"I try to get up as late as possible but my wife can't sleep in, so she
gets up about 10.30 and makes me a cup of tea, which must be Earl Grey. Generally I don't have breakfast because I can't be bothered. After I wake up I wander along to a vegetarian cafe and have a brunch. I'm not a vegetarian but their food is very enjoyable. Depending on what they're serving I'll have a selection of salads and humus. I don't bother with morning newspapers, in fact I make a definite point of not reading them. So after brunch my day centres round what work I have to get through.
Most of the time we tend to be in the studio, and basically I'm in there working from morning until night. We've been having quite a lot of problems in finishing off our first album, so we're working very hard. I've written pretty much all of our stuff up until now. If we do complete songs then they're written on the guitar, but if we're just working on fragments of tunes they'll be written on keyboards. One of our keyboard players, Ian Stanley, has a 24 track studio in his house so we like to work there. It's nice because we can demo and write there, and also take a break and wander round the rest of the house. We spend a lot of time mucking about with gadgets and computers.
I'm not fond of working in the studio because the pressure is dreadful. I like working on my own writing the songs and I enjoy recording the songs in demo stages, but when it comes to making the finished article the music industry pressure almost becomes too much to bear. When it gets to the mastering stage and you have three days to finish three songs, there's no way you can feel creative, It's entirely the opposite, totally destructive. When we're at Ian's there's no sense of being trapped. That's why we prefer to work in Bath. When I'm not touring I like to stay at home and go over my groundwork. I set everything up in the living room and experiment, which drives my wife mad. I'll play my guitar and hope that songs will come.
I've never ever forced myself to write a song, because if you do that you find yourself repeating earlier themes. My songs are inspired because I wait for them to come. I wouldn't say I write a lot of songs because I'm very fussy, I do get a lot of ideas, but I only pursue a few. Nor do I put my ideas on to tape or on to paper.- What I do is sing it over again and again until it's firmly locked in my head and then I'll start thinking about lyrics.
Sometimes I can't finish a song but I've learned to leave it alone for a couple of weeks in such cases. For instance, for our second single 'Pale Shelter' I kept playing two chords for weeks and weeks, then one morning I woke up and sang the tune and the words, just like that. Then another day I was flicking through an art book and came across 'Pale Shelter' by Henry Wood, so that wrapped up everything nicely.
We keep TFF as a nucleus of two because that's how it started. We do use regular people, though. We acquired drummer Manny Elias who's been with us ever since and then Ian, whom we bounce ideas off. Live we're augmented to a five piece by Andy Davies, who's from local group Slow Twitch Fibres. I don't have any hobbies. I like staying in a lot with Caroline. We don't do anything, we don't watch televison - or not much. If I do go out, we like going out to eat. Eating out is one of my greatest pleasures. There are plenty of good restaurants in Bath and quite a few decent clubs as well. Mole is my favourite because it has a very relaxed atmosphere, not at all posey.
I don't read as a rule, and when I do it's never fiction. I like psychology books and things to do with science, and the physiology of the body. I don't like going to bed early because I find it difficult to sleep before the early hours of the morning. I use every excuse to stay up late, usually by taking baths, just for something to do."