Greetings and salutations to you all,

I assume you are listening so I'm just going to ramble on for a while. Hopefully when I've finished doing that you will feel informed and dare I say excited to hear that we have been sitting, standing and lying down in a recording studio in the south of sunny (understatement) Espagne.

But before I go in to it I would really like to thank those of you who 'got' our second record and enjoyed where we took it, perhaps not the most predictable musical diversion, but a progression none the less. It was a pretty difficult process to rejuvenate and restore our confidence after it failed to live up to the first records success. A personal challenge and a half but nobody ever said to us, 'be a band, it'll be easy, a doddle'. We were so sure that we had made an album that would take us to places we had never been, I think mainly because the creativity was flowing so well and we felt confident about it. Basically, we took it for granted. A dark time followed, the demons started to appear, the truth is we came pretty close to splitting up, not that we ever talked about it, but that feeling was there. Present on the tour bus or after a sound check in Idaho or some other far away place. Things slowed down, we were tired, we'd lost some really good crew etc etc etc whinge whinge……… I'll stop now. That's enough.

When the time came closer for us to start working on a follow up we started to get excited again, that's the thing about the cycle of it all, when it starts again you are filled with optimism, if it's not there then it's time to become postmen, when it is there it totally carries you through any snags that might appear, it's like ' Fuck it, listening to this riff, or check out this half a verse' when these things start to develop a light appears, you know that if it's started then at some point you'll be finished, this might sound obvious but it feels amazing. So we started jogging along, slowly but surely chipping away at it, getting more and more confident with the rough sketches. Suddenly, we were there. It was time for the real work to begin; we needed a guide, someone of vast experience to organize the chaos. Enter Youth.

When our new producer came through our practice room door, he looked like a time traveler. After speaking to him for a few minutes I realized that he was. I was really nervous to show him the tunes, you have no clue if there is going to be the essential click and if it doesn't happen you have to find someone else. We warmed to him because he was so relaxed, we rattled some of them out, he smiled. It was working. We went off to do some gigs, one in Russia and a few in Germany, looking forward to coming back and doing the album.

Space Mountain is the name of Youth's amazing studio near Granada. When we arrived it was really late due to the disgraceful mess that is air travel; why are people who work in airports such bloody arseholes all the time? They get paid don't they? It's their choice isn't it? Jaff picked up the immaculate hire car that would get us around for the next 3 weeks. It felt surreal that we were actually there, the day before we start. Going to the hotel to rest up, I was shitting myself. The bloke who ran the hotel, (the hotel of oranges) welcomed us by giving us huge plates of food. One filled with cheese, one with tomatoes and one was a pile of about 50 anchovies, fried whole in batter. They tasted like the best fish fingers of all time.

We didn't know where we were, not being able to see anything. We were in for a surprise.

In daylight we realized we were in a mountainous valley where millions of oranges and lemons were being grown. We couldn't wait to get up there and get cracking. Stunning scenery, going through little villages where massive groups of old people sit around looking after the place, winding road right next to sheer drops and for once we were getting a summer. When we finally got there we arrived in a massive cloud of dust. I couldn't believe it, it was such a contrast from were we did 'News and Tributes'. Then, it was the bleak winter in the North Yorkshire Dales, we couldn't go outside, the same applied here but for the opposite reason. It was sweltering. I stupidly brought loads of trousers and shirts, I would have died if I put any of them on. Shorts and sandals all the way.

Thinking back on what it was like to actually do the recording, my memory fails me a little bit, it was a very intense experience, we worked faster that we ever have. Each night we were all exhausted, driving down the dirt tracks in the dark at gradually faster speeds was really scary. It was good though because when we got back we were all just so happy to be alive we had forgot about the days work. This is important otherwise you start obsessing about the songs and that clouds your judgment. Every day we started a fresh song and by the night we were done. I didn't think it was possible but we recorded 15 songs in 12 days spread over 3 weeks. I'm still a bit shocked by that to be honest. When I listen to them I can't remember us actually doing them, like I was in a trance or something. I don't know how we did it. I can't wait for people to hear what we've done, it's sounds so fresh, Youth really brought the best out of us. We have never done anything as good as this. It was a challenging pleasure. If I had to describe it then I would have to say that's it's like getting slapped around the head again and again until you really start to like the abuse. It's furious, we knew we wanted to do that, purely because we didn't do much hard rocking on the last album. We had to prove to ourselves that we could still do it. We came away so pleased and we are really looking forward to getting it out there.

The car was not in as good a condition; it was a filthy heap of junk when Jaff dropped it off, it looked like it had been driven over land mines. It makes me laugh when I think of it. One of the door handles gone, the petrol cap gone, covered in dust inside and out, dints and scratches everywhere. Round of applause for Jaff. And for you for getting the end of this ramble.

Take care, Barry