"we knew exactly what we were doing..."

Your album "Suite(s)" very much has its own sound. How hard is it translating what you do in the shed into a live performance?

Amit: That was the beauty of the record. The way we approached it is just a snapshot of us at the time. It doesn't matter if it has mistakes on it, we'll go in and record it live. At the very least it will make a good demo. But for all its flaws, it's the mistakes that I like about it - it's just of this time, just a live recording we've magicked into an album that people seem to like.

Ross: Like Amit says, we weren't sure what it was going to be, it was like, "Do we do this now? Do we leave it a while? Do we use other recording techniques like going into a studio and laying down the drums first, then bass and guitar like most bands?" It used to be all about playing live - a lot of early records would just be a band in a room with one mic. What worked in our favour, which came out of building our own place, is that we all felt really comfortable in here; we knew exactly what we were doing. We'd rehearsed the songs so many times that all we really did was introduce 8 or 9 mics and played it live, like a rehearsal. Rather than capture a perfect take by overdubbing 16 guitar tracks it was more about energy. Each song was played, maybe, three or four times and that was it. We usually got it on the second or third take, but it was a real compromise between all 3 parts. I could do something great but maybe it wasn't happening on the keys or I could do something great and it wasn't happening with Amit. Or I was just really great and the other two just weren't happening. The point I'm trying to make is that . . .

Kieran: He's really great. [they all erupt, laughing]

Ross: . . . there were always going to be parts that some of us weren't happy with, but we had to reach a general consensus of whether we'd captured the best energy. We had to strip down the ego and just listen to each track as a tune rather than its individual parts.

Kieran: It doesn't matter if it's technically brilliant or clinically perfect - personally I didn't want that at all. If it fits when we listen back to it, then that's the one, even if I made a mistake, it doesn't matter. You look past the technical. You can always be a perfectionist and say, "Let's do it again and put that part in", but then you listen back and think "maybe I should change this part now". It's a slippery slope.

Ross: This was just 3 people trying to do the best they could with the money and time they had available. Right up until the release there was always this doubt that it could sound like a really cheap production. Would reviewers notice that? It was almost like someone looking at you naked and seeing all your faults.

Kieran: [smiling] What?

Ross: Like walking into a room with a technicolour dreamcoat. Sometimes you think too much about how reviewers . . .

Kieran: [about to crack] Seriously, what?

Ross: Let me finish. I thought, personally, far too much about how reviewers and people listen to music. When I listen to music, just because I've worked in recording in the past, it's very easy to go right in there and dissect it. I was really surprised at the response the album got. We're basically now on a level playing field with people who've spent thousands of pounds in a studio and still not got the same kind of energy we did and it really taught me a lesson. It's all about capturing the performance more than anything else.