What we want to do as a band, is put British music back firmly in front of an audience and have that music be accepted - we want to be able to touch people on a spiritual level. It’s not about the charts or big venues, it’s about having the music touch people. If that puts the band in the charts, great. If it puts us in venues, great - that means we’re kind of getting somewhere. We’re trying to make the kind of music that doesn’t need to be written about in the newspaper or advertised on the television before people get what we’re doing. We want people to get what we’re doing by the nature of what we’re doing.

Where the whole scene is totally screwed up is that the only way most folks get to hear about music these days is through the charts, or through newspapers and magazines owned by massive conglomerates that don’t have the music as their prime interest. What these folks are interested in doing is selling as many records as possible, in the shortest possible time and making as much money as possible out of the poor unsuspecting public.

So a lot of the stuff out there is purely fake - it’s not real. It might be a nice little tune that you can whistle on the way to work, there might be a little catchphrase in there that may or may not mean something to your inner psyche, but you’re pissing in the wind if you think any of this is going to mean anything to you in 20 years time.

What we’re trying to do as a band is to have some relevance, and to bring some relevance back to people’s lives - because there is so little around us at the moment that is in any way meaningful - there is a huge battle going on out there between good and evil. I saw an interview the other day where someone was asked ''isn’t music like The Sex Pistols and The Rolling Stones the Devil’s music?'', but it’s not. The Devil’s music is the stuff with no soul. I’ve nothing against those poor, poor artists who are nothing but slaves to that corporate mentality which is doing nothing to serve people’s interests.

No, it’s getting worse! It’s sickening to think that despite all the fantastic things that have happened in Rock and Roll since they invented it (and granted - there have been some dodgy moments too), music right now is powerless as a force - powerless to reach people, powerless to inspire people. Music right now is just there to serve corporate entities to make as much money as possible, as fast as possible. Where has the inspiration gone?

It’s another by-line. But what is encouraging is that most of the people who I talk to out there, are aware of this. Who is going to be brave enough to step out from under this corporate balloon of hot air and do the graft, put their butts on the line and do something about it? That’s what The Soul Company are about. But if we find a record company who are seriously into us, we have got to ask some very serious questions - Is this company willing to compromise their stance to preserve the driving force of this band? Only if a company comes along that is willing to accept that ethos, will we be able to work with them.

Well, I think most of the Rock and Roll fans in the world would be behind that ethos, not necessarily behind us - there’s tons of bands out there like Widespread Panic and The Subdudes that do understand this. But for as long as the corporate moguls have got a stranglehold on every outlet for music, it’s going to remain very, very difficult. Take Thunder for example - I have only recently become aware of them - they are not primarily interested in selling a bazillion records - although of course, that would be nice, everyone has to pay the bills - but the prime motivating factor is not that, it is putting music out there that has some kind of lasting positive impact on the folks who want to listen to it.

Well they’re still out there! John Lee Hooker, until his dying day, was out there trying to remind us that you better watch how you live for as long as you live. It seems like a lot of people have lost that kind of long term respect for themselves. If you listen to any of the great artists who have been around for a long, long time, I think you’ll find that they are still on the cutting edge.

Check out Johnny Cash’s last album - how brave and how unbelievably inspiring that last album was. You just have to listen to that album, and you will be in awe, because it just reaches you right where it counts you know?

Well, I don’t think they have necessarily been trying to do that. They are beyond the youthful rebellion stage now - they’ve been there and done their bit. What they are trying to do, is to keep their music moving forward. They’re taking Rock and Roll in a whole new direction - to another level while most people have been looking in the other direction, but if you happen to see it and get it, more power to you. But if you don’t get it right now, it is still going to be there for you when you are down on your knees and begging for mercy, screaming ''please will someone show me the light?'' That music will still be there, and it will blind you with its brilliance.

Well, New Orleans is a small enclave at the end of a very, very long Highway south. It’s a haven for music and musicians. Despite being a small place, it is full of history. It is probably about a third the size of Manchester but has a very tight knit community of musicians. Nobody is down there because they are going to have a hit record next week - it is about as far away from Hollywood bubblegum music as you can get. The music community down there is comprised of people who are more interested in writing about the human condition than in how many records they are going to sell next week.

Now that can be a good or a not-so good thing. I am not saying that turning your back on the music business is a good thing in itself, but everyone in the community was there to grow as artists and writers and musicians, to learn and to better themselves.

Well I had pretty much had enough of Hollywood, and was looking for a place that was not Hollywood, where I could just get into the music and New Orleans seemed to me to be the place to be.
I had been there while I was in the merchant marines and fell in love with the place. But at that point I didn’t know as much about the place as I did after I had had a chance to spend some time living in America.
I was aware of what New Orleans was all about, what it would mean to live there, I knew why I wanted to go and felt very comfortable with the idea that that would be the place to be.

I was in New York for about six or seven months, Living on Avenue A and Houston on the Lower East Side, then I was in San Diego for about a year. After a while I started to get the feeling that it was time to make a move, and New Orleans seemed to be the place to be.

Despite both Downtown and Hard Travellin’ being partly recorded in Nashville, I didn’t feel tempted to move there, because again it is a place that is very industry-led. There is the whole Country thing going on, but I took a conscious decision to disassociate myself from anywhere where I would feel forced to play that industry game. I knew I had a lot of work to do personally as an artist, and that being involved in the industry rat race was going to be completely counter-productive to that. Because New Orleans is an enclave, it’s separated from the industry and that’s why I wanted to go there.