Speed isn't one of our strong points here at Slow Thrills - just one of the reasons for choosing the name! The Delgados are one of my favourite bands, and I was very eager to get them in the last edition of Weedbus. They were also the first band I saw after I left Belfast to live in London (on a mighty double bill with Prolapse in Dingwalls), so it somewhat ironic that I did this interview in Morrison's in Belfast, when I happened o be back there the same night the Delgados were playing! Unfortunately, Weedbus 14 never really happened, so fate would decide that the Delgados have become one of the first interviewees to appear on Slow Thrills.

When I meet Emma, Paul and Stuart from the Delgados it is autumn 1998 and they are nearing the end of the tour to promote 'Peloton'. After an arduous writing and recording process, the tour had provided many highlights including Flux at Edinburgh, John Peel's Meltdown at the Royal Festival Hall and a storming performance on the second stage at Reading. The final date, at Union Chapel, incorporates slides and projection loops - not to mention the semi-permanent string quartet.
So is it a conscious effort on the part of the band to make the shows varied?

Emma: "We don't want to treat the touring process as a treadmill. Especially if you're doing a gig that's out on its own, away from the treadmill of a tour, and if it's in a venue that can allow something different."
Stuart: "I think it's good to try and stretch yourself. It's too easy to get into a kind of 'roll-on/ roll-off' situation and end up churning out the same set. It's boring for the band and for people who come and see you all the time. I think it's good to throw some original ideas around - no matter how small - it makes a difference. At the same time I don't think that you go around staging Pink Floyd style extravaganzas - it could get out of hand!"

You've been going for quite a while now, did you see 'Peloton' as a big step for the band? I remember in between 'Domestiques' (the debut album) and 'Peloton' there was a Peel session with he string arrangements on it which surprised a lot of people.

Stuart: "That was our first tentative step into really doing what we wanted, getting away from our basic line-up, developing things a bit."

So why did you choose to incorporate organic strings as opposed to buying an Akai sampler and doing them that way?

Paul: (laughing) We've got an Akai sampler! It's actually part of the whole set up as well. Though the sampler came after the Peel session so at that point it wasn't there! If you go back to the really early stuff we did - around 1994 - it was very, very basic. Myself and Stuart were just learning our instruments and we were just beginning to be a band. To an extent this band has been growing up in public, and I could listen to stuff now and cringe but I try not to because I know that was just part of what we were doing at the time. Instead of being this finished product that came along and hit people in the face we've been experimenting with things as we've been going along, so it has not really been a big leap, it's more like steady experimentation.

Moving on to the Chemikal Underground side of things (which is the record label they founded and still run), was it always an idea of yours to have business control of our music?

Paul: I think the way that it happened, there was a time when it could have just shifted and gone another direction and Chemikal Underground couldn't have happened but in 1995 Glasgow was a very fanzine-based, DIY scene. People were doing their own labels a lot more than they are just now. Urusei Yatsura had started Modern Independent Records before we had started, so when we actually got around to doing it, it wasn't such a mad thing to do. We're used to that whole idea of control - you couldn't take it away from us now. When you say it's our idea to do this, it's probably been an ideal situation for a lot of bands - we've just been lucky that it has worked.

Is it hard to combine your musical/ creative side with running a business?

Stuart: "It's a double-edged sword, it has ups and downs. Running a label and being in band definitely clashed in the early days when we were still trying to find our feet with both sides of it. It's a main reason why there was such a gap between the first album and 'Peloton'. We've struck a balance now that more people work for the label. One problem is that a traditional role of the record company is to market their bands and talk them up and get people interested in them, so the onus was on us to promote ourselves and none of us are good at self-promotion! I think what has happened is that the label has blossomed in such a way that it seems to be held in a high regard, so that has really helped."
Paul: "In about 1997 when we started planning 'Peloton' we thought to ourselves "we've got nothing to lose here because a lot of other bands on the label are better known than us. So that's another reason why we expanded from the basic four-piece line-up - we didn't have a hit to follow-up so we just did things our way. I don't think that many people have that vision or ambition of what they really want to be, they're just playing along. We have to have some reason to go forward and still be a band."

So what about your actual songwriting - is it a long process?

Emma: "Yes! Alan and myself write basic melodies, chorus or whatever. It's bizarre because myself and Paul live together so he then advises us on what we've been doing."
Paul: "It's kind of like, she writes it and I go "That's crap, change it!"
Emma: "When you write something it can end up totally turned on its head when these pair (Stuart and Paul) get their hands on it! I'm maybe not really a team player, I like to do my own thing and then get the others involved. But we need to involve each other because I don't have the foresight of the others as far as arrangements are concerned."
Paul: "Some of the string and flute arrangements have come from Emma or Alan's guitar parts, when we've thought 'that doesn't sound good on a guitar, but it would sound good on a flute."

You're not daunted by people thinking that you've maybe gone over the top?

Paul: "If they did that would be a good thing. As far as we're concerned it would be OTT in a good way - in an ambitious way I suppose. Ambitious albums like 'See You On The Other Side' by Mercury Rev or maybe 'Ladies and Gentlemen...' by Spiritualized are big sounding and not constricted by conventional line-ups or whatever."
Stuart: "I think when we're in the studio we're hypercritical of what we do, and we reject do many things, and if someone does start to lose the plot we're very quick to all condemn it as nonsense! I don't we'd ever allow ourselves to go too far over the top!"

Do you all gel together as far as influences are concerned, or are you all different?

Emma: "We're all really different, I don't think that any of us are consciously influenced by anything. I think when we were recording 'Domestiques' I probably listened to a lot more American bands than I do now. I certainly don't listen to as much pop music."
Paul: "I think there aren't as many good American bands anymore. Just after grunge it was quite healthy, but there was a lot of good things going on in Britain as well - Britpop excepted of course. Things like Tindersticks would been an influence I suppose."

And when you say there are a lot of good bands in Britain, you probably know about it first hand, because, as a record company you're inevitably snowed under with demos!

Paul: "True, but there's also a lot of rubbish out there!"

Send your demos (!) to Chemikal Underground, PO Box 3609, Glasgow, G42 9TP.