ANNA: Rather than bands there are some really fantastic new DJ's and cool nights coming through like 'Sugar Foot Stomp' 5 girls who play 1930's - 1950's tunes, The Capsule grrrrls who put on the Supersonic festival and play 80's cheesy rock, 7 Inch cinema who do a music/cinema/film night and the Step Off DJs who do a mix of cosmic disco.

CRAIG: Vijay Kishore is great. He has a voice you have to hear to believe. I also saw a guy called Gark Nock a few weeks ago and he was very good, quite similar to Chris Tye in fact. There is a great band called The Destroyers who are playing around town quite a lot, too. There are about 15 of them and the music is quite hard to describe as it jumps from jazz to folk to eastern European and back again, and often in the same song.

2) Your music has often been lumped into the "Americana" camp has this been a curse or a blessing for the band ? 

CRAIG: It was tricky as it's no-one likes to be pigeonholed. To be fair, the earlier stuff (with Buick 6) was very country but I think that we eventually found our own voices, although the tag stuck. In some ways I don't mind because a lot of people love that style of music and so if that can help people get pointed in our direction then all is good. If you listen to the new songs I don't think you'd even say the accents were 'American', to be honest. Anna's voice has been compared to Sandy Denny's on certain songs. 

3) You all seem to have a great sense of camaraderie on stage how long has the band been together ?

CRAIG: I met Anna at a Spiritualized gig in 1998 or 1999, I can't remember. Phil and Cam I met shortly after, although Cam didn't start playing with us until 2002. I've known Jez since school, so a long time. Buick 6 got going properly around 2000, i suppose. With the exception of the latter part of 2003, when musically things fell into a drunken and argumentative mess for a while, we've been together since. We're all very good friends and have been through a lot together. I don't really want to play with anyone else.  

ANNA: We've known each other for absolutely ages so we're really relaxed on stage.  We're also usually quite drunk too so that helps.   

4) The band is also noted for great vocal harmonies has this always been something you've loved in music ?

ANNA: Yes we do love our harmonies - but it's also something we can do quite well do we milk it a bit.  I think if one of us could play the double bass that would feature somewhere but we can't so it doesn't.   

CRAIG: I grew up with CSNY playing in the house and I always loved singing along to records and picking out the harmony parts. I still do it now, even when listening to more poppier stuff on the radio. Learning more about country and folk as I grew up, it was always the harmonies that stood out for me above the music.

5) What are your musical influences ?

ANNA: I like White Rose Movement and The Liars at the moment.  I wish by liking a band you'd end up sounding like them but it doesn't seem to be working.  If all else fails it's Fairport Convention forever I'm afraid to say!

CRAIG: I like far too many things to list. Over the last year I've really got into Tunng and I also completely felll in love with Josephine Foster. Anna likes her too. Will Oldham is a constant influence, both musically and in the way he conducts himself...a truly independent spirit.

6) Many rootsmusic fans would have enjoyed your track "Get Real" from The Song Makers Project Volume . Will the new album have a similar sound?

ANNA: A bit but we've changed quite a lot since then.  We're not so earnest and have changed our set up a bit so we'll sound a bit different.  A bit slimmed down and not trying so hard I hope!

CRAIG: I think we've grown into our skin a bit since the days of "Get Real". As I said, the sound is much less consciously 'Americana', but those influences are still there....but songs on the new record like Nobody Out There and Been Down lean more towards southern US soul, whilst '..Movies' is really a 70s English folk sound and Fork in the Road is a three-minute pop song. It's a nice mixute. 

7) One of your greatest fans was the late John Peel who invited you to play several sessions, what are your recollections of him ?

CRAIG: I only met him once and that was before he played us, although we exchanged a few emails after that when we were sorting out the sessions. What struck me about him was he was exactly as you'd expect him to be. He was quite shy and definitely scatty. When I met him he had just come from The Diskery - a second hand record shop in Birmingham. He told me how he'd taken about 200 quids worth of rare 7"s to the counter and then realised he had no money. Another guy in the shop had to pay for his records and then follow him to his hotel so Peel could repay him. Listening to the story was exactly like listening to him on the radio, apologising for playing a 45 at 33.

ANNA: Unfortunately we didn't meet him at the sessions!  It's just a producer who makes sure you behave yourself in the recording studio.  But I did manage to meet him at the Sonar festival in Barcelona which was ace.  As a band that was a most amazing thing to happen to us - when the call came through we couldn't sleep for a week.  

8) How is the album being recorded and who is producing it ?

CRAIG: We've recorded it ourselves over the course of about 6 months and with the exception of drums it's all been done at my house. I had to learn Logic from scratch so there were a few errors and false starts to begin with. In fact at one stage we ripped it all up, salvaged what we could and then started again. The cool thing about recording in this way was that it was new to us and quite liberating. Prior to this we'd been primarily a live band, and so people had sent us into studios with producers and they had recorded us in that 'live' way, and we'd never been 100% happy with the results. This way, we were able to revisit certain parts and think about them a bit more. That said, we've decided that when we start working on the next one it'll be a more loose, stripped and live thing. If that sounds like a contradiction then what can I say? We never do things the easy way. If we can put an obstacle in our own path we'll somehow find a way.

9) When will it be released and what live dates are planned