5:30pm – Still lacking 2 members, HSCS sound check. Other bands start to arrive, and Dave from webzine This is Fake DIY, arrives. Proceeding that, everyone else sound checks, and we begin preparing.

8:15pm – Leesey (keys/vox) and Tom D (guitars/vox) arrive and start getting ready.

10:15pm – HSCS Go on stage and perform a great set, pack up and head back to my house.

12:00pm – We are on the way to Lancaster because the directions were confusing. Got off at the nearest turn and stopped at a petrol station with 3” spiders all over the place. With better directions, the trip is back on.

12:35pm – Driving past the Mormon temple. "It’s bizarre!" Tom D laughingly says. We then make it back to my house in one piece. Tom & Tom go on the Internet, while Lew is playing Tony Hawks Underground with me. (He won). After that we stay up till about 2am and then go to sleep.

Saturday 18th September.
I wake up at about 9am and make them tea and breakfast. Tom D was awake before me, reading my fanzines. They all come into my room later on and go on the Internet, while Tom & Tom go to head to head on Tony Hawk's Underground. I can’t remember who won, but they both sucked. Tom D & me have a talk about how ace My Bloody Valentine are/were.

2:00pm – We all set off into Preston and buy things from Action Records. Meet the Fantastic Plastic Records owner, Darrin. I was expecting him to be a suit but he was actually really cool, and bought us all food. Everybody else bought lots of stuff in this really swanky restaurant in the middle of Preston, but I just bought chips. Later on, Tom tells me that I should have pushed for a burger.

End of meeting, we go to my place for a couple of minutes and then we go to the CCC. CCC gig was rubbish. Other bands were rubbish. Tom D Shouts over the microphone "Chorley has crushed my soul, and I will never forgive it". Unappreciative kindergoths can’t hear him over the sound of them shouting about the new HIM single to each other. I interviewed Darrin of Fantastic Plastic before HSCS came on, which was fun. After the gig, we were talking to Gordon & Darrin for a while in the parking zone.

10:30pm – Back off to my house. We do this interview for ages. By now, I’ve established that everybody in this band talks total nonsense.

Let's skip the boring questions. How did the band form?
Tom D: We poached Tim, Tom & Lew from another band because Leesey and me wanted to form a band. Everyone else was rubbish.
Lew: So we were the last resort, were we?
Tom D: It wasn’t that you were the last resort; it was just that everyone else was rubbish and so you we stole you away and formed a new band while the other band was still going.

What was the previous band like?
Tom: They were called 'Games Of May'. You have a picture of us in one of these NMEs...
(Starts flicking through a large pile of NMEs on my floor)
Tim: They were sort of jangly indie rock.
Lewis: The only way to describe them was like a bad Death Cab for Cutie.
Tim: It was fun, but it got a bit boring because Craig (the singer) lived down in London so we couldn’t always practise and write songs, so we ended up playing the same songs over and over again for a year & a half. So we formed Help! She Can’t Swim.

(At this point, Tom picks up my English books and starts flicking through)

Tom: Rule number one – Only one person should speak at the same time?
Tom D: You should keep that rule for interviewing people.

So anyway, the new album...
Lew: The first album!
Yeah! What was it like recording it?
Tom: Well, it was the hottest two weeks of the year but we were in an air-conditioned studio, so it was freezing cold inside, and boiling hot outside.
Tom D: We lived off food like Snapple, pre-packaged sandwiches and occasional pizzas. You lose all concept of time, where things seem to take forever but you don’t do anything in a day.
Leesey: Being in that room all the time sucked the energy out of you, it was horrible.
Tom D: We were literally living in the studio and sleeping on the floor.
Tim: Actually, I slept on Tom Jones’s couch.

Tom Jones’s couch?!?!
Tim: Yeah, Tom Jones was recording there once...
Tom: ...And they got a nice sofa in to impress him…
Lew: I slept on an airbed.
Tom D: It was quite cabin fever-ish, because you’re just in there all the time. When we recorded our EP, we did it in a day so you could see results really fast, but when you’re recording for a while (we took about 10 days) everything takes much longer. By the end of the first day we had drum tracks, by the second day we had bass tracks, and it’s just really boring, until you just start laying down guitars and vocals and they start sounding like songs. It gets interesting from there, but the first week we were really just sitting there and thinking, "when are we getting some action going"? We just stayed in the studios 24 hours a time, and we never went outside.

