It's funny, I played a social gig once - we were playing music that was rhythm based, but it was going in some strange places. Some people came up to me afterward and said, "Can you play a tune that we'll all recognize?" I've carried that with me forever - why would you want a tune you could recognize? What's the point of that?

There is no decision to be more or less comic. I don't feel more or less humorous in my day-to-day. These things are accidental.

It's an example of when three people think something's brilliant and one thinks it's terrible. I suppose that's what improvising can be like because you just don't really know how anyone's feeling about it. You come off stage like, "Was that good?"

I'm quite interested in what words can be, if it's very few words, and it's a kind of club track but it has a sort of uplifting or spiritual kind of feeling to it. Somehow, something bigger than just the words on the page happens when you hear it all together. Sometimes I notice when I'm DJing, I put on a lot of tracks that feature vocals. I guess for me, it's just from growing up loving songs, so maybe I'm geared slightly more towards dance music that features a song element.

When you're making the record, you're not thinking about an audience, but you still need them and you want them.

We're still making Hot Chip records whilst doing these other things, so why not just try and make music you enjoy making rather than being tied down by things? It would just be crazy to not allow people to make music.

To stop for years and then discover that the audience is getting smaller and smaller would be demoralizing.