Four months after we released 'I Don't Want to Be Funny Anymore,' the album came out on EggHunt. Three months after that, we officially signed with Matador. That's not a very long time: half a year between the first flood and the final signing.
The rock era, as I clock it, went from '65 to '94, from 'Like a Rolling Stone' to Kurt Cobain's death.
It's trippy to think we have an album that's 10 years old. It's even trippier to think we have a couple of albums older than that.
Dates and periods are of interest only to the student of musical history.
It's really cool when, in every genre of music, you can listen to a song and know what era it was from.
It's funny, when people talk about the 70s I can tell you the year of every album but when it comes to the later efforts I can't remember the exact years, it's funny isn't it?
I got archives of records. I have records from when I was 17 that I still think are pretty dope.
It wasn't until 1963 that you would really want to listen to any kind of English music.
'Reign' is probably the oldest one on the record. I wrote that when I was 19. 'The Dead They Don't Come Back,' which is the last song on the album, I wrote when I was 20, and 'Harlem River' I just wrote last year. It spans from 2007 to 2012.
But to put out a greatest hits on one CD was totally impossible, I just couldn't do it. The best compromise was to put out two CDs - Early Days - which is what it is - and Latter Days.
To be able to put your arms around 24 years of music, it's really fun.
When do you suppose the electric guitar was invented? If you thought the 1950s, you'd be wrong. If you can muster a recollection of hearing electric guitar in Lionel Hampton's big band in the 1940s and date it to that decade, you'd still be off - by more than 30 years.
The weird thing was that Soft Cell was supposed to have come and gone before I started the album.