What is a 'Super Fashionista Dance Troupe'?
Leesey: You’ll know when we get one!

(Tom puts on a nearby Halloween mask and everyone bursts into hysterical laughter. Tom sips his beer)

Tom D: Erm...

(Everybody looks at Tom again, playing on a recorder with the mask on and start laughing again)

So, anyway... What is a 'Super Fashionista Dance Troupe'?
Tom D: Leesey, what do you think?
Leesey: Erm, lots of people are stupid, Fashionista, dumb people. They’re rubbish. Basically, scenesters. Some people who come to our shows just stand there and are more concerned about whether they are pouting about something rather than having a good time. But I think eventually, we are going to have a dance troupe, and it’s going to be brilliant, and amazing, and we are going to blow all the scenesters away.
Tom D: With 80’s dance moves. We try to put the golden era of the 1980’s into our music.
Leesey: It’s been good so far, Tom has been picking up some great Rick Astley moves recently and so he’s going to give a bit of "nevergonnagive, nevergonnagive!"
Tom D: Care to demonstrate it, Tom?
Tom: It won't transcribe to interview very well.
Leesey: Let's have a picture then!
Tom: Hmm…nah.
Leesey: DO THE RICK ASTLEY DANCE!

(Awkward silence)

...The new single, 'Bunty Vs Beano' - what's it about?
Tom D: It’s about some guy that I went to university with who was worried that his girlfriend was going to leave him, so he thought about perhaps getting her pregnant.
Tom: But like, by 'accident'.
Leesey: He was going to put a pinprick through a condom.
Tom D: And he wasn't going to tell her. And it spiralled off from there. He was the type of guy who was really homophobic, and really just sort of a 'man's man', and about people like that being lame...
Lew: Scally kacker...
Tom D: He had a tattoo of the England football team crest. And he couldn’t handle people that were camp and he wanted to keep "his woman in line"... tThat’s about it.

Are you Bunty or Beano fans?
Leesey: I have so many copies of Bunty, Mandy and Beano...
Lew: Tom Denney likes Bunty, the big poof.
Tom D: I used to like Beano when I was a young whippersnapper, but now I like Bunty because of all the photo casebooks and stories.
Leesey: We use a lot of 70's & 80's issues and annuals for our artwork, but we don’t supposed to, but we don’t care. We’re so on the edge.
Tom D: We pinched the covers of the singles from some annuals…
Tom: Are we gonna get beaten up?
Tom D: Yeah, the Mandy crew is gonna come round and smash us up.
Tim: Mandy, the walking annual.
Tom D: We open the door, and there is a great big annual with arms & legs.
Tom: They might be related to the...Majestic Magic Crew..
Leesey: Oh yeah, what were they called?
I won’t say, they’ll probably knife me.

(Leesey and Tim laugh)

So, you have a song on your album called "What Would Morrissey Say?" are you bigger Smiths fans or Morrissey fans?
Tim: More Smiths fans...I’m a fan of Morrissey too though.
Leesey: I think Morrissey should stop now.
Tom D: I like him in The Smiths, but I also find him as a bit of a comedy figure like David Bowie, because he just does things really...silly.
Tom: He works well on paper.
Tom D: Yeah, he works well on paper, then -
Leesey: He just isn't smart.
Tom: On paper, he sounds really serious, then you hear him speak and (puts on irritating Mancunian accent) "Ya look a bit like Oscar Wilde!"
Tom D: Yeah, he’s always going on about Oscar Wilde & being vegetarian, and it’s like you know "Say something new, Morrissey!" If you say that meat is great, that would shift a million units for him.
Lew: And he’s really buff.
Leesey: Well, it could just be excess buff…
Lew: When someone asked him if he worked out he sort of went (scratched ear and rubs head) "no, no, no", which is body language for "I’m lying out of my arse here".

What was it like touring with Yourcodenameis:milo?
Tom D: It wasn’t like a tour - it was just 3 gigs.
Lew: Wasn’t it 4?
Tom D: I don’t think so...
Leesey: No, it was definitely 3 gigs.
Tom D: They were a bit funny...
Leesey: They liked badminton a lot...

