"Well, only in terms of record sales, I'd say. It's quite easy for us to just keep doing what we were doing, and writing songs and making albums. It wasn't hard to keep going, but it probably would have been harder if we tried to put 3 or 4 extra 'Alrights' on the second album" Would you be offended if I said thank you for that? "No, no worries at all. That was our idea first."

A lot of the bands that have sprung up over the last few years seem destined to slip back into obscurity over the next couple. I know you guys have been around a while, with The Jennifers and such, but with such a competent second album, this doesn't appear to be your fate. "That was less to do with us. I don't know if that was luck or what, but we've managed to get through really. You see this happens with music all the time, with bands falling by the wayside, but I think the reason we keep going is because we still enjoy doing it, and as long as that remains the same, we'll keep doing it, I guess." I didn't see you when you were out here for the Big Day Out... "It was great!" Yeah, but there's never enough good stuff for me to pay that much and go and see.

"It was probably worth the ticket price to see The Prodigy play. I saw them eight times during the Big day Out tour, and every one was good. Should've gone for that one alone. They're fifty times better live, than on record" So, are you really in it for the money?

"I think in terms of selling records, we probably are, but in terms of making music and enjoying being in a band, definitely not. There's been a lot of offers we could have taken up over the last couple of years that would have made us incredibly rich (the infamous offer to make a 'Monkees' type movie perhaps), but I don't think that's what really interested us. I don't think we're as in for the money as, say, the Spice Girls are. When you see them walking around in their Pepsi clothes and doing all the adverts on the telly, it starts to get a bit ludicrous. I mean obviously we have to pay the rent, and stuff..."

The title of the album seems like a dig at the big boys, then... "I think it's a dig at our selves as well. We're doing it for the love of it, and I know a lot of bands say that. We try not to be too cynical about it. It's fun being in a band...better than washing dishes." The first album, to put it succinctly, was a nice little burst of energy, but the second album seems a lot smoother, and all the better for it. "We're getting older now, and a bit more tired, so we had to slow things down a bit, I think. You know, you can't keep playing at a hundred miles an hour all the time. I quite like the first album for that. I don't think we could do it again in the same way, but I really like the energy on it, but times do change and you have to slow down a bit." Speaking as we were before of 'Alright', and of 'Sun Hits The Sky' from the new album, you guys have a knack of writing top summer tunes. "When we wrote 'Alright', it was in the middle of winter, just after Christmas, and it was freezing cold. We probably wrote it to keep ourselves warm. We never sit down and consciously think about what we're going to write. It's just what makes us happy, and what we think is good. We've only got ourselves as a bullshit filter, really. All three of us write, so we can all pull each other up."

How's Danny's wrist (he broke it in a rather hilarious Road Rage incident just before the band were due to start a November UK tour)? "It's all right. It's had the plaster off now, and into a brace, but short of him breaking the other one he should be right soon. He's a bit embarrassed about it...I'd be embarrassed. We we're really gutted, cause he did it just before we were due to play this gig. He told us for the first half hour that he closed it in a door, and then he came clean...and then we nearly broke his other arm for him." I always thought of him being a quiet sort of guy, and I found this story a touch unbelievable, about him punching a car. "Danny's a nut job. There's no way he's a quiet person. He's completely off his head. What was worse, though, was when we went to hospital, he was sat in the waiting room, and the Doctor walked up and said "Oh no! I was coming to the Supergrass gig tonight!". He was really gutted. We thought he was just going to give Danny a massive painkiller injection and say go on and do the gig, but he was a bit more ethical than that." Any idea when you will be out here next? "Well, I don't know. I'd love to come out tomorrow, but we're in the middle of doing our third album, so it won't be until at least your spring."

So it's like that, then, and with his thanks - "Just like to say thanks to all the people in Australia for buying our records"- he was gone. And I'd have to say the same thing about anyone who hasn't yet gone out and got a copy of 'In It For The Money' for themselves. Go on, get caught by the buzz.

- Clem

First published in Brisbane's Scene Magazine