Paul Draper in action

We had no idea. It was quite surprising. The last single we released before the album (She Makes My Nose Bleed) went top 10. So I suppose we thought it might be a top ten album, but no idea it would do as it did. It was nice.

The album is very ambitious. Do you think you surprised a lot of people with the depth and scope of the album?

I certainly think people weren't expecing some of the stuff; it was quite different from some of the EP's.

Paul seems to have a lot of self confidence, with comments like the REM one ("...If I didn't think we could be bigger than R.E.M., I'd give up..."). Do you share those views as well?

Mansun's Offical Homepage

Um, yeah (sounds a bit uncomfortable), it wasn't particulary about REM, it could've been about any one. It was more about that there's no particualar limit of what we want to achieve. We just want to do as much as we possibly can. And go as far as we possibly can.

It seems to be very much Paul's band from what I've read. How much input do you and the rest of the band have, songwriting-wise, and image-wise etc?

Well we've released a couple of co-written tracks, and the ones we're starting to write now are co-written. As far as it goes, Paul actually writes the song himself but the recording process is still a team effort. We often come up with different ideas for Paul's songs.

Did any songs come out totally different from when you went in to the studio?

Yeah, a lot of things came up different to what we expected. A lot of things that were expected didn't even happen, and a lot of things happened which were completely spontaneous and not part of the original plan. All plans change because with something like music, you can't stop a musical idea or song coming in your head and if it does and it's good, to ignore it, you can't not do it, just because it wasn't part of the original plan.

Do you think you'll go for a concept type approach for your next album?

Well, it depends what you mean by concept. I mean if you call our first album a concept album - I mean it is as in as much as we had an idea of what we wanted it to be like before we started making it; and if "concept album" means that you're intelligent human beings and you think about what you're going to want to record before you do it - well that's what we do.

Have you started writing for it yet?

We've got about two or three tracks that we've started recording. There's one that's completed but the main body of work will come later.

You've got a bit of a reputation as band of being wild boys on tour. Is that true?

I don't know where that comes from, to be honest. People have commented on us as people in our private lives, and any comment outside of gigs is completely unqualified, as nobody see us outside of gigs. We don't hang around anyone from the industry outside of gigs. All it is, is that we go against the grain in Britain as far as live performance is concerned, as most British bands stand very, very still and go through the motions every night and move very little. We're a very energetic live band because we enjoy playing live. And I guess people see us and mis-interpret that aggression as what we're like offstage...Whatever, people write all sorts.

The best you can do is talk to people and hope they'll include something of what you say in what they write about you. If you don't speak to people at all they're just free to write whatever they want. Because they will write about you.

How do the songs translate live?

Well all we can really go on is the reaction they get and generally it's an excellent reaction.

From the live reviews I've read they often comment on your energy, and how the crowd gets really into it.

Yeah, certainly the crowd do, and partly because we're into it. Because you tend to project your attitude onto the audience and theirs back onto you. The songs are very different. Live we're more of a energetic rock act, I suppose, and the studio is the place where we do the experimenting. We just translate everthing onto two guitars, bass and drums for the live show and it works.

Are you doing many of the festivals later this year?

In Britain, we're doing Glastonbury and T in the park and V97 and we'll do one or two European ones.

Do you like doing those?

Yeah, we really enjoy doing the specials. I mean at the end of the day maybe the reason why people enjoy us at the festivals and at the supports, who aren't necessarily our audience, is that every time we play... ...we play as if it was our own gig. We put as much effort on another bands tour as we do on one of our own tours. And we do as much effort at a festival as one of our own gigs. So I guess people appreciate that.

With the level of success you've achieved, particularly in UK and Japan do you think it can, or do you want to, become any bigger?

Well, I think it can get much bigger obviously - there's still much bigger gigs, tours for us to play and much more records for us to sell. And yeah we all obviously hope it will. We hope to become as successful as we possibly can. Our intention is just to get music in whatever form, whether live or on record to as many people as we possibly can, everywhere. Whatever country.

Mansun have been a very prolific band with the number of songs on multiple format CDs. Do you still have a large amount of songs to choose from?

Paul has been writing for yonks, so some of the things we've already released have existed in some form or another, for maybe five years, maybe ten years or a year. So there is that to fall back on, the songs he wrote years ago. But we do prefer to come up with brand new stuff, and that will be the next thing we do. But we certainly haven't noticed any cause for concern as far as coming up with new material is concerned - We haven't started panicking yet.

Do you play new songs live or do you wait until they've been recorded?

Generally we wait until we've recorded actually. Most of the stuff we do is written or reaches its final form in the studio. We don't often go into the studio with a clear idea of what the song is going to be like. There's a bunch of chords and a melody and that's it - no lead guitar, no bass lines and no rhythm; no backing vocals or keyboard parts - they all come in the studio. So generally we record everything before we play it live.

Do you like the non recording/touring side of being in Mansun?

Yeah, I certainly don't have any problem with. I mean the recording and the playing live is the two main things but everything else is definitely an important part of it. You can't neglect any one side of it.

Well you can but you can suffer...

I suppose, but certain things go hand in hand. You've got to be successful for you to afford the luxury of doing what you want. We want to carry on. We are allowed to tour all the time and make the records we want to make, by our record company. But I'm sure if we stopped being a successful band then they wouldn't allow us to do what we want. So you know, these things go hand in hand and there's a lot of other things other than recording/playing that are important if you are going to be successful, which allow you to record how you want to.

Caleb