Different Days
is out now via
Liberator.
tour the album?
I always plan to come out there, I
always do. I’ve got two daughters who
live out there.
Whereabouts?
Perth, in WA. I always love coming
out there. It’s just one of those places
that in the early days never got toured,
and now all of a sudden it’s always on
our roster. It’s on our f-cking list of places
to go and it’s become as important to
play there as it has London.
That’s good to hear.
It has to be. It’s important to play
there – we want to take our records
all over the world. We’ve always
wanted to do that. When we
released
Telling Stories
we never
got a chance to go to Australia,
but the last three albums we have.
It’s proving beneficial to us and to
the people out there.
Do you ever get fed up with the
front rows of pissed up 50-year-old
ex-pats jumping around to Sproston
Green?
Do you know what? That’s just like
playing Manchester on a Friday night.
That’s who we’re playing to - the people
who couldn’t get to Manchester on
the Friday night come to the gig on the
Monday in Australia. That doesn’t bother
us. You know what? If they buy the
record, we’ll play for them.
You lads have a prolific writing rate:
an album practically every two years.
What’s the secret? That’s unheard of
these days
.
I reckon we could’ve probably put out
two albums this year! I think sometimes
when you’ve got something to write
about and you’ve got something to
sing about or play about, things like
that come very easily. We’re fortunate
that we can get together and make a
good record, and enjoy making music
together.
So the chemistry is clearly still there
when you get together to write?
Chemistry’s really good. We don’t live
in each other’s pockets, we live miles
away from each other: I live in Ireland
and the rest of the lads are spread out
across the UK. When we get together
it’s like you’re best mates. You meet
up again and you go for a beer, on the
piss and have a few – although there’s a
couple of non-drinkers in the band now.
Dare I say a family?
I think we are family. I think we’ve
been together long enough that if we
split up there’d be a f-cking divorce case.
Do you ever take the time to reflect
on your career and look what we’ve
achieved thus far?
Well, I always think we could’ve
achieved more.
In what way?
I think that’s what keeps us going. I
think we’re still hungry. We’ve always
done well in the UK, Ireland, and parts of
Europe, but we always wanted to spread
out internationally. And we did okay in
America but it was never on the global
scale, do you know what I mean? I think
that’s what keeps us hungry. Globally
we’ve done okay but definitely not in the
f-cking kind of Cold Patrol or Snowplay or
whatever the f-ck they’re called [laughs]?
Never on that scale, but we’ve always
thought we could. I think we’ve always
tried to be leaders rather than followers
in music.
You talk about success in the States.
In America is there a similar following
to Australia, with a lot of ex-pats, or
are there many Americans into the
band as well?
No, there’s not many ex-pats at all.
When you play in New York, it’s I would
say 95 percent are all New Yorkers.
Finally, is Tim still sporting that
mad Brian Jones haircut?
He is, yeah. You know what, at
least he’s got f-cking hair to do it
[laughs]. There’s plenty of people
who lose their hair by that age, you
know what I mean?
[Laughs] Pleasure talking to you,
Tony.
And you, Paul. Listen, I’ll see you
when we get over there. God bless.
4 3 2 1
...we want to take
our records all
over the world.
We’ve always
wanted to do that