The Godfather of NEW NEW WAVE

Bands like Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs owe aheavy debt to XTC. Tim Jones spoke to ANDY PARTRIDGE about his band’s long-overdue revival

XTC remain a cult passion, despite echoes of their chops in the sound of many currently-lauded indie/art pop bands. And while XTC haven’t produced a new studio set for some years, fans have been well served by Idea and Ape releases of archive material, not least the recent 4-CD Apple Box – which is a very lush-looking package, as Partridge agrees.

“It’s the plushest packet of fags you’ve ever bought, though much better for your health and wealth. I’m incredibly happy that we now own some of our music, ’cos we’ll never own our Virgin catalogue, which is a crime. So it feels great and we said, ‘right, let’s do it properly and put it out as the doublealbum that it should’ve been 10 years ago.’”

I presume it’ll be available through Amazon and the like?

[Does mock Dracula laugh] Evil laughter! Yeah, it’ll be on there like everything else – Hitler’s missing ball, limited edition. [Laughs]. We have a one-man operation in West Sussex – Steve – who’s probably building a small igloo of Apple boxes as we speak.

You could’ve done a Sniffle CD with an apple scent.

I think burning Christian …

by Tim Jones
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