Q: I didn't have you down as a Krautrock fan? (the press blurb describes one of the influences on the album as Krautrock).

P: I tell you - someone said there was a reference to a Krautrock track on the new album, but I can't work out which track it's supposed to be.

Q: It's the track "111". Actually, to my ears it does sound a little like the more out-there corners of improvised, jazzy Krautrock.

P: Is that Krautrock? I don't know. Can?

Q: It has a kind of jazzy improvisational feel to it.

P: Yeah. I mean. We did that track. We didn´t have any kind of reference for it. We didn?t say, let´s try and be like whatever. Krautrock or whatever. We just said, let´s do sthg improvised. Literally, the three of us went to different keyboards with our backs to each other, don´t tell each other what we´re gonna play, and see what happens. It was only meant to be a short interlude when we did it. But I thought it worked as a whole piece, I liked it.

Q: It´s funny, going through the album. It is almost like a liberation process. It starts off with a traditional kind of folky tune, and more and more it opens up?

P: Yeah it does, especially towards the end. It does, and then it sort of almost takes you back to the same point, I think, with Nightlights, the last track, which is a variation on the first track. But I think for me - because the record is like a - without being sort of conceptual - like a journey for me, a little musical journey, or quite a long musical journey, really. And it is tied in for me - we started the record in April last year, so we kind of - and in our studio, we always leave our door open, so we can always see outside, whether it's rainy or sunny or whatever. So we kind of saw the seasons changing during that year of making it. And there is a lot of that on the album. We literally put the microphones outside when we had a thunderstorm, recorded that, and the peacocks and the birds. So it is a lot of the elements involved as well, really.

Q: Is it pretty much chronologically recorded, then?

P: Erm, I can´t remember, to be honest with you. Probably not, I couldn't be sure.

Q: Just because it says in the blurb that it is a bit like a diary of a year.

P: It is really, but I don´t think it´s necessarily chronological, to be honest with you. Can´t remember, really. We started April last year, and we worked for two days, then we´d work for three days, and we'd have a break. It was very sporadic. And then probably come September last year we knuckled down and worked pretty much until the end of January, February time. So it was spread out during the course of the year.

Q: With what aim did you start working? Was the idea of the double album there from the first?

P: We didn´t have any ideas - or even have any definite thoughts about making a record. We just started doing some demos, as I always do. And it just came from doing 2 or 3 songs, and it snow-balled. The more I did the more I wanted to do. And I think the more different musical things we tried the more places I thought we should go to. And then when we had sort of ten songs I thought, fuck it, we should make a double-album. Really push the boat, and go for it. It´s kind of tied in I suppose for me as well personally, cause I´m gonna be fifty for me. That´s a bit of a landmark for me, so I thought, no, just make the record - put everything you wanna put into it, and fuck it, see what happens. I think it?s turned out in a good way.

Q: I've heard it once so far, and it really takes you places. (only given the CD to hear just before the interview in the rehearsal room)

P: Yeah. There's quite a lot to listen to. I think you have to have a few sittings, really. That?s a good thing I think in this day and age, where people just download one track. I think it´s an album meant to be listened to from start to finish, you know.

Q: I also find it an interesting and creative thing to do, again in an age where everything is in marketing boxes?

P: Yeah.

Q: And it is presumed that people don´t have diverse tastes.

P: Yeah, that thing where peoples - what´s the right word - capacity to concentrate for a whole record. I think that IS marketing, and I don´t think that's true. I think people will do if there´s a good enough record there, really. I mean I'm sick of buying albums where I like two songs and the rest are filler. But then where's that leave what?s going on? Or the White Album? Innovation? Where would those records be now if you're only downloading one song? You'd never hear the beauty of Marvin Gaye, do you know what I mean?

Q: The sequencing and all that?

P: Exactly, yeah.

Q: I've got albums where the seventh track is my favourite and I listen to the first six tracks just to build excitement to get to that 7th track.

P: Yeah. I also think of albums in my collection - I can´t think which ones off the top of me head - but there's been records where I´ve liked certain tracks but not other tracks but then within six weeks or a month or whatever the tracks I didn´t like had become my favourites, know what I mean? Sometimes you have to work a bit harder with a certain song or a certain track, but then it brings its own reward when you listen to it a few times. So I like to think that our album has some of that in it as well. Something where people think, oh, not sure, but maybe in a few weeks or a few months they´ll become your favourites as well. There´s a lot of depth to it, I think. Trying to make it dimensional as well.

Q: When you say you decided to fuck it, throw everything on it, does that mean it´s the first album where you haven´t worried about whether it´d fit into a certain style or not?

