I had the luxury of going on holiday in the United Kingdom last summer. I indulged a guilty pleasure at a bar in Manchester singing karaoke to 'National Express.' [Neil Laughs] I was really surprised to see a lot of the people in the bar singing along.

Excellent! Oh, that tickles me! That song means nothing if it's not a mass sing a long. It was never meant to be an intellectual classic. That's great! It's one of my guilty pleasures, as well - karaoke. I don't generally do my own songs, but there's nothing I like better than to get up and do 'Moon River' or something. [laughs]

Yes! I'm immensely fond of singing along with your catalogue. I belt it out in the car on the way to work quite often. Talking about the music some more, the covers that you've chosen over the years - Ride and Kraftwerk and Roxy Music but most especially the Throwing Muses' 'Hate My Way,' and your Stephin Merritt/Magnetic Fields choices-

-I've done so many Magnetic Fields songs it's ridiculous! [Laughs] They're just so easy to play.

Has that been your impetus for their selection?

I don't mean it to sound bad, but [Stephin Merritt] is incredibly low-fi on record. It's quite easy to do his songs and make them sound much better, in a technical way. I'm not saying my versions are better than his. That would be insane because he's just fantastic. I think he's a brilliant, genius songwriter. But [the songs] are always very "coverable." 'Hate My Way' - that was actually the choice of Keith Cohen, the old boss at Setanta. It's funny how well it worked.

It seems so violent compared to the Divine Comedy catalogue of that era. But I suppose that's the point of b-sides!

Yes! Over the years, I've liked to let it all sort of hang out on b-sides especially - get all my Indie-isms out. [laughs]

I wanted to also ask you about the long outro on 'Eric the Gardener.' I've always wondered if I should have been extracting something profound from that, but always thought myself silly for possibly falling prey to a Vonnegut Cat's Cradle syndrome - looking for some hidden meaning in something that isn't really there to begin with. Was that intentional, or is there something one should be drawing from that?

Well, there's nothing specific in the music that you're meant to be listening to. In fact, it's meant to be kind of meditative, which is not a word you'd often use in reference to The Divine Comedy! [laughing] With 'Eric,' the song is about a bloke who dug up some Roman treasure in a field in Norfolk. It always sort of seems in that situation it's almost as if history is something you dig up. It's just in the ground waiting for you. Where in fact history is not just empires coming and going, it's the lives of real people who are just exactly the same going about their business. It sounds incredibly pretentious, but with the length of the song we were just basically trying to indicate how profoundly long, yet how profoundly short, time can be. Human civilization - it's only been a blink of an eye compared to the history of the world. It's like trying to belittle us as a race. [Laughing] I really have read a lot into that haven't I? But I can't deny - that's what we were thinking.

I'll certainly go back on 'Eric' now with a different perspective.

I was delighted, there was a BBC 'Timewatch' documentary about new discoveries in quantum physics and how the universe is…I don't know…it's all sort of way above my head, but they had the whole of the outro of 'Eric' at the end with this beautiful time lapse photography. If we had ever done a video for 'Eric,' that's exactly what it should have been. I was delighted. I kept it.

Touching back on changing styles, on your first four albums it sounded like you were playing with personas that inspired and interested you. Would it be a fair statement to say that on 'Regeneration' you were writing more as yourself?

Yes. There were really no personas on 'Regeneration.' None that I can think of, anyway. [chuckles] Naw, it was basically just me.

I noticed a comment you made in 1998 in regards to the NME awards that you were very pleased that Oasis didn't win anything.

[laughs]

Now there's a band who's never really seemed to progress at all. They've released the same album five times. As an artist who is intentionally making efforts not to stagnate, how does it feel to watch others around you never really move on?

I try not to care. Because if you did actually care, you'd spend your time in a huff. I have no particular bone to pick with Oasis or anyone. I made a New Year's resolution about two years ago that I would never say another word about another band because it got me into trouble so many times! Dissing other people, and then meeting them the next week!

That can be awkward.

Oh, it's terrible. At last night's show in LA, Tim Burgess was at the gig and Warren Leotee, who also works with the Charlatans sometimes, reminded me of something I said in 1996 regarding a review of two of their singles - saying that I said I hated them. And... I don't! Why did I say that? So, I'm never going to say another bad thing about anybody again. Heh, I can't remember what the original question was! [laughs]

Oh, I just simply wondered if it was annoying to you to watch other artists selling millions of albums, while never really changing or progressing their musical styles?

It doesn't really annoy me that they're selling millions of records. It does annoy me that I'm not! [laughing] But it's a mild annoyance. I'm perfectly happy. I'm perfectly well-off. I live a wonderfully middle-class life. As long as I always get to make the next record, and I've got enough money to feed the family, then I'm perfectly happy so long as there are people out there who actually enjoy what I do.

The Divine Comedy can be found at
www.thedivinecomedy.com.