Yeah, maybe that's because we've playing with Lisa Germano. I highly respect her, I think she's a brilliant song-writer, and I think she tends to appeal to an older audience than we do. Some of the dates have been really weird - when we played in Sweden, there would be like a lot of really young kids for our set, and then they sort of disappeared after we've played, and the oldies would move forward for Lisa's set. In Germany I think we attract more or less the same audience.
Why didn't you play "Love Songs On The Radio" then?!? I think that song must the most popular one over here, 'cause it's featured on several compilations...
Well, we haven't played it that often, and Rachel is just not very happy singing it live. It's kind of a shame I suppose, but we're basically playing the songs that everynone's sort of happy playing live.
You've played a lot of new songs last night - do you have other new songs ready on demo or so...
Yeah, we've been starting to work on a lot of stuff recently, so one the things we wanted to do on this tour was trying to play as many new songs as we could, just to see how we've going to record them. It's the same with the songs from our album, they kind of developed when we're playing them live as a band, you know. So we'd like to develope the new songs before we record them, just to get some different vibes to the last one.
I've heard some radio sessions of Mojave 3, where you've played cover-songs by the likes of Neil Young and Bob Dylan - do you plan to release them at some point?
We're not sure, I mean since we've started playing we've always had some cover-versions that we could play, and sometimes we put then in the set. I dunno, but we might record one or a couple of other songs, but I'm not sure really.
When it comes to recording the next album, do you plan to record it in a different way than the debut?!?
I think we just wanna record it very sort of live, that's the only sort of plan we've got, and then see how it goes really. I mean we never really plan what we're doing, but I think we wanna try to catch as much as possible of our live sound.
Did the inspiration or the influence change when writing now with Mojave and back then with Slowdive?
I dunno if the inspiration really changed, I mean I'm still into certain things that I was into when I was in Slowdive or whatever. Not consciously, but I tbink we've just moved towards writing songs rather than just experimenting with sounds, it seems to move into that way. I don't think there has been a major sort of change.
So, what are you into at the moment?
A lot of different stuff, I like Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Palace. I don't like many English bands at the moment. Obviously there are bands like Oasis or Kula Shaker, they're all sort of really good you know, but it's sort of going mainstream as well, and there aren't that many interested bands coming through at the moment, or maybe it's just because that I'm not listening to all that new stuff. When I was like 15 or 16, and getting into kind of all sorts of music, there was a real, proper sort of alternative to the mainstream, with bands like Jesus And The Mary Chain, Loop, Spacemen 3. In England, everything's kind of like converged into the mainstream now, and there's a very narrow brand of music really. I suppose it's not really true, because there's this Jungle and Dance stuff, but that's become sort of noticed since Oasis have become so successful. It just worries me in some ways, because it's all a bit bland, really. I mean I do like Oasis and Kula Shaker, but I don't know what new stuff I'm into at the moment, because none of it is particularly exciting.
I got the impression that the English press sort of ignores you - are you happy about that?
Yeah, but I don't really mind. With Slowdive we sort of got a load of press when we've started, and then they really sort of worked against us in the long run. I mean, you get a lot of press, you get hyped and everything, and when we signed to Creation Records, we were like 18 and we've had 4 songs ["Beach Song", "Take Me Down", "Slowdive", "Avalyn"], and it was all kind of hard to deal with all the things like press and everything when we weren't really sure of what we were about as a band. I think we feel more comfortable now, becasue I suppose we all got a little bit more older and more aware of how thing's work. I'm just into making music, and I'm just sort of happy with the music. I mean I believe that what we're doing is really good, you know, and I kind of think the music press will come round to it one day, but you can't really take too much notice of what they're thinking, because they're gonna change their minds.
In the song "Tomorrow's Taken" there's the line "I'll take another shot and think about you" - is that about drugs?!?
[smiles] Well, it could be about drugs, or it could be about drinking, you know. I think I was thinking about taking a shot of whiskey or something.
So, what do you think of drugs to broaden your musical horizon?
Personally, I think drugs are cool, you know. I mean if we wouldn't have drugs, we wouldn't have a lot of good music. You know, even the Beatles were fucking high most of the time they recorded, and so you wouldn't have that range of music you have now. In that aspect I suppose drugs are really cool, you know. I mean I wouldn't...whatever...it's a personal choice, isn't it?!?
You mentioned earlier that you've done this 4AD-package-tour with Scheer and Lush - I've got a tape of one show where you formed a 4AD-supergroup with members of Lush and Scheer to perform Lush's "Ciao!"...
Yeah, on quite a few of the dates I'd gone on stage at the end and sing with Miki that song - I think at the end of the tour, basically there was more or less everyone on stage of both bands doing something, and it kind of got out of hand, but it is funny...
So, do you feel comfortable now being on the 4AD-rooster?