This time round, without wanting to sound conceited, I felt like we're a good band, we do what we do well. Let's do it with these songs that are good, or whatever. It felt good.

-Now that you're on album number four, are there any songs in the vein of 'Thatcher F***** The Kids' that you're tired of playing?
Well...for the most part, I generally try to opperate on the principle that I will play anything from my back catalogue, if the mood takes me.

Actually, on the solo tour I did, it was really fun. Every day I was trying to drag up a couple of songs I hadn't played in a while. There were a couple that I'd never actually played live before.

It was really fun to go...f***. I haven't even thought of that song for years, and then there'd be people in the audience singing along. That was an incredible feeling.

With specific reference to 'Thatcher F***** The Kids', I stopped playing that song a few years ago now, for a number of reasons.

Probably the best way of putting it is this. I felt that when I put that song out, I got a glipse of what the world would be like if I was an out-and-out protest singer. It wasn't a glipse that I liked very much.

If you enter a world that's much more about politics that it is about music, there's a lot of people who are highly opinionated and not particularly tolerant with other views.

There's that, and the other thing is that as I've grown older my views on that particular subject have shifted. I don't want to completely disown the song, but I certainly don't think I can stand up on a stage in a room full of people and sing that song with 100% conviction anymore.

I don't think that the analysis in it is one I would stand by anymore. Having said that, one of the great things about music and folk music is that if people want to claim that song, play it, add an extra verse and do what the f*** they want, they're more than welcome to do it.

It would fill me with pleasure in fact, if people did that. It's not like I'm trying to erase it from history or anything like that.

-What stage is your book at?
It's about 75% done of the first draft, is the best way of putting it. We're getting then.

One of the problems with me, I'm much better at working when I have a deadline to work to, and that's a slightly open-ended project.

I go through phases where I'll suddenly spend three days on it fevorously, and then I won't touch it for a month. It will happen, it's coming. I promise.

-Who approached who with the idea?
Some guys from an American publishing house contacted me to see if I'd be interested in writing a book. My initial reaction was no, what the f*** am I going to write a book about?

They pitched the idea at me a little more carefully, and we're talking about doing it as book of tour diaries. I guess I just thought about it more, and I found away of thinking about it that didn't seem pretentious to me.

I wrote 10 or 15 chapters or so, sent them off to a couple of friends and said is this totally, totally tedious, or is it any good? People seemed to think it was alright, so I kept working at it.

-When we spoke in December, you mentioned maybe doing some side-projects. Are you considering any of them more seriously yet?
Well, I had another discussion with Dan the other day and we both agreed that it was an excellent idea for us to do something together.

Then, I've just got a new album out, he's got a new album out. It's the worst possible time to be trying to talk about anything like that.

The tour schedule for England Keep My Bones stretches to the horizon for me at the moment. I've got ideas and plans, but it becoming something conrete is further in the distance.

-Once the summer festival circuit is done, what do you have planned?
That's when the proper England Keep My Bones World Tour starts, basically.

We're doing Ireland, then America and Canada, then Europe, the UK, Europe, then Australia and Japan, the Far East, then America again, then Europe and UK again.

That takes us until this time next year. So, it's pretty manic.

-What final message would you give to anyone reading it? Anything to plug?
There's the tour coming up, but people can find out about that from my websites. Just come to a show and say hello, really.

-Cheers for taking the time to talk to us again. Good look with the tours.
My pleasure, man, nice to speak to you again. Take it easy.

Female First - Alistair McGeorge

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