As the members of Primal Scream get older the music seems to get progressively heavier and angrier. Is it a case of grumpy old men?
Yeah, well, with the XTRMNTR LP we were so angry at ourselves for negating ourselves by being stoned all the time. It takes your power away from you and plays right into the hands of people that want to keep you down. So we’ve got the band in a really healthy state at the minute. Not everyone is strung out on drugs anymore and everyone can sort of see the direction we want to go in now and we really enjoy being together. It’s turned into great fun making to make music rather than a fuckin’ chore.

Being surrounded by drugs has been Primal Scream’s image for a long time.
I suppose we’ve mellowed a little bit and people have been shocked that we’ve grown up a bit. These days we understand there’s a time and place. If you want to do that then you don’t do it in the studio. You’ve got to know the time and the place and know your limitations.

So the new album Evil Heat is a drug free record then?
As drug free as we’ve ever been. I’m not saying we’re angels or anything. Everyone still has a smoke of weed every now and again and goes out to the pub. But there’s no heroin involved, or no coke involved. Everyone’s a little more conscious these days.

There was a lot of controversy surrounding the song ‘Bomb the Pentagon’. Can you tell us why that was dropped from the album?
What we did, because there’s no such thing as freedom of speech after September 11, is re-titled it as ‘Rise’. We re-worked the chorus and just re-titled it but, basically, it’s the same song as ‘Bomb the Pentagon’ ever was you know.

Is ‘Rise’ as good a song?
Well I’d have preferred the ‘Bomb the Pentagon’ message but Osama Bin Laden has screwed that one up for us hasn’t he?

If he did orchestrate it he might have just followed your template?
Then we might get him to do a re-mix for us then, eh?

What inspired the song in the first place?
It’s just we were pissed off with American globalisation thing and the military industrial complex you know. They’re just running around bombing the shit out of everyone on the planet, destabilising governments so they can sneak in and they’ve got another place to launch their planes from. We were just kicking against that because, especially after September 11, everyone stepped right in line behind America and they’re just allowing them to commit fuckin’ acts of genocide all round the world. It’s pretty disgusting.

So, with that in mind, don’t you think a message like ‘Bomb the Pentagon’ is what is needed right now?
Possibly so. But at the end of the day I don’t want some CIA man putting one through the back of my head as I’m walking down the street.

Primal Scream has always put themselves up as a political band – one that isn’t afraid to kick against injustices. Are you surprised that some people feel you’ve squibbed it when an alternate view is begging to be proffered?
Here’s the way I look at it. We all watched that September 11 thing live as it happened and at the end of the day it’s normal people who suffer for some government’s misgivings. My first thought, because I’m a parent myself, was of children crying because their mums and dads were never coming home again. It would be disgusting to kind of glorify that. We’ve all got hearts we’re not complete bastards and we had to give that some serious thought. Like I said it’s a shame we couldn’t come out and say our thing but just out of respect for the dead we couldn’t have done that.

Do you ever think there could be a time when that song could surface in its original guise?
We did play it at three concerts last year. We played it at one gig in London and two at the Supersonic Festival in Japan. Those Japanese people do love a good bootleg don’t they? So I’m sure it’s going to be available. I can’t wait to get to Japan to try and pick one up from somewhere.

This album sounds like a musical version of the Love Boat. There’s all kinds of special guests of varying fame on board. Can you tell us how Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant got on there?
Robert Plant just lives around the corner from the studio. Or he’s got one of his seventeen houses there and we always see him in the pub when we knock off. For a rock legend he’s the most approachable guy. So we just asked him to come and play some harmonica on ‘The Lord is My Shotgun’. He just went ‘I’ll be round at half three tomorrow afternoon’, on the dot he turns up, plays some magnificent harmonica and then leaves again. Generally people say yes when we asked them to collaborate on things.

My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields has continued to Primal Scream record. Any idea when his next record is coming out?
How long’s a piece of string, mate? That could be in another ten years time. But I’m sure he’ll get round to it. He’s had a Mexican stand off with his record company. There’s been a lot of contractual difficulties with his label and they cut his funding eventually which they were always going to do. He has everything recorded he just needs to go and master it. So it maybe sooner than we think.

And the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Jim Ried also ended up singing on this record?
Jim Ried ended up doing the song I think it called ‘Detroit’. We just thought he’d be the perfect vocalist for this one song and it’s good to work with people like that because we appreciate what he’s done in the past.

How did Kate Moss come to duet with Bobby on Nancy & Lee’s ‘Some Velvet Morning’?
You know she’s a really good mate and we just asked her, cheekily, ‘do you fancy coming and singing on this tune?’ and she was bang up for it. She’s a great girl and once she got a bit of confidence with her surroundings in the studio she was away, mate. She was great. I think she’s got an alternate career beckoning should she chose to stop modelling.

Since when have Primal Scream become a supermodel type band?
Supermodels love us, mate. I don’t know why ‘cos we’re a bunch of ugly, little bogans but we’ve always had those kind of people hanging round at gigs. Who knows why? I don’t.

So was ‘Some Velvet Morning’ produced by Giorgio Moroder?
Well he’s done a re-mix for us. The way we work it is we’ve got our own studio and we basically produce ourselves but then just give the songs to other people to mix so we give Giorgio Moroder a chance at that one and, unfortunately, it wasn’t quite the thing when it came back. We were expecting him to do a really fucked up, disco version and it came back sounding like Sting. So we had to get the bucket and all collectively spew in it. We’ve given it to Andrew Weatherall now and I think he’s going to make it sound like a Throbbing Gristle record or something.

Is that an example of being disappointed by your heroes? Because Moroder has done some fantastic things with Donna Summer and Blondie to name two?
Maybe so but we just thought we’d give it a chance. We do like to take the odd risk and do some odd things. We just thought Moroder might have been good for it but maybe it just that not everything can work the way it does it your head.

Can you tell us about 'Sick City' which a song we’ve already heard on the David Holmes Bow Down to the Exit Sign album from 2001?
That was just a good collaboration with David and it was a co-write thing and we let him use it on that album and it was a great version. We were just playing it live constantly and with the live thing it was more aggressive, more powerful, more rock n’ roll. So we thought let’s just re-record it the way we’ve been playing it and I’m very proud of that song. I love it. The message is great in it and it was just a kick arse rock song.

Sounds like your homage to Iggy & the Stooges.
Why not, mate, you know what I mean. They’ve been a major player in all our lives. Bands like them and the MC5. We just wanted to get down and dirty and make a kick arse rock song there.

Also obviously with ‘Autobahn 66’ you’re dipping your hat to people like Neu! and Can?
We were always into a bit of Kraut Rock. You know Kraftwerk and Neu! and Faust and Can. The way it works with Primal Scream is what we’re listening to always filters through onto our finished products.

Is everything all beer and skittles with the rest of the Stone Roses?
Yeah, mate, I’m still on the phone to them and (guitarist) John Squire was around my house one night and smoked too much weed and he ended up throwing a whitey and ended up tucking him into bed. So we’re still in contact. Went and saw Ian Brown a couple of weeks ago and he was in great form.

So is there a possiblity of a third coming of the Stone Roses?
Well, I never say never again and financially it’d be a great move but I think everyone is busy right now. We’ll just keep it on the backburner and maybe in a couple of years it might happen. I’d love it too anyway.

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