It could happen but don’t hold your breath.
Because we both tour so much these days it’s actually quite unlikely we’ll both ever be free of other commitments at the same time. We only ever see each other at gigs we’re both playing at these days as I live in the back of beyond and he spends a lot of time in the US with his missus.
Also, to be honest, I’m not the world’s best collaborator. One of the things I like most about my studio is the lack of other people going ‘No, do it like THIS’ - which was one of the things which made being a freelance engineer such a drag.
The idea of two people sitting round a computer, pushing digits about and designing a tune by committee is my idea of hell, even though Simon is one of the only people I’ve ever managed it with without wanting to beat them to death with the mouse. These days, for me, collaboration takes the form of getting somebody into the studio, giving them instruments to play or microphones to sing into, extracting as much stuff from them as possible in as short a time as possible and then telling them to piss off while I sort it all out.
He’d actually be a good person to do this with as he can get something interesting out of most instruments you give him so you never know. The more I write the more fun it sounds.
With the Umberloid record, it’s unlikely to happen for similar reasons. Chris has a full and busy life, we’re both dads and we live six hours apart. Or four hours if he comes on his [insanely fast] Kawasaki ZXR750 but you can’t carry a five-string bass on one of those.
We tried making music over the internet but it felt a bit like the musical equivalent of cyber-sex - close but no cigar.
He is on ‘Mir’ though and I can say without any doubt that he contributed the single best sound on the whole record. There is a series of bass harmonics on the beginning to one of the tracks that makes me laugh and shiver at the same time.
