Crystal Ball - "Our touring schedule over the last couple of years meant that
we were on the road all the time, and were never kinda stopping to really
appreciate what was going and just spend time having fun - just the three of us
functioning as friends and as people, like you normally do. And I think we all
started to recede slightly into this little world where we weren't really
communicating or really expressing anything, and we weren't really feeling
anything. And it kind of came to a head when we were in America in June last
year and I remember sitting on the bus, and I was trying to write a song and I
realised that I didn't have anything to say at all, and I didn't have any
feelings about anything - good feelings or bad feelings. That was a really
scary for me, because I've always had lots to say, and lots of opinions whether
right or wrong. We then ended up having a massive row about something a couple
of days later and it came out of that that we were all feeling this sense of
numbness, this feeling of kinda fading away as people. And I just tried to
write about that, and it ended up becoming Crystal Ball.

Smiths is an example that spring to mind), bands that can write a song that's
really energised and ... 'pop' I guess, but is also really meaningful, but also
really powerful and sad. And Morrissey is just the king of that, and I think
the Pet Shop Boys were another band that did that really well - and those were
two of the first bands I ever got into, so I think that's still a big part of
our music; and I guess Crystal Ball is probably the best example of that." -
Tim - Podcast 5 (12th June 2006)