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19 December 2009
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The single comes from the new album, 'Have You Fed The Fish'. Do you count this as your second or third album?
Damon: There's been a debate between myself and journalists as to whether anyone's comfortable saying the soundtrack is an album. For my money, the soundtrack was album two because it was a real album, it wasn't half-hearted. It was a song-based record not just a score. For me, sentimentally it is the real follow up to the first album.

The new material sounds more focused. Less a bunch of disparate ideas more a long one. Do you agree with that?
Damon: What I managed to do with the first record is make a cohesive arrangement of songs that had taken me a long while to think about writing. Your first record is always going to be different because you've got more time to think about it. With the new record, it's inevitable because you're making it in a period of time that starts and ends definitively. I'd agree there is a more cohesive quality to 'Have You Fed The Fish' because in certain songs lyrics refer to other songs. I try to make it a jigsaw of lyrics that are sung in different ways throughout the record. It was written and recorded in a short space of time so I think that contributes to making it a more rounded, overall sound.

Is there a specific idea be it a lyric or a piece of playing that you're proudest of?
Damon: The one moment on the record that stands out is the middle of the song 'How' when I say, "When you come back I'll go out of my way to be all the things you need". The music in that section is really powerful, like a big rock opera. Lyrically, the two lines in 'How', "How can I give you the answers you need when all I possess is a melody" and "you were right songs are never quite the answer, just a soundtrack to a life". Song-writing is my living so I'm testing myself there. Being ironic as well because songs are everything to me but they take me away from home so much, I have to question it. Often they don't make me happy because I have to travel the world and I miss everybody.

What was the working process for the 'About A Boy' soundtrack?
Damon: The first thing to do is to get help. When I was offered the soundtrack I had this flippant attitude that it was going to be a piece of cake. It was much more difficult. I started to base the songs on the book, the imagery and the characters. When I got to watch the film there were a couple of other inspirational moments such as when the boy was reading his mother's suicide note. Trying to make the songs fit the film was a lot harder than I expected it to be. When you've got a fixed piece of film to work to it's much harder. With a lot of films people licence music in and find a piece that works. When you're writing it for real it's much more difficult. It was harder than I thought but I had a producer called Steve McLaughlan who helped me through that. He'd scored many films and helped me adapt my music to the film. He made it a lot easier.

  Simply Red  
  "That's a bit supermarket, isn't it. I'm not making that many bottles. "  
  Robin Gibb  
  "There's been great moments both as a songwriter and as a performer."  
  Paul Roberts - The Stranglers  
  "We certainly weren't going to call ourselves The Bay City Rollers."  
  Lisa Stansfield  
  "I just thought, how many times do I have to sing this song?"  
  Soft Cell  
  "I think it's the only time that a banjo's been played in the Ministry of Sound."  
  Erasure  
  "Agnetha said she liked it. If I met them I would curtsey."  
  INXS  
  "We really surprised lots of people by simply hanging in there."  
  Kim Wilde  
  "I used to be really jealous of Claire Grogan...I thought she was gorgeous."  
  Dollar  
  "Failure was not an option, we were materialistic and greed was good."  
  Human League  
  "We did a US tour with Culture Club and Howard Jones...solely for the cash."  
  Altered Images  
  "Women were treated as a bit of a novelty in the music business in 1981."  
  Belle Stars  
  "The pop music lark just seems like a lifetime away now."  
  Steve Strange  
  "Look, you’re playing me like a bitchy queen and I’m not like that."  
  Five Star  
  "We all grew up wanting to be famous and we lived our dream..."  
  Phillip from Ruby Flipper  
  "At my age, I'd find it difficult to get my legs where they used to go..."  
  Glen Campbell  
  "I got to work with literally everyone in the business; Nat King Cole, Sinatra..."  
  David Gray  
  "Lots of tension in the camp. We're battling Gareth Gates for the No.1 spot"  
  Robert Palmer  
  "There's this homegenised force feeding of what is hip."  
  Marilyn  
  "I think George manipulated our relationship for publicity"  
  Tom Jones  
  "I'm pulling all my old jewellery out now and comparing my rings with Wyclef"  
  Ruth From Pan's People  
  "I could show you dozens of times I forgot the moves..."  
  Badly Drawn Boy  
  "Everybody has to do what everybody else does in order to have a hit single"  
  John Otway  
  "I think the music business is probably not happy with what we've done..."  
  Jimmy Cliff  
  "I look at someone like Ms Dynamite, I come away with a positive feeling."  
  Human League  
  "We wouldn't trust anyone that didn't wear eyeliner."  
  Status Quo  
  "I probably went about four or five years with a pair of stage jeans"  
  Gary Numan  
  "There are so many things in my past that you could make fun of."  
  McAlmont and Butler  
  "We were big enough to get over any-thing that may have been exchanged."  
  Primal Scream  
  "The producer at the time told us we'd never work again."  
  Oasis  
  "I prefer miming, I prefer if we weren’t playing live."  


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