The Lap of the Gods
Lap of the Gods opens the album and has a lot of crazy noises on it, which makes you wonder what you're going to be in for. It was originally going to be called 'Cloudlight' because that's something peculiar to New Zealand. This place is a photographer's paradise because the clouds keep changing the light. For the first time it struck me that the landscape and the weather and the colour and the light and everything surrounding me was not the exterior of something, but the internal working of some heart somewhere. So just sort of mixing quite intimate emotions with those sorts of images seemed to me to be a good backdrop for trying a few things out.

Naked Flame 
It has a lot to do with sex, and the result of it, and that's quite an internal song, but it's full of imagery as well. We knew we had to have that horrible aaarrgghh sound. It was sort of a whining feedback, something quite nasty. It is towards the end of the song. It just sort of growls away there. You put a power screwdriver on near an electric guitar, and the guitar will just go crazy, make all these bizarre noises. Perfect accompaniment for the weaving, exotic Naked Flame.

P.C.  
It is just horrible they can do [talk] shows on things such as 'I can't be seen in public with my wife because she is too fat!' I may watch the shows once in a blue moon and the hosts are just poison. I look on them with complete distrust - they are truly evil people. Their shows are tragic and they should all be locked up with the key thrown away. I invented this character who ended up locked up for the murder of a dozen talk show hosts. That sort of purged a few demons for me, as a writer.
I think political correctness is probably one of the most dangerous things around. It's just a very dangerous politeness club. I mean nobody talks straight from the hip anymore. Everything's got to be couched in this kind of politespeak. I'm dead against it because it just neutralises your confrontational ability. They're almost turning it into a law really, political correctness, and I find it quite neutering.

It Dawned On Me  

Protection 

What Do You Really Want
What Do You Really Want, was like, 'Here comes the piano ballad!' because every time I went to the piano I'd play it and sing like Ray Charles. So we turned it on its head and now it's anything but a piano ballad. It's a song for lovers who really can't be bothered any more.

Gifted  
Some of the songs I edited a lot and a page of lyrics would come down to a few lines. Like cleaning house. Gifted was like that; I had expansive lyrics written from standing on Quay Street (Auckland, New Zealand) by the Harbour's edge and imagining what was in the water and how ancient the molecules were... 'the blood of armies', 'ink from banned books' and so on. So we stripped the lyrics down to just the ones we liked and the singing fell in the places of this guitar conversation Neil and I had where there was no time or key, just us meandering around. And it worked, just one of those feelings where you are completely conscious of the blood in your veins, seeing all this stuff in the water and feeling out of sorts with yourself! With the guitars playing it felt like two tribes coming and laying a gift down. That's why it's called Gifted, because Neil ended up playing what I started to play and I ended up playing his part."

Betrayal 
"For Betrayal we used this optigan, a crazed floppy disc sort of thing which has a really tacky lo-fi sound and crackles like a phonograph. Tchad also had some atmospheres from out at Karekare beach and of people telling a story, Union Station in LA with people walking past and someone opening a locker door in the ambiance of a big room and so on. And that's what making an album is all about for me, writing songs and creating brand new sounds, always discovering something new.

Language
I first had the idea for Language while living in a teensy apartment in Sydney. Some schoolkids were walking by outside, as I was strumming through the song I got the chorus and half a verse together and suddenly I heard shouted out up through the bushes 'Good Song, Good Song'. It's a question of being misunderstood really. There were days when I just couldn't be bothered communicating, which is a mistake because you just end up being further away from the people who care about you.
I used to do Language rather slickly with an acoustic guitar, and it only ever worked solo. With the band it somehow sounded a little bland. We managed to wrestle it a bit and put a lot of energy into it, and I'm extremely happy with the result. It was an extremely energetic session, we had a few people around and the band was fresh. Actually the engineer who recorded it, Paul Streekstra, he had his work cut out for him because the energy flowing around the room was just nuts, and he was going nuts too. He did an eighteen hour session on it one day, and there were all these people just lying around exhausted after it, and Neil and I were twanging away on acoustics, coming up with other stuff.

Umm

Rain On Fire

I Can't Change My Name
The Australian record company couldn't get past the 'Slice of Heaven' thing. And they thought they had an image battle on their hands... it was somewhat disconcerting. At one point, my then manager and record company were trying to get 'a fix' on my image, so they wanted me to change my name. At the time, I was so bewildered and disillusioned, it almost happened. Luckily I decided 'well f-- you . I'm not going to change my name'.
I love I Can't Change My Name, that was one we'd thought of getting strings and all sorts of things on but actually ended up the most naked. We'd played a couple of songs on piano that day so we had the piano sound already and I was feeling good - and had probably celebrated slightly!
We were just about to head home and Neil said 'just go and play I Can't Change My Name so Ross (Burge) just tapped along with his hands on the drum kit and we did it - bang! It's exciting, you have to be prepared to turn your songs upside down.