Hurricane #1 are back next month with a surprising new single, "Rising Sign",
and a UK tour to coincide. Andy Bell got on the blower to explain why the
Hurricane changed direction.

Q: Congratulations on the birth of your daughter.
A: "Thanks. She's called Leia, after the 'Star Wars' character. She's just
over a week old now. lt's pretty good."

Q: What's the best thing about having a baby?
A: "There are a lot of good things about it. You look at yourself in a
different way, you look at life in a different way. All those things are
very positive. We're really enjoying it. It's amazing. lt's a bit like
falling in love."

Q: "Rising Sign" is a nine-minute guitar epic - certainly no "Only The
Strongest Will Survive".
A: "I guess we've gone from one extreme to the other. I've kind of fallen in
love with guitars again. I always have been in love with them, but I guess
just recently, l've started to really push the idea that good records,
especially with things like 'Rising Sign', are just extreme rock'n'roll.
It's dirty, yeah, and it's quite raw."

Q: You've got some slide guitar in there.
A:"I've learned to play slide on this album we've been working on. Alex
[Lowe, singer] said he didn't want to play any guitar any more cos it was
getting in the way of his singing. He felt he'd prefer to just sing. We
tried that when we recorded the album we've been working on. l did all the
guitars. l was finding I was wanting to do different things and that's what
led me to slide. It's better with just me playing guitar, with only one
person doing each thing. We found a new dynamic. I formed a new band with
the same line-up! To me, it's a big step forward for Hurricane. I think it's
got a lot to do with us taking a couple of months off, because we've really
burnt ourselves out with quite a lot of touring for the last album. We did
about 120 gigs or something last year, and l think we felt kind of bored
with the limitations of what we had, what the Hurricane sound was at that
point."

Q: What did you do when you came off the road?
A: "We all went off and did our own thing. I kind of retired into my front
room and got a computer and learned how to programme, which I've been
meaning to do for a long time. I got a music software programme, and I was
starting to get my own beats and sonic ideas together. "I was sitting at
home with all my records around me, getting back into the nice things about
being at home. And I just locked into this state of mind where I was trying
to get the ultimate production together. At the moment, Hurricane has gone
from being about songs to being about sound. I'm approaching it more like a
producer, like I want to shape pieces of rock'n'roll that are extremely
exciting. The way l see the record, it doesn't sound like anything. It
sounds like more than just instruments. lt's like stained glass windows in a
cathedral, this mad visual. The guitar sounds are informed by all the stuff
I used to listen to, Sonic Youth, the Valentines and stuff like that. I've
come a really long way round and ended up in pretty much the same place as
when I was 17. I've worked all this Sixties, Seventies stuff out of my
system and gone into much more extreme stuff. I'm much more fired up than
I've ever been."

Q: Have you got an album title yet?
A: "The album will be out at the beginning of next year, and the working
title is 'Ascension'. It's probably a bit too obvious to be called that in
the end, but I feel we've climbed up to a new level now."

Q: Are you looking forward to touring the new material?
A: "I really can't wait. We're all totally buzzing. We've done an amazing
album. We knew what we could do the last time. We were giving it the big one
in interviews, but we've delivered it this time. We feel like we've done the
business."

Q: We'll be seeing you soon at the big Radio 1 gig in Cardiff.
A: "We've been asked to open it, so we'll be the smallest band in the
biggest thing in Europe. I'm just looking forward to playing again, get to
meet all our crew again. All the little changes have been very, very good
for us."

"Rising Sign" is released by Creation on October 12. The tour runs from
October 3 to 13.