Interview with the band by The Guitarist magazine, 2002 Scottish pop rockers discover sampling, giving a fresh feel to their fine new album It's been a long time since we heardfrom Del Amitri. Many people assumed the band had broken up, but that's far from the case. Now, with the launch of an excellent new album Can You Do Me Good, group leaders Justin Currie and Iain Harvie are ready to hit the road again. But why the long delay? Justin: "After we put out the Greatest Hits album in 1998 there was the problem with A&M closing which effectively kept us out of the studio for two years, which was extremely frustrating. But it gave us time to write a lot of material and sort out our lives." Iain: "With all record company shenanigans going on there was a lot of time with not much happening. I spent a good few months sitting around with manuals figuring how to work samples and that was great because I suddenly released it was dead easy to put together wee grooves that felt good to write over, rather than spending months in a studio trying to find the right chords to get the groove." Justin: "We were becoming kind of fundamentalist zealots of the traditional way of recording. Five guys playing live in a room using these antique tape machines, it was all very retro. So we just tried to get a bit more involved, see what this new technology had to offer. We don't have to constantly just sound like a pub rock band, we can sound more interesting if we want to and we ended up quite pleased. We're still pretty lucky to have a record deal, y'know?" Some of the lyrics suggest the guys are really crap at relationships. Iain: "Well Justin writes the lyrics so you'll have to discuss that with him (laughs). But it's a perennial theme and it's something that everybody understands. Songs like Drunk In A Band aren't like that or Jesus Saves." Justin: "I don't think I'm really crap at relationships. We all have trouble at some point or another, it's just something we all have in common. Generally pop music's job is to sing about love and feelings, about something you've considered or been through. During this lay off I wrote a lot of stuff, some was very average actually, just for the sake of trying to learn and keep my hand in. But during that process some things popped out that surprised me." Iain: "It's pretty much exclusively me and Justin writing. Andy the keyboard player is a very accomplished musician but he's never got into writing and he's the only one that has a proper musical grounding. The stuff that Justin writes on his own he tends to finish on his own, then we'll knock it into shape in the studio arrangement wise. Often I have idea for a song and put down a version of it myself at home and Justin chops it around a bit so it works with his lyrical notion." Armed with the new album it's time to take to the road again. Justin: Now we're desperate to get gigging again and praying the Just Before You Leave single does something so we can keep on the road. I still enjoy playing the bass live I must admit. I'm a kind of a punk rock bass player, there's a kind of charm about it which I quite like. I've got really stuck on this new P-Bass thing which is basically a Fender Precision with a modern neck and two pickups instead of one. I can throw it around the stage and it never goes out of tune. Sometimes I just feel like holding the damn thing you know, I wouldn't like to be the lead singer that just clutches the microphone stand." Iain: "I'm using what I've had for years, a couple of old Les Paul Deluxes, an Orange head and cabs and some pedals. It depends what's working at the time as most of it's old and decrepit. Whatever is not being fixed is usually being used." Justin: "We'd like to do quite a lot of new things really. We've played the hits for so many years it would be nice to change the tone of the whole show. We'll reinterpret quite a lot of the new songs and probably some of the older songs as well to freshen them up. You never know even Ace Of Spades might rear its ugly head from time to time, it's too much fun not to."