Welcome Paddy. It’s a great honor to meet you. Well, you’ve been a guiding light to lots of people.
That’s fantastic. Thank you.

Let's talk about the new album. Why the title Andromeda Heights?
It’s a love song, it’s about a couple building a home together. In Britain, the word ‘heights’ would often be used in the name of a home or a building. An address would be: ‘Milan Heights’. This song represents their hopes and their dreams...

You’ve always chosen strange titles for your albums...
Yes, unusual titles. That’s right. I liked the sound of Andromeda Heights. I wrote the song and then when I needed the name for the studio, I wanted something like 'Electric Ladyland'. ‘cause it’s actually quite a small studio.

And what have you been doing in all these years?
What a great deal! It’s an excellent question. I’ve written a lot of music, that’s what I’ve done. And I’ve acted as if I had not had a career, which is a dangerous thing. I worked on a 'History of the world', to give a proper answer, which took me a long time and got me very tired and I had to start to do other things to make some money, so I wrote for Cher and a British artist called Jimmy Nail.

Is there a chance to hear all the tracks you’ve written?
Oh yeah, you know, when I write, I write with the idea that they will be released. They aren’t just as a private indulgence. They will be Prefab Sprout albums.

You said to an English paper that there’s a Freudian explanation for this delay...
That’s because I live in Newcastle, very close to my family, and I don’t wander very far from Newcastle. The journalist said that, I didn’t actually.

What’s the guiding line in your albums?
For the latest album... they are very direct, very simple. I try to be moving... Songs that have to be as simple and as honest as possible.

The Beatles have had their career in eight years, and it took you seven years to release one album. Has something changed in the record business?
Absolutely, of course. Everything’s changed. In the time when they worked, apart from the fact that they had three writers, sometimes four, and the expectation of an album (twice a year), and the fact that they were young, very young and brilliant... Those things were in their favour. Things have changed because now a band will produce and write and sing and do all of the things, but you’re right: industry is entirely different... It is just the way it is now.

You are a true artist and your sound is a kind of a trade mark, which is something that almost nobody has. How do you feel in a world of fake popsters?
I feel as if when I listen to a lot of records, I hear that there is an opening for what I do, I hear that there are certain things which you don’t hear a lot of. Melody is the big thing that I go on and on about. I love melody, yet it is an old-fashioned idea now, and I want to make it modern again.

Do you think your sound will be the same even in the next album?
Well, the idea of a trademark sound... that’s something that happens without you thinking so much about it, so for example I can’t sing in another way so I sing this way and because of that I build the records around.

Are you looking for a sort of perfection in your melodies?
No, lots of people ask me that and I think I must have said something along the way to make people say I want to be perfect, but I look for (sighs)... I look for originality and I look to be moved by things in the way that I was when I first heard, say, ‘God Only Knows’ by the Beach Boys. When I heard that I couldn’t analyse it but I knew it was truly great.

Are you looking for an emotional contact, then?
Yes, when I was younger I was more interested in trying to be original, because when I first appeared I wanted everyone to know about this and you try to fight to make yourself different. Now I want emotional contact.

Do you really feel a prisoner of the past, and what’s the story behind the lyrics?
It’s an old song, but it’s come to apply to us because... I wrote it in 1989 but because it’s so long since I wrote it, we've been away for so long that it seems about Prefab Sprout, but it’s not. It’s really about two lovers and one has been very mean and is going to forever stay in someone’s memory.

Talking about emotions. What’s the thing that touches you most in life?
Well, I suppose, music plays such a huge part in my life that I’d be I liar if I said anything else because I spend most of my waking hours on music.

And what in music?
That’s a big question. I don’t know. I would love to know what it is. Probably the fact that it’s so mysterious that attracts me to music.

Haven’t you heard anything in these years? No influence from anyone?
Yeah. I like a group called the Blue Nile.

Boy, you beat their record: seven years.
Seven years... I know... I’m a bit worried Scritti Politti would beat my record (laughs). So, the Blue Nile are one of my favourite groups. I listen to a lot of classical music: Maurice Ravel, then I say Puccini... you just think I’m trying to gain favour... (laughs)

What do you think about the new ‘forms’ of pop music?
What do I think? It doesn’t really interest me. I’m too old (laughs). It’s just... songs for young people... and that’s great, but I kind of feel that music has an honesty because they are seeing the world for the first time: they have just discovered the Beatles and then they’ve just discovered the Kinks. They’re twenty or twenty-five...

Do you think you could be considered as a teacher?
Nooooo... you don’t have to.... (stops). This question is dynamite (laughs... vigorously). A sort of guru of pop or something... (laughs)

There’s always been a close relationship between Prefab Sprout and, say, Hollywood. Does it still exist?
Why do you say that?

Because your music reminds me of some musical stuff... Broadway... I don’t know...
Ok, right! Yes, I like the idea of the sound that is bigger than the sound you can make with four people. I like this idea, I’ve always loved it. Phil Spector’s records are bigger than four people; Brian Wilson’s records are bigger than four people...

Even the intro of the new single is very Hollywood-like...
Yes... It tries to be a glamorous sound.

What was and what is the importance of Steve McQueen in your music?
This is a good question. It’s a record that is now outside of myself. It does not belong to me. I feel like it’s someone else’s record. I feel like that because when we were making it, Thomas Dolby had such a lot to do with making it sound great. I could sit at the back of the studio, like this, and think: ‘Boy, that’s my record!’...

How did you get to know Thomas Dolby?
Because he was on an English radio station and we had a song called ‘Don’t Sing’ and everyone else on the radio said it was awful, it was terrible, and he went: ‘Well, I like it! It’s brilliant’. When I heard him say so I said: ‘Well I like you!’. That's true…

So were you at the same radio station?
No, I was listening at home on the radio. Thomas Dolby now lives in San Francisco. He has a family and a software business there, so his life is very very different. I asked him to produce Andromeda Heights and he said: ‘Life is too short’... (laughs) He’s a friend.

This is a very haunting question: is there a chance to see you live here in Italy?
You’ve got it! Here I am! (Gets up and shakes my hand) Noo... I have to make more records... One in seven years is terrible... I want to make more records... that’s what I want to do.

How do you feel when you see again one of your albums in the shop windows and do you like promoting this album, as it seems?
It’s very strange because for seven years I’ve not seen so many people... No, it’s wonderful, you know... I don’t have a copy of the record (takes the Andromeda Heights tape)... This is the first I have seen of it... First time... A journalist had it this morning and I said 'What? Is it mine?'

Do you think you can compare this album to the previous ones...
Oh, with hand on heart, easily. I mean, on every record there are one or two things that I like very much but I think over the last seven years I’ve become a better writer to myself... definitely.

Are Prefab Sprout a one-man band?
I should be really clear about this. The band is only a vehicle for the songs and Martin and Wendy I think are quite happy with that.

Lots of people think you are a genius in music. But who is a genius in music to you?
A genius in music... I would say old names... but they have been tested by time. Obviously the Beatles, or Marvin Gaye,

or George Gershwin or Leonard Bernstein... they’re proper genii of music.

Paul Buchanan?
He’s very very good...

Steely Dan?
Absolutely fantastic, but ‘genius’ is not a word I would often use. I’m very flat anyway.

Why don’t these bands ever tour??
(Laughs) I could see that before when I mentioned the Blue Nile. All these bands... they don’t do anything, they don’t go anywhere, they take forever to do nothing!!! (Laughs) I don’t know... Well, in my case the problem is this: if I stop writing, it’s like a runner who stops running and the muscles get sort of soft, so I keep writing so that the muscles don’t go soft. That’s why... That’s the only way I can justify not touring... I have to do something with the time.

How do you decide who to write your songs for?
Well, sometimes I’m asked, sometimes I just stick my nose in. Sometimes they don’t want me to stick my nose in but I still do (laughs)... No, I have a good friend who happens to be the head of Warners UK... That helps (laughs vigorously)

Have you ever met Cher?
No I haven’t met her, but I liked her songs when I was a boy. (The telephone rings) She’s on the phone now (laughs happily again).

Do you know and like any Italian artists?
I’ve already used my Puccini quarterback (laughs)... but I do generally listen to him, I really do. My girlfriend adores Puccini so we listen to the whole of Puccini.

Is Meryl Streep still your idol?
Where does that come from? (laughs) Yeah I did say that but it was a hundred years ago. She’s adorable, and if she needs some songs for her first solo albums, I will be there to write them, whether she wants me to or not... I’m trying to write songs for the cast of ‘Silkwood’. I’ve written for Cher and next one will be Meryl Streep, so I’m going to all of the members of that film...

It’s been said that you were coming out with a solo project...
I don’t know where that came from. Everything I do is with the Prefab Sprout name, because I don’t actually see a need to step out of it.

You are a very nice and happy person. Is it because you do an album so rarely and, if so, should some other artists stay away for a few years?
Why for a few years??? (The biggest laughter is here)

Thank you Paddy!
Thank you!