Mojo - The Music Magazine

The artist formally known as Smog fires up the email to talk love, breakdowns and how to get the right answer from the wrong question. Your host: MOJO's Andrew Male.

You're MOJO's top solo artist of the year Bill, and Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle‚ came in at Number 2 in our Top 50 Albums. Did you think it was an album that would do well?
I thought it would be well-liked, although I tend to think that about all my records. But I also suspected this one would feel like a landmark to some people. It reaches a place where it is all laid out for you in a way that is easy to take. I think I just took a breath and looked and saw this album. It's kind of a hard thing to do but now I know how.

Do you think the critics got it right?
I don't read my press. I'll see a thing or two by chance but this time I was really good at reading almost none of it. However, judging from my Number 2 position I'd say they got it almost right.

You appeared to disagree with every theory our reviewer had about your album in MOJO...
Oh yeah! I learn a lot from interviews because I'm asked to answer for things I normally don't put into words. I skip forward a lot in my head, to endings, without consciously acknowledging the bridges that have gotten me there. So, I may refute a lot of things interviewers say but I think that is natural in an exchange between someone who has the answers and someone who doesn't. I have noticed in talking to my friends - about something I don't know much about - that I often ask questions that are way out of line, misguided. And I still get my true answer. So the question doesn't really matter either way.

Did the album reflect an emotional sea-change for you?
Everything's changing all the time, kaleidoscopic. Even a song that is caught on a record is changing. So, any criticism that is made that doesn't acknowledge this is bound to come up short in my book.

How was it touring the album? You still seem nervous on stage, but happier than in the past...
I'm not nervous, except the first show or two of a tour, just because no matter how much you practise it's always different when you take it to the stage. Maybe you saw an early show or misinterpreted some action as nerves. I am a lot more comfortable on stage than those first times I came to England. I guess I'm one of those people that figure things out by doing them, not by thinking about them or planning them. I never read instruction manuals on electronics and such. I just start pushing buttons and cursing.

What were the highlights of your year?
Love. Camping on a beach for a week. Making this album with towering people. The last European tour. A variety of cats.

And your low points?
There was a mini-nervous breakdown thrown in there somewhere. I got out of it galvanized 'though.

What have you got planned next?
I'll be submitting a book to a publisher in a week after six years of work. Glad to see the tail end of that. Touring the southern states in December. And Southern Europe after that. There's another record two-thirds written and more songs bubbling up.

Questions posed by Andrew Male