P: I´ve always made records primarily for meself. But having said that, you obviously want people to like them, obviously. Cause there wouldn´t be any point otherwise. But I think there´s certain things on this record I probably wouldn´t have included, like 111, or Nightlights, or God. Just thing I haven´t done before. Musical territory I haven´t been before.

Q: Song for Alice I really like.

P: Yeah. That for me was really liberating, even me, at my grand sort of age, and all the time I?ve been working, after 30 years of making records - it just seemed fresh to me. Oh, I haven´t been here before. I quite like it here as well! Funny - it sort of makes me think: where else can we go in the future? It's uncharted in a way. It's only yourself who cuts yourself off from thinking like that.

Q: The title of the album - and it´s hinted in that song about the missing dream (title of album 22 dreams, but only 21 songs on it, because apparently Paul wanted to keep one for himself) suggest that you have dreams.

P: Yeah, well, we all have dreams. I don´t know the significance of that or not. But it was going to be literally twenty-two dreams - twenty-two songs. But we didn?t like the 22nd one so we left it off. But yeah, I think. Erm.

Q: It´s an extremely hopeful title. What kind of dreams and hopes were you envisaging whilst writing these songs?

P: Erm. I don´t know. It's all so varied. There´s not one track that sounds like the next one on the record. It´s really hard to say for me. They´re all different kinds of colours and shades, know what I mean? I don´t know. There is no grand concept, it?s all just lots of different bits of music, but they all - at the same time they all hang together and work together. I like the fact that there´s lots of songs on it, that´s really - instead of just being 12 tracks or 14 tracks. A friend of mine said it was like reading a long novel - but in a nice way.

Q: I guess what I mean to ask - dreams, you brought up age. What kind of dreams do you still have for yourself?

P: Erm - for me I´d just be happy if I just continued living and see my children grow up and carry on working, know what I mean? My aspirations are quite simple, really, these days. The older the get the more you´re just glad to still be here, really, haha. I´ve seen lots of people over the course of the years fall by the wayside. Some people are not with us any more. You have to count your blessings really to still be here and still working and still doing it and still loving it, know what I mean?

Q: Is that a thought that has a reasons because of the looming 50th?

P I just think it´s the general process of getting older I think, really. The older you get the more you realise your mortality. And the sweeter life becomes in lots of ways.

Q: The thing that gets me, suddenly you´re counting how much time you might have left. It might be one year, it might be 40 years.

P: Yeah. They´re sort of things you never thought about - well, I never thought about them - when I was younger. It never entered my head. Life seemed endless to me. But you get to a certain age - it´s not a depressive thing - but you get to a certain age and you realise it isn´t endless. It just goes so quickly as well. The last 30 years, never mind the last 10, have just flown by. I talk about things, with other people, about something that happened in 1978, or 1990 - decades ago! And it only seems five years, or five minutes. That´s quite frightening, really, I think. You just - I suppose you naturally think - if the next ten years go as quick, or the next 20 years, it´s - fucking hell, better get in there and enjoy it and live it and do as much as you can, really. So it´s scary, but it´s got its positive side as well.

Q: The kids - how old is your youngest?

P: He´ll be 3 next Monday, actually.

Q: My youngest is 7, and the oldest is 9, and you start thinking - as you said - one of the dreams is to keep healthy enough to see them into their 20s.

P: To see them grow up. Totally. Absolutely. Yeah.

Q: Can you say when you were 17, 18 what your dreams were then?

P: My dreams then were just to be in a band - well, I was in a band, but to make it, make a record, and be successful, play to people. All the things I´ve been able to do, to be honest, know what I mean. I´ve been extremely lucky. But that would have been my dreams then. To be doing what I?m doing. When I was 18 - I made my first record when I was 18. For me that was just brilliant. I had this sort of idea before we got signed up if I didn?t make it by the time I was 20 I´d pack it in. Which probably wouldn´t have been true, but that?s how I felt. 20 seemed like ancient to me, know what I mean. And I never thought I´d still be doing it 30 years down the line. But I am.

Q: What did you suspect you?d be doing 30 years down the line?

P: I couldn´t - I had no vision of being of anything over 21 at one time. I can even remember my 21st birthday, when we were recording All Mod Cons, I was, like, it´s all over, it´s fucking all over!? But, you know what it´s like, 25 becomes 30, and bam bam bam. You don´t intend to do these things, they just happen. I´m lucky to still be doing it really. And still loving it as well, you know, that´s the important thing.

Q: You can tell from these songs. The fun, and the playfulness is everywhere, isn?t it.

P: Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

Q: Is that a new-found playfulness, or a re-found playfulness? Because I think around the covers album you saw things a bit bleaker.

P: I don´t think it was bleak, I just didn´t - I wasn´t writing, but I wasn´t pulling my hair out about it. I was just like, OK I´m not gonna write at the moment, and that´s fine, and if I ever write again that´s the way it is. I suppose I´ve got a bit more philosophical about that, the older I´ve got. When I´ve had writer´s block - or not written, however you looked at it - I was: oh God, I´m past, my life´s over. But recently I haven´t felt like that. You go through times where you don?t write, and you have times where you can´t stop writing. You just ride that. Peaks and troughs. That´s the way it is.

Q: The macho element of feeling that you have to prove something falls away.

P: I don´t know. Yeah - I don´t know what the process is, who knows where writing comes from, but I can just tell when I´m gonna write, and I´ve got times when I know I've got nothing to say. No desire to write. That´s the way it is. I never analyse it.

Q: What happens then when you have these aspirations as a 17 year old, you wanna be a band, and then everything you hoped would happen, actually happens. Does it give you a feeling of satisfaction, or does with every step - there´s another aspiration that comes up?

P: I always think there?s other places to go. Every record I´ve ever done I´ve always thought - if it was a great record, I thought I can make an even greater record. And if they´ve been so-so records I thought I´ve got to do something better next time. So it's always been - after sort of finish a record, any record, you´re always exhausted, creatively exhausted, so you have to wait for that to renew itself. But if you make a great record, you wanna make another great record. That´s the way it is, I think. It´s a very addictive thing.

Q: What about your political expectations? You can´t be happy how it turned out when Labour finally got to power?

P: No. It's awful. We waited all those years, 18 years or something like that, when Thatcher was in, wait all that time, and we thought it was gonna make a difference. Probably naively. But you still assumed it was gonna make a difference, really. It certainly is different from Thatcherism, but she was quite an extreme person. I´ve just got no interest in politics now. They all just look the same to me. They all sound the same. And they pretty much are the same people. I don´t think it makes any difference any more.

Q: Institutionalised greed.

P: I don´t know. It's just mainstream politics. There´s no sort old-fashioned left-wingers, as there used to be. It´s middle-of-the-road politics, isn´t it. Middle class middle-of-the-road politics.

Q: Have you given up the idea you had then that with music you could possibly change peoples´ approach to these things?

P: I still think music can change an individual's way of thinking. I still think music can enlighten people. I don´t think it can topple a government, or change the world. But I think you can change the individual´s worlds. Cause my life´s been changed by music. By The Beatles. And all the people I grew up with. My life changed totally. I think music´s there to enlighten people, definitely. I think it always has been. If you go back to the old folk songs, where it was just people singing a song about what was happening to their town, in their village, and then going to another village and letting them know - it´s like a form of news, really. I think that´s always been in music, music´s always told stories and told what´s happening, or reflected the times and peoples´ feelings. It´s a natural part of it.

Q: It´s frustrating then to see - what you´re saying is particularly true for reggae in the 70s and 80s and rap in the 80s, as a kind of street newspaper. And then to see what it?s turned into, a mouthpiece for homophobic ranting.

P: Yeah, that is quite sad. I don´t know if that´s a reflection of the times, I don´t know really. A reflection of lack of values or morals, I don´t know. I hear some good music and good songs in recent years, but there´s nothing that really speaks out. Very little, anyway.

Q: I find it interesting - because there´s so little, particularly anything that comes out through the mainstream record companies that is inspirational, that people turn back to traditional folk stuff as sources of strength.

P: Right. I don´t know what to say about that. For me the stuff that?s inspired me in recent years, not in any political way, but in a musical way, in terms of lyrics, I don?t think there?s been anything particularly that strong.

Q: What have been the musical things that excited you?

P: Well for me, probably going back a few years ago, people like The Strokes I really liked. The Libertines I thought were great as well. The Libertines weren´t a political band, but they used words and language which a lot of people related to, me included, just to write English lyrics again, English subject matter. But I think inspirational for me more in musical terms. Just music. Sound.

Q: Do you have hopes that the internet makes music genuinely more democratic? Or do you see it as everybody robbing everybody else?s music?

P: I don´t know - I´m not part of that world, and I have no interest whatsoever in that at all, I'm from a different time and generation, it doesn´t really matter to me in a way. I have mixed feelings about it. I can see that it makes it democractic - you can get this information instantly, and you can be in a little village somewhere in the middle of nowhere and you can still receive music and videos and whatever information. But the side where you´re supposed to give away your music for nothing, I don´t understand that. It´s an alien sort of concept for me. And I think it lessens and cheapens the art as well. It´s like - have it for nothing, cause it has no value, it´s worthless. In practical terms - how are you supposed to make a living? I don´t know. It´s probably alright if you´re Radiohead and you can give your album away for 5 Pounds or something. But if you're a little band starting out and you need the money, you´re fucked really, d´you know what I mean?

Q: Personally, I love all those blogs where people put albums on for download which are so obscure that we'd never be able to get hold of them otherwise, or their place of release is geographically so distant that we'd never have discovered it. Stuff like the outer shores of Krautrock, Turkish psychedelica or Argentinian mod stuff. None of these things would ever come out on CD. And it's not even nostalgia hunting them out - I've never heard these things before, and a lot of it is so out-there that it doesn't sound dated at all.

P: Cause I don´t use it I never see that side of it. I´m sure it´s got good sides to it. I can´t help thinking though that it´s still a bit of the emperor´s new clothes. In a few years time it´ll be something else again. If anyone started to listen to music now on MP3 or computer or whatever, I wonder whether they´ll still be able to hear those same things on that same system in 5 years time or 10 years time. Let alone 40 years time. Whereas I´ve got records in my collection that are 40 years old and they still sound good. I can still play them. They might have a few scratches and pops but you can still play them. And it's a physical thing, you´ve got something physical in your hands.

Q: And it smells.

P: It smells nice as well. But I think that´s just me being old-fashioned, quite honestly.

Q: Just before Britpop came along the image you´d once been landed with, and the Britpop came along and turned you whatever they turned you into?

P: Pffft, haha.

Q: It was almost a step backwards for you?

P: I never really worried what people turn me into. It´s not really my problem, it´s there´s really. I don´t think it was a big problem for me, cause it was nice that people liked me again. It´s quite nice to be liked. After a few years out in the wilderness it was quite nice when it was: Come on, come back! So I was quite happy with it, really. It was a mixture of being delighted by it, that people liked me again, and a mixture of being bemused by it. Thinking, well, I´m just doing what I've always done, playing music. But I mean - it´s nice to be liked, know what I mean. But if you live long enough, and you work long enough, it goes in cycles. Sometimes you´re flavour of the month, and sometimes you´re not. You just have to get used to it. Ride with the storm.

Q: It has changed a little bit, hasn´t it. In the 80s and 90s everything was completely youth-orientated. And now it almost seems as if any musician over 25 who does it for genuine musical reason is in a vast category of just being a musician rather than a youth movement.

P: Right. You think that´s changed?

Q: I think age doesn´t matter that much now.

P: I think you´re probably right. It´s that kind of thing in the punk age, anyone over sort of 21 was the enemy. Whereas now if you´d go to a Neil Young concert I´m sure you´d find kids there as well as his own age group. And everyone in between.

Q: I´ve got a guy working for me who´s 17. Yes, he likes The Cajun Dance Party, and that sort of thing, but pretty much everything else we listen to similar stuff.

P: Yes, I think that´s true. Now´s generation they don´t have that snob thing that my generation had. My daughter and my son - she´ll talk about the music she´s into, but equally she´ll know The Beatles, not through me, but she´ll know The Beatles or The Kinks or the Small Faces. She doesn´t - I don´t think she puts them into different categories. She either likes them or she doesn´t like them, which is cool really.

Q: We used to be really worried about the categories things were in, weren´t we!

P: Yeah, totally, yeah!

Q: How old is your daughter?

P: She´s 16, 17 this year.

Q: Oh, do you have worries about it? The dreaded teenage sins?

P: She´s a good kid, she´s alright. She´s got her head screwed on, she´s alright. I´m still worried, as any father would be about your kids, aren´t you. But no, she´s a smart kid. She´s talented as well I think.

Q: What kind of hopes do you have for her? Can you see in what direction she's gonna be going?

P: She´s - almost one of these people, she´s really beautiful and she´s also very talented in lots of different things. And I think - that´s a great thing, but I think it can also - it can be difficult for her to focus on just one thing cause she could probably do lots of different things. You know, sometimes it´s good in life just to do one thing and focus on that properly. But I´ve heard her sing, and she´s got real natural talent. And she´s started writing her own songs which are really interesting, and you can tell it´ll potentially be really good. But then she´s also really good at art, painting, drawing. And she can dance. She´s a bit of an allrounder, really, haha. I just hope she - if my kids are happy I´m happy.

Q: How about the horror vision that in an act of rebellion they´ll both turn into policemen?

P: Yeah, it would be disappointing if they said they wanted to work in a bank or something. But - at the same time if they´re happy doing that you can´t really knock it, can you. I´d love to see all my kids do something in the arts, but that´s just me being romantic about being an artist. But all you can ever hope for your children is that they´re safe and they´re happy. That´s all you can really wish for.

Q: Being a romantic - you said earlier that you still hold to the idea that music can change things. In what direction would you hope at the moment music can change things?

P: Well, I don´t know. It´d be a bit crass to say make the world a better place - but what else can you hope for? To educated people, to see that we?ve only got this one planet, we´ve only got each other, that we have to get on with it and get on with each other. Lofty things to think about, really. And I don´t know if the world´s ever been like that. But again - I don´t think my kids have the same, erm, what´s the word, I don´t think they´re as caught up in colour, or race, or politics, or class. I don´t think they see those things in the same way as my generation did. I think they´re more liberated from that point of view. It´s a generalisation, and it´s only my one little vision of it, but I think that´s very hopeful, really. Awful things happen in the world, but there´s still a vision - there´s things that are much better as well.

Q: See what you´re saying, lots of things are better - but the Tories are almost the same now as Labour, it´s almost like it takes away a framework against which to define yourself.

P: Yeah, it does. Well, perhaps - when we were talking about lyrics earlier on - perhaps that´s why there isn´t that same source in lyrics right now because there isn´t anything to kick against in a way. I guess. But I think - me personally I think, I´m speaking as an Englishman, this country in the last 10 years, 12 years, 15 years, I think it has got better. They get on more. Down my street there´s every race you can think of, and most people get on alright. I´m not saying that´s the whole of the country, but that´s what I see. The school is like Noah´s ark, generally speaking they get on. You have to think of the good things, sometimes.

Q: Did you ever keep a dream diary - write down your dreams?

P: I can never remember them. The first few seconds when I wake up, and then I forget them after 2 minutes. So I don´t. No.

Q: You don´t get recurring dreams?

P: No. Not that I remember. It´s possible I guess, but I don´t remember.

Q: What do you read at the moment? Going by what it says in the blurb a lot of poetry, because quite a few songs seem to be inspired by it?

P: I´m really boring - I just read about music. Cause that´s the only thing that really interests me or holds my attention. I´m not the greatest of readers anyway, but I just tend to read music biographies or books about music. I don?t really read novels. What have I read recently - read a biography of Viv Stanshall.

Q: Oh, did you used to like the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band?

P: Oh yeah, I thought they were brilliant! I remember as a kid they had a show called Do Not Adjust Your Set in about 67, 68, just amazing! But erm - what have I read recently? All about music. The Temples of Sound, sounds really boring, but it´s all about famous American studios, like the Stax studio.

Q: Have you recorded in any of those?

P: No, never.

Q: Would you like to?

P: In a funny way I wouldn´t, really. I don´t know - it sounds right on paper, but I don´t know if it´s always the right thing to do, really. The Americans have a very different way of working to British people. There?s certain things that work on some of our tracks they can be a bit loose or a bit out of tune, and you can go, that sounds right to me. And I think America is very (gestures: straight down the path), everything´s got to be in time.

Q: That´s in Joe Boyd?s book - did you read that?

P: I did read that.

Q: He said he came to England because he was fed up with all the preppy type guitar people in America, he found it more exciting here with people just playing.

P: Right, right. Having said that a lot of my favourite records are American as well. It´s just a different way of working really.

Q: You also obviously enjoy working with other people with your guests here, your pals I guess. Are there people you hope you´ll be working with?

P: Erm (long pause) I don´t know, I?m not sure, I have to go away and think about that. But - there´s no burning desire to work with any one particular person, really. I mean - and even the collaborations on this and other stuff I?ve done, they haven´t really been thought about too much, really. Who ever come down for the day and do something. It´ll be done very quickly anyway. Amy Winehouse I´d like to be doing something with, I think she´s a brilliant singer. But - I don?t know?No, no, I haven´t any particular desires, really.

Q: What would happen if, say, Bobby Womack would wander your way?

P: I don´t know if it would work, really. It´s again - we were talking about studios - it sounds alright on paper, but I don´t know. I´ve got - again I think I´ve got a different way of working. It´s an English - it´s a different way of working.

Q: It sounds as if a lot of these collaborations for you are improvised, you call them, invite them over for a bottle of wine, bring the kids, and you end up playing in the studio.

P: It is like that really, to be honest. With this record - a lot of it was just made up on the spot. There wasn´t too much deliberation. Just try it and see how things develop from that, really.

Copyright Hanspeter Kuenzler