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There is a tradition in rock and roll that links the word ‘difficult’ with a performer’s third album. The line runs that a band writes enough material to pull together a live set, records the tunes on their debut and follow up and then finds that the well is dry, the band is exhausted from touring, the bass player’s drug problem has emerged, the rhythm guitarist isn’t speaking to the singer, the studio’s booked, the manager’s run off with everything but the debts and the record company are on the blower hollering for number three.

“It didn’t really feel like it. It didn’t really feel like a third album either. We went into it with a different line-up. Glenn only played on two songs on the last album and after that came out we did a fair amount of touring and developed into a slightly different band. I think the fact that we did it in a totally different sort of setting and the ways that we prepared for it... From a writing point of view it didn’t really seem different. I’d finally worked out how I work best as far as songwriting goes.”

Your biog talks about your writing process and how you go into “recluse mode.” What’s that mean?

“Basically it means sending my flatmate away on a holiday to Sydney and just staying in my room and four-tracking ideas and working on lyrics. It’s the only way I can pull all the bits that I’ve come up with over the year together into complete songs. For the first time for this album I had the time to look at my lyrics and work on them properly. So it feels like a much more considered approach to the whole process. We did a hell of a lot of pre-production here, just by ourselves, writing, rearranging, recording demos and by the time we finally got to record in Memphis we knew what we wanted to get out of each song. We’d already put in the hard work; it was just a matter of capturing the essence.”

Given that, what was Brian’s role as producer? What did he bring to the sessions?

“He made it all happen as far as getting us over there. He was a major factor in convincing our record company to let us go over there and try something different. And the fact that he got us into Ardent Studios was an integral part of the whole recording. It was a totally different environment, but it was also really, really comfortable. The people that worked at the studio were very relaxed and encouraging. We were living virtually next door to the studios - it was a very concentrated period of time. It was his [Brian’s] role to steer it through and to capture the best of what we were doing at the time.”

You’ve spoken about how you wanted to make and approach this album differently. Did you reflect back on your early recordings in an attempt to carry forward or indeed avoid things that that you had done previously?

“Yeah, I think we took the approach this time of trying to capture what we are like as a live band, and not quite as much ‘in the studio’ as we had previously. The last two albums we went in with maybe sixty to seventy percent of the songs worked out and the rest we made up while we were in there. But we just didn’t have the time or the budget this time to have that luxury. We’ve developed as a live band and so working on the songs prior to going to going to Memphis came quite easy. We were able to demo just pretty much everything and be happy with what came out the other end. I wanted to document how we have progressed as a band with this album.”

Tell me about the band’s equipment.

Rayke uses a Lab Systems bass head and an Ampeg 8x10 bass cabinet. She actually took that bass head overseas. So she had it converted voltage wise, the whole bit. She plays a Fender Jazz bass. Live we’ve got this great, portable Hammond organ. It’s quite rare. It broke down recently and no one could fix it. It took me four hours driving around Melbourne to find someone that actually knew how to fix it. Drum wise, Glenn uses a Premier kit. He likes really big shells, like 18 inch floor tom and a 14 inch rack tom. He uses Zyldjian cymbals and Promark sticks. I even know what heads he uses because I’m out there buying them - white coated Emperors on the toms and frosted CS dot skin on the snare and an Evans skin in the bass drum. He goes through far too much gaffa tape- he actually gaffa tapes his hands up - all of his blisters he gaffa tapes over. I use a Vox AC 30 amp and a Marshall 100 watt cabinet. I use DR strings. I’ve got a ‘68 Les Paul Gold Top and a Gibson 330 semi-acoustic. Pedals: a Hot Cake distortion pedal and a Jim Dunlop tremolo pedal, and that’s all.

If you could write the name Polyanna across the cover of any album made by anyone else, what would it be?

“It probably couldn’t happen because it would be any album by P. J. Harvey and it would obviously not be us.”

You can gender bend all you want.

“I would just like to have been involved in any of P. J. Harvey’s records, be it the tape operator or the tea boy or the string changer, just to be around what was being made. Probably Sugar’s first album [Copper Blue]; that’s a great pop album but it’s so intense and loud.”

Stephen Andrew