Can I ask you what happened that you guys moved from Astralwerks to Capitol here in the States?

Uh…that was something that happened kind of in the outer perimeter as we were just getting on with recording Last Broadcast.

Just business changing hands?

A business thing, yeah. As far as I can make out it was something to do with Virgin records or some upset that happened.

Right - the industry going through total chaos.

Yeah, I mean obviously I keep my hand in the business side of things but at the end of the day…. Basically Astralwerks are all really cool guys but I don't think it worked out so we moved over to Capitol.

And are you happy with what they're doing for you now?

Well, I don't know yet - they just got us! We'll see in LA! (Laughs) I'm sure things will be cool.

Yeah, you know, when you're in LA you get to visit their offices in that great tower.

Yeah! We're gonna record a few tracks over there - they've got a studio in the basement. Just a few acoustic versions off the album; we thought that would be pretty cool.

That's so great. You guys will be all infused with the Beatles vibe.

Yeah, of course! Capitol recorded the Beach Boys and Happy Mondays, I believe, too.

Speaking of Happy Mondays, you worked with their producer Steve Osbourne again on this record -

Yeah, just for a couple of tracks.

So it was mostly self-produced?

Yeah. I think it's always gonna be; we know now what we want and there's no point in having someone else. Steve Osbourne is great 'cause he understands us and when we sort of lose our way we give him a phone call and he's like, "Yeah, come down!" He's always really good for pulling the track out if we've lost our vision a little bit.

Going back to the differences between Last Broadcast and Lost Souls, it seems that Lost Souls had a consistent theme running through it, whereas the new one is more positive, as you were saying, but also different stylistically from track to track. If you were trying to not have a theme and be more disparate this time around, then what did it mean to lose your way? What constituted those times when you felt you were getting lost?

The basic thing that was unsaid but probably we were all thinking was, whatever the track dictates, that's what it'll dictate. And you go with the track, so like "There Goes the Fear" dictated sort of a samba quartet at the end. It's almost like we have no decision. It must have that sound, so that's what it must have. "M62 Song" was just sort of a scratchy, atmospheric tune that would sound better if we recorded it outdoors underneath the M62, which is like a bridge that a freeway goes over. So that's where we recorded it, underneath there, because the song dictated that, you know!

We just took each song on it's own merit and when we got all the tunes together it was like, "Right, how are we gonna put these together?" We thought, "Well, we put it together like a film!" It has the kind of like same feel to it as a film - when you listen to it from beginning to end it does feel as though you've just watched a film.

You've got the intro and then you've got the closing credits with the big epic anthem at the end, that kind of thing.

Yeah, it felt very natural to us. And we saw a film called Mulholland Drive by David Lynch - we were very influenced by that, everything down to the front cover! The very last thing we recorded for Last Broadcast was sort of an interlude, "Where We're Calling From", and that was directly influenced by Mulholland Drive.

That's so cool when something from a totally different artistic medium plays a part in something else you'd never guess.

Big time! We're massive David Lynch heads - we just got really affected by that film. It was brilliant!

It sure was - I always knew you kids had taste!

(Laughs) He's brilliant! Do you like Lynch?

Yeah, I love him - I think he's a genius.

He is a genius, yeah, so I think you can make your own mind up about the ending of Mulholland Drive. It's like uncharted waters - I've never seen a film like it!

It's a film that leaves itself to completely subjective interpretation.

And it stays with you, that film - it stayed with me. I couldn't stop thinking about it after I'd seen it.

Have you thought about trying to let him know that? Do you guys aspire to talk to him or anything?

I think we'd love to like go and have a drink with him in a bar or something. (Laughs)

He's a big smoker so if you ever see him wandering around go offer him a smoke. That'll be your big opening line there.

(Laughs) Yeah!

What kinds of freedoms did the success of Lost Souls afford you in the recording process for Last Broadcast? You brought up the recording of "M62 Song" - could you have done that kind of stuff for Lost Souls, or did you now have more leeway to go all over the place and do what you wanted?

In England, Lost Souls did well, so it did give us a certain freedom in that if we needed a string quartet we could get a string quartet, and if we needed like a samba quartet we could get one, too. But we also had to be very wary of ourselves at the same time. We didn't want it to be too self-indulgent. We had to walk this kind of tight rope where yeah, we can do exactly what we want, but we don't want to go crazy here. We want to keep kind of a critical eye on ourselves so we don't go too far down the path of "Let's get a 40-piece orchestra!" So in that respect we had to have a lot of self-discipline, but we're always pretty self-conscious anyway.

I think we did go up and down in England to various recording studios just because we hate the kind of Monday-to-Friday thing, you know, the kind of monotony of recording. Doing every day in the same studio, it becomes really stagnant after a bit. We just wanted to move about and keep things fresh or else it becomes too Groundhog Day, you know?

So you wanted the recording process to maybe mirror touring more, where you have different venues and audiences.

Sure, yeah! The other thing about touring is that everything is Groundhog Day apart from the actual gig, which is entirely different - the one magical part of touring.

Yeah, when you finally get to the show after the same old hotels and the same old stupid interviews like this one, et cetera et cetera.

(Laughs) The interviews are cool. I don't mind if someone's got something good to say.

What's kind of the difference that you've noticed between the interviews you have abroad and the interviews you have when you come over here?

In England they keep wanting to bitch about other people and I don't like that. It's that kind of English obsessive "knock people down that may be more vulnerable thing"…. I don't really like that.

So they want you to dish on Travis and how annoying they were to tour with or whatever.

Yeeeah, those kind of things. Obviously I couldn't - Travis are ace! Really top guys, you know. But you know, they're always dishing, always dishing. That gets irritating after a bit. But that's English media for you.

Doves can be found online at www.doves.net