´óÏó´«Ã½

The single comes from the new album, 'Have You Fed The Fish'. Do you count this as your second or third album?
Damon: There's been a debate between myself and journalists as to whether anyone's comfortable saying the soundtrack is an album. For my money, the soundtrack was album two because it was a real album, it wasn't half-hearted. It was a song-based record not just a score. For me, sentimentally it is the real follow up to the first album.

The new material sounds more focused. Less a bunch of disparate ideas more a long one. Do you agree with that?
Damon: What I managed to do with the first record is make a cohesive arrangement of songs that had taken me a long while to think about writing. Your first record is always going to be different because you've got more time to think about it. With the new record, it's inevitable because you're making it in a period of time that starts and ends definitively. I'd agree there is a more cohesive quality to 'Have You Fed The Fish' because in certain songs lyrics refer to other songs. I try to make it a jigsaw of lyrics that are sung in different ways throughout the record. It was written and recorded in a short space of time so I think that contributes to making it a more rounded, overall sound.

Is there a specific idea be it a lyric or a piece of playing that you're proudest of?
Damon: The one moment on the record that stands out is the middle of the song 'How' when I say, "When you come back I'll go out of my way to be all the things you need". The music in that section is really powerful, like a big rock opera. Lyrically, the two lines in 'How', "How can I give you the answers you need when all I possess is a melody" and "you were right songs are never quite the answer, just a soundtrack to a life". Song-writing is my living so I'm testing myself there. Being ironic as well because songs are everything to me but they take me away from home so much, I have to question it. Often they don't make me happy because I have to travel the world and I miss everybody.

What was the working process for the 'About A Boy' soundtrack?
Damon: The first thing to do is to get help. When I was offered the soundtrack I had this flippant attitude that it was going to be a piece of cake. It was much more difficult. I started to base the songs on the book, the imagery and the characters. When I got to watch the film there were a couple of other inspirational moments such as when the boy was reading his mother's suicide note. Trying to make the songs fit the film was a lot harder than I expected it to be. When you've got a fixed piece of film to work to it's much harder. With a lot of films people licence music in and find a piece that works. When you're writing it for real it's much more difficult. It was harder than I thought but I had a producer called Steve McLaughlan who helped me through that. He'd scored many films and helped me adapt my music to the film. He made it a lot easier.