Host: What about taking the show on the road? Because, I know, with a lot of synthesisers, it's quite difficult, they can be temperamental, and in the studio, when you got plenty of time, you can get it set up bang on. Is it difficult live?
Alan: It's only difficult in respect of Martin's synthesiser , which has been giving us trouble, recently . But in fact, when things are working, when the keyboards are working as they should be going, the live shows are very easy to set up, because it's all directly injected, i.e., there's, like, taped drums, and there's no backline stuff on stage, so it means you can get a very good sound out of the P A.
Host: Almost a studio sound live?
Andy: That's right.
Alan: That's right, yeah.
Martin: It only takes us, like, fifteen minutes to soundcheck, whereas it would take a normal band, say , an hour or twoHost: -That is quick, that's very quick. What's wrong with your synthesiser? It's temperamental.
Martin: Y eah, it's just not a very good traveller . It gets sort of shoved around a bit in the van, and it just tends to break very easily .
Alan: Y eah, it's a great machineHost: -What is it?
Alan: It's a PPG Wave 3, I think it's German-made.
Martin: -Wave 2.
Alan: Oh, Wave 2. I think it's German-made. And you can get some incredible sounds out of it, but it's just not a very good traveller , it's not very road-worthy .
Host: Why do you think it took so long for , what I call "synthesise pop", to break? Because it has been around for a long time. Y ou have seen re-releases from Kraftwerk in the charts, The Human League have been doing it for a long time, well they're slightly more avant-garde, maybe. Why did it take so long?
Alan: It's difficult to say , it really is. As you say , Kraftwerk have been doing that kind of thing for eight years, and it's only this recent electronic boom which has enabled them to suddenly have a number one hit there. I don't know. I think the English market is certainly - and Germany - is certainly much more open-minded towards that kind of music, say , compared to the States. I think they're very closed about anything relatively new, in the States.
Host: Well, last I heard, they were just going into punk. Really .
Alan: Y eah. I mean, I think, certainly synthesisers and generally electronic kind of sounds are here to stay , definitely .
Host: Now, you're enormous in Britain, everything is going right. Are you gonna sort of leave Britain and become tax exiles when you're all millionaires?
Alan: I'd like to leave Britain, but not for those reasons, because I'd just like to live in a different country , I think.
Host: What's wrong with Britain for you?
Alan: I don't really enjoy living in London, certainly . And I really wouldn't like to live in the country in England, either , because it's too quiet. I'd like a compromise between the two. I don't like London, it's too hectic, too dirty , too noisy , for my liking. But, as far as tax exiles [are concerned], it's far too early to talk about it, I think.
Host: Really? Martin, do you wanna leave Britain?
Martin: No, I'm quite happy with where I live. The other three of us live in Basildon, which is about thirty miles outside London, so it's sort of out of the way of the sort of hustle of London, but it's not too quiet. It's just about right, really . But we don't get to go home too much now these days, though. We haven't been home for a few weeks.
Host: Well, you're here for a day . Where are you going to next?
Alan: Well, we got a day off tomorrow, which is the first day off for about a month, and then we're going to Spain on WednesdayHost: -He smiled when he said that, he meant it, you can tell.
Alan: [laughs] No, I don't mind too much. But, we're going to Spain on Wednesday for about a week, or five daysHost: -Is that a holiday?
Alan: No, that's to do a couple of shows and a couple of TV's [shows]. And then we have a few days in the studio, back in England. And then we go to France, back to Germany , and a few other places, Sweden, Brussels, Luxembourg.
Host: Martin, I'm gonna be a bit cheeky: you're all young to have achieved the fame you've got, and I think probably a lot of people have said that - are you coping?
Martin: In some ways [yes], and in other ways not really . Like, a lot of things have been taken out of our control now. We just can't control things like touring and things like that, we need tour managers, we need... A lot of it is really organised for us. When you get to a certain level, you just need to be sort of really organised.
Host: So the days of the old Transit and batting around have gone completely?
Martin: Y eah.
Host: But it must have an enormous good sight to it as well?
Alan: Of course, of course, obviously . I mean, this recent tour has been, personally speaking, it's been very nice, because it's been well-organised, we've travelled in relative comfort, and we're stayed in nice hotels, and we played to really good audiences, and we got a good crew, good P A crew, good lighting crew. And therefore, it's been relatively easy to do, it hasn't been too much of a struggle.
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