We're pretty happy with the level of success we have now.

With some of our previous records, we had songs with 14 vocal tracks and three pianos. We just wanted to strip some of that back and make a record we could (easily reproduce) live. And we achieved that. We were just in London and played the album from start to finish.

[This was harder to do an ocean away.] So we basically brought a guitar each, and that was it, ... Which was good, actually.

There's more pressure on the melody when you don't have all the embellishments.

On the other hand, there's never pressure on one person to come up with an album's worth of songs every year, ... We only have to concentrate on four or five songs each. It's something we're all comfortable with; some other people wouldn't be. We're not very confrontational people; we like things to go smoothly.

That sounds too much like hard work for us.

When I was a kid I listened to a lot of punk music, but then along came Orange Juice, ... They really broadened my musical perspective. They were self-deprecating and had a great sense of humor. And they sounded like Velvet Underground meeting Al Green. They called themselves 'the sound of young Scotland,' a play on Motown's 'Sound of Young America.'

We played with Superchunk on our first American tour. We've always liked the records they release. They're a good, classic indie label, and they're genuine fans of music. And they're really just as enthusiastic about it as they were when we first met them.

We're so much happier now. We were in a position we didn't want to be in, dealing with labels that didn't know what to do with us. This album is on our own label, and we're responsible for every aspect of the release.