When they toured with Mclusky, Mclusky were really into badminton as well...
Tom: Trying to copy Mclusky are they?
Leesey: I thought Paul the singer was odd. The noises he was making before they went on…
Tom D: He was only warming up his voice!
Leesey: Yeah but he did it for an hour!
Tom D: Yeah. It was scary when you were walking backstage and you heard him making these sounds. He was really cool too, he liked really good stuff like The Chinese Stars.
Tim: Why is he in a bad band then?
Tom D: I dunno!

What’s it like working with Fantastic Plastic Records?
Leesey: They’re the most down to Earth label you could ever hope for.
Lew: They are fantastic - just like plastic.
Tom: Stop trying to be witty!
Tom D: They are just like us; we both said we wanted the album on vinyl, and coloured vinyl, different edition singles, etc.
Leesey: Keeping it indie! Tom D: Yeah, they aren’t suits, just music fans. They’re making sure our album is really cheap in shops.

What have the gigs been like in Chorley & Preston?
Tom: Well, I was thinking about joining the Magic Samurai mafia!

(Everyone laughs)

Tom D: Preston was fun
Tell me the story of it, as if I didn't already know
Lew: Chorley was crap, innit?
Tom D: Chorley was a show in a big hall, and all the other bands were rubbish.
Tom: It was a 10-year-old cult, led by a strange man.
Tom D: Yeah, a weird man in a yellow t-shirt that got up and said something in-between every band. It was like an episode of Biker Grove.
Leesey: It’s true. Tom D: When we came up, we saw an episode of Biker Grove where they had a battle of the bands in a community centre and there were rivalries between bands. Kids tonight were just all gothic, wearing angel wings. It was quite bizarre, I hadn’t seen anything quite like it before, and it didn’t make sense, and then we played. I did enjoy playing though. It was enjoyable though, because it was such a weird situation. It wasn’t really a proper gig, it was just in a hall to some wacky teenagers, but I think we’ve said enough about Chorley for now.

Is it true Chorley really did destroy your soul?
Tom D: Yes, Chorley did destroy a part of my soul, and before I played, I lost the will to live.

(Leesey laughs)
Tom D: After watching those first 4 bands, it made me lose my passion for music.
Lew: Chorley not!
Tom D: You’re just coming out with them tonight! So full of wit! You should be on Channel 4...
Tom: What did he say?
Lew: I said "Chorley not!"
Tom D: Did you see what he did there? He switched the word 'surely' with...but anyway, sitting there when the DJ was playing 'Smells like teen spirit' and watching kids jumping up and down was cold, destroying and amusing at the same time. Kurt would be rolling in his grave... If he wasn’t cremated.

(Everyone laughs)

Tom D: I imagine he’d be spinning in the air, in a little tornado...

(Everyone laughs again)

Have you any upcoming plans?
Tom D: We play Brighton tomorrow, then we release our records, so we can find out if we suck or not and need to find out if we need to get real jobs.
Leesey: I’m not getting a real job!
Tom D: Yeah, nor am I! But yeah, release the singles and await public backlash. Any other plans?
Tom: Write more songs. Lots of songs.
Tim: That sound like jazz.
Lew: Yeah, Jazzcore!

Sounds alright! What would Morrissey say in a situation like this?
Tom D: Morrissey would say, "I don’t eat meat", because that’s all he says to anything. He’d say the same thing he’s been saying for years and years. Maybe "I love England, but I live in L.A.", and... and "I don’t have much friends".
Lew: Morrissey would probably just be very rude and walk away.
Tom D: He was rude to Jonathan Ross, and he’s charming! Leesey: Hahahaha!
Tim: I definitely prefer Jonathan Ross, yeah.

Any last words?
Tom D: Hmm…can we make any puns about Chorley?
Lew: Thanks for putting us up at your house.
Leesey: Yeah…
Tom: Tell Chorley that the Magic Samurai Posse is gonna deck them.
Tom D: And, at the pub next to the CCC, somebody got hit over the head with a snooker cue and had to go to the hospital. Any other last words?
Tom: Come see us for an extremely heterosexual experience.

(Everyone laughs)

We all go to bed after this, except Tom D, and me who, once more, loses to me at Tony Hawks. While we’re playing, he sparks up a chat about how bad The Libertines & Razorlight are.

Sunday 19th September

9:00am – I'm getting a cold, and I wake up early to see HSCS off. I caught them putting bags of the crisps I put out for them for tea into their backpacks, but luckily I took the digestives before they could get their hands on them. Goodbyes are said and I wave them off as the 2 cars bomb off out of the estate.