Taken from May 8th 1999, Melody Maker special thanks to Tania Richard for typing this article up! COME ON DIY YOUNG! - At Home With Hurricane # 1's Andy and Alex Wallpapering. New lampshades. Doing up the kitchen. Not Rock'n'Roll activities, admittedly, but even pop stars dig Ikea. We caught up with Hurricane #1's Andy bell and Alex Lowe in their spanking new abodes and talked home improvement. Was it a great Chinese proverb that once spouted, "It's not where you live, it's how you're living"? Well, it holds forever true in the world of rock and pop. Two of the members of Hurricane # 1, for instance, don't live anywhere remotely near each other. At the beginning of this year, while based in wholesome Oxford, young Mr Andy Bell and lead singer Mr Alex Lowe, decided to hop it. Andy to Stockholm, Sweden, hometown of his fragrant wife Idha. Alex to