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ex-Take That Mark Owen?
He asked us where our last single went in the chart and when I didn't know, he looked at me like I was really weird.

Isn't it nice to read the reviews and the cover stories you always dreamt about? Yeah, but you dream about good pictures of yourselves as well.

My advice is that if you're in a band and you feel is good, stick with it and work at it, because basically what we've done is kept a school band together for years with nothing happening--until recently.

DJ Shadow has inspired me. How that man pastes rhythms to each other. The end result sounds a lot different than we intended by the way.

Looping?
It can be an exiting and fast way of working. Just throw a load of your drumming on tape and spice it up. I suppose some people would think that i was a bit of a cheat, but what's a cheat if you can respond emotionally and it's good music?

Drum machine?
It was of those Dr. Rhythm things, which always stalls after around ten bars. Of course, you get a drummer and he stalls after eleven bars.

I draw my drum parts mainly from Thom; he's got a very good sense of rhythm.

My reflex action is to stick my tongue out - not in a Gene Simmons, foot on the monitor way, but in a having difficulty with tricky arithmetic type way. Consequently, I have a saliva rash on my lower lip when I come offstage.

fan club?
It's really touching. They only do it beacuse they don't like anyone to feel left out. We had dinner, they all gave me little presents, and then we played party games.

Select: How does your head respond to bus life?
Phil: As long as there aren't too many people on there, it's OK. But there's a bug going round at the moment. You can see illness rearing it's head two days before. They're also pretty timeless places, buses. You can sleep for ten hours and feel like you've only been on there for two. it's a very lethargic environment.

Select: Is being cut off from the outside world a pleasurable experience?
Phil: When you're back at home, there are an awful lot of domestic mattes to deal with, and when you're on tour you're removed from those. But if there's someone at home actually dealing with them for you, it sends you on a guilt trip. We're all aware of what a mess we leave behind us.

Select: How did you feel about Radio One's fondness for Paranoid Android?
Phil: That was very bizarre at the time. But I think the most bizarre time was this lat UK tour - going back and trying to gauge how people's perception of the bad had changed. We were away in the States for five or six weeks, but the UK had suddenly leapt ahead. I actually found it quite frightening.

Select: You're making music which is very artistically ambitious and, at the same time, extremeley successful. That's a privileged position, isn't it?
Phil: Yes. For the whole year when we were recording OK Computer, we were incredibly privileged. The record company visited us twice, and they were short visits. Just being given that trust, it's our ideal position. And I think people are very envious of our position at the moment. OK Computer is only our third album - and that kind of treatment is usually given to bands with much more experience, isn't it?

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Colin : We were all scared of Phil. He was in the class ahead of us, and he was in this band called Jungle Telegraph, so we knew him as 'The Graf'. We weren't old enough and not in with his crowd.