. You know - let the people know what song is particularly about. They might think it's about their dog or their house. You know, put it to whatever.
STEPHEN: Remember the movie "Imagine" about JOHN LENNON? There was this guy at his house and he was going "I swear that song is about me". And JOHN said "I don't think so because I was sitting on the toilet when I wrote it. It's about nothing."
But I guess the contents of the lyrics is reflected through the situation one is in when one writes it, right?
JULIE: Yeah exactly. It's about how I feel at the time I write it, the kind of mood you're in. But it's not some long, thought-out process or anything. You just grab something. But it's not meaningless. It makes sense, because it is something that you are thinking about. It's not a meaningless jumble of words, but I like to keep it open. Know what I mean?
STEPHEN: But I mean still: Someone could take that another way. There's a song on our EP called "Get By" which sounds like a love song but it's actually about us firing a manager.
But isn't that a love song? Well, that in mind I could imagine they would be interested to record under circumstances which then would reflect on the music?
JULIE: Yeah, sure. Really, it does affect you, wherever you are. It's kind of different when you are in a big city - you kind of feel like crazy, stressed out. When we were in New York for instance and recorded a couple of songs for the EP we were like ready to go home and everything. It really affects your thinking.
So what about the future developments?
STEPHEN: I think we will keep the psychedelic elements and the melodic things. I guess people could dance to some of the tracks for our new album whereas they couldn't dance to the last one.
What's the overall idea behind this psychedelic thing?
JULIE: It's fun to play with, you know. Toys. You can get some whacky pedal and fool around with.