Starting out, I remember being on the same bill with other bands, and I always thought they were so much better because they were rehearsed and had all their moves down and they sounded really tight.

When a band first comes along, they should be confusing and doing something people don't accept. You don't want the first reaction to just be, "Oh, I get that."

Starting out, I remember being on the same bill with other bands, and I always thought they were so much better because they were rehearsed and had all their moves down and they sounded really tight.

For me, the audience is the most important thing in the whole chain, so finding out how they respond to things is a learning curve at all times.

I've always found it interesting when I'm the person in the audience feeling mismatched by what I've seen or heard. The shows I've taken the most from I may have not liked while I was there listening to it but, maybe an hour later, there's suddenly a lightening bolt out of the blue: "Oh, I'd see them again."

When I first started doing stuff outside of Hot Chip, I got the impression that Joe Goddard was a bit concerned. But I said, "I really want to record these songs quickly and not turn them into dance music." And he was fairly supportive - maybe not wholly supportive. But then you learn that no one's about to quit the band, so it seems good and healthy.

Some people are better at seeing things through to a logical conclusion as far as copying things they like from other people's records; they understand what Brian Eno did and they just do it.