LM - We start rehearsing about five days before the first show. We’ll get together and have a cup of tea and we might even plug in the first day, you never know (laughs). The set list is basically my job and it’s really a case of putting together a mixture….we have some songs that we just can’t leave out for obvious reasons and we’ll play some stuff from the last album which we are still trying to promote and also a bit of the new EP. Any gaps that are left we’ll fill with stuff that we haven’t done for a while and I’ll try and make sure it all sits together and is entertaining

LM - Obviously you can’t do just ballads all night and you can’t just do the rockers; there has to be a balance. It’s kind of like picking a football team, the old Gerrard and Lampard both in midfield syndrome, so the ultimate thing is the right balance with a beginning, middle and an end

LM - That doesn’t really appeal to me, I think it limits you. When you have been together as long as we have, this is our eighteenth year now, it’s nice to be able to have a mixed bag and throw it all around. And also if you just play one album then it makes the show very predictable

LM - Well it is yeah. We still do most of that album, not all at the same time but over the course of the last five years I think we’ve played almost all of it in two’s and three’s. But to play the whole thing in one tour is something I think we would get bored with quite quickly and if the band is bored that comes across to the audience

LM - Yes, it will probably involve a lot of alcohol (laughs). Its quite scary really, it doesn’t seem all that long ago we had the tenth anniversary and its an amazing thing really, its great. We’re all still here and health permitting we all still really enjoy it and as long as you are doing that and people keep turning up and buying the albums then you might as well carry on

LM - I remember it well, it was really hot. It was July of that year and it was a little short tour we did. And it was a very funny tour because we supported a soul band in Walsall as you rightly said and we played with Tony McPhee and The Groundhogs and nobody knew who the hell we were, we hadn’t even made our first album at that point. It was just a case of going out and doing a few gigs and trying to loosen up a bit…but yes, the heady days of 1989. The Midlands is a fantastic place for rock music, Dudley JB’s, Birmingham Edwards number 8...all of those clubs had a really great vibe about them

LM - Quite how we attach it to the next album we are not quite sure yet. We do know that there will be a second EP that will see the light of day around April or May and then when the album comes out around September there will be another EP aswell. Exactly how it all fits together we don’t really know but as the person who writes the tunes I would much rather we got to the stage where the album was 100% new material. And then we will have the three EP’s and an album which is a lot of a songs to write between now and then so we shall see

LM - That’s right, we are the record company now. I mean we still use Universal for distribution because as a large company they have the right infrastructure and we have always had a good relationship with retailers such as HMV so at this stage of our career and our lives we would find it quite difficult to relinquish control either artistically or financially. The only reason to consider going back to a record company would be money but we make more by running the whole thing ourselves. We are still much more reliant on labels outside of the UK but here we know how the market works and so there is no need for us to go back

LM - Right since day one we have always tried to do that. It makes us more accessible and we rely on the support of the people who buy our records and come to see us so to give them a couple of minutes after a show is the right thing to do. And it’s also very entertaining (laughs). Some people get very nervous and don’t quite know what to say whereas others will come up and tell you exactly what you are doing wrong. It gives you a good insight into the way your fans are thinking which is never a bad thing

LM - Japan certainly. We just shot a DVD out there and its lovely to be able to go over every eighteen months or so and its such a different place culturally; I love it and despite the amount of times we have been there are always new places to see which is great. We went out to mainland Europe earlier this year and made more of a concerted effort than we had done for a while over there. Apart from the tour we also did a few festivals in places like Sweden and the Czech Republic. We hadn’t played the Czech Republic before and it was great to go somewhere new after eighteen years together as a band and its nice to have the demand for it over there

LM - If you talk to anybody who is involved in the live music industry right now its boom time really, and that’s across genres. If you look at what is out there between now and the end of the year in the UK it is very busy and I can’t believe we are doing such great business really but we are….I think its because radio is so sparse for rock that people are looking to go out to see it live. And disposable income is also a part of it. During the latter part of the 90’s the dance and club thing was exploding and that took traffic away from the live scene but in general the culture of going out to see a live show is becoming popular again

LM - Yeah she is kind of a mixture of Avril Lavigne, Pat Benatar and someone else I can’t quite think of…..but I’ve had a look at her MySpace and she should be really interesting and Steve’s a mate so we’re happy to help out

LM - Yeah we had a band supporting us a few times called Winterville and they have split up now but the main singer, writer and guitarist is a guy called Peter and I’m producing his debut album and we’ll be talking to record companies for a release next year. And with us looking after our own business now its quite time consuming but we do have the infrastructure in place so we are looking at acquiring and developing a couple of acts but that takes time and commitment so we’ll see