I think what we tried to do lyrically, vocally and musically was to capture a sound.

In that period, we had the Cold War mentality imbued through us - the Post-war [environment] and the Cold War. I think we were reflecting some of that. This was before the Wall collapsed, etc.

Crackdown, the video, interpreted and reflected a sense of authority and austerity and a sense of slight, impending doom.

Even though we were influenced by American culture and music, we like the rest of Europe have been colonized with that in the post-war period. At the same time there's a sense of dirty earthiness and Europeanness and Britishness in it as well.

Even if that statement was ambiguous, we kind of wanted to cause a stir. We thought that by having the name "Cabaret Voltaire", that with it came a certain responsibility. It wasn't meant to be purely entertainment; it was meant to be something a little bit more serious - and to provoke people - wrapped within an outer wrapping of entertainment.

We were fortunate at that time we were working with Virgin, and with Flood, probably more well-known as Brian Eno's engineer now and U2's producer, etc. Even though we weren't working in a strictly popular music area, which was great, we were lucky enough to work with people who were on the cusp of those sort of things.

We were working in entertainment, in the music industry, with popular music, it was important, but it was something that we also felt was a responsibility.