What are your thoughts on Dazzle Ships today?

I'm very, very proud of the decision that was made to try and do it - and to do it, to execute it. I think it was very brave. I think had anybody told us not to do it and it would be commercial suicide the 22/23 year old Andy McCluskey would have gone and done it even more. Years later, would the 30 year old, would the 35, 7, 8, 40 year old Andy McCluskey have done it? Probably not. Would he have told the 23 year old to do it? Probably not. Would the 23 year old have listened? Probably not! (laughs) I mean sorry, I would have told myself not to do it, but I wouldn't have listened to myself.

It had to be done for better or for worse, it had to be done. It was a crashing commercial disaster. We went from almost 3 million albums to 300,000 albums! (laughs) worldwide. I think that a lot of people have found in it after the event there was more to it than perhaps they thought. But I can understand why people who bought Architecture & Morality and found that unusual on occasion and often challenging as it is found it easier to adjust to than to adjust to Dazzle Ships.

I'll be honest with you, I think that the two things that caused problems with Dazzle Ships was the politics, which I'm unrepentant for and I'll be honest with you, the lack of the quality of the material. I don't think the songs on Dazzle Ships, as a collection of songs, are as good as some of the other albums. I think it's a great album in terms of what it was trying to do and the things that it did succeed in doing, but as a collection of songs, as I said before, we were struggling to write songs.