Can you recall your thoughts on the inspiration and creation of the songs on Dazzle Ships?
I have to say that I think for me the biggest driving force in the creation of the Dazzle Ships album was a desire to not recreate Architecture & Morality! (laughs) Whether that was a positive force or not it's not for me to say, but as much as I was going towards something with Dazzle Ships, there was a lot of me moving away from Architecture & Morality. I think it's been documented before that at the age of 21/22, people saying "Oh you sold 2 and a half million albums and you're going to be the next Genesis" filled me with concern and also people saying "Oh well you say you want to change the world, you say your music is important, but why are you singing songs about saints and aeroplanes? Why aren't you doing something genuinely political?" So I did! (laughs).
So to be honest, whether it was the right thing or the wrong thing that was part of the reasoning - not wanting to sound like Architecture & Morality, so therefore looking for a different direction and a different sound and consciously wanting to try to do something that was significantly political because I had had my cage rattled by a few journalists and I was thinking "Oooh they're absolutely right, why am I writing songs about telephone boxes and Joan Of Arc and things, I should be addressing some more poignant and relevant situations in the world". So off I went to get all political and get my short wave radio out and start sampling stuff from around the world of shows with a lot of political content.
So they are the two overriding factors but obviously, when it comes down to the specifics, as with every record we've ever made really, the sound of the album was directly influenced by the availability of certain technology and of course the Dazzle Ships album saw the advent of our using the Emulator - the sampling keyboard with the big floppy disks! That was incredible. That was, in its own way as exciting as getting our first synth, you know, the things that we could do on it. And obviously we could sample all those things like ABC Auto-Industry stuff, sample our own voices, it was really quite a fascinating piece of technology and I think the sound of Dazzle Ships is greatly influenced by the technology.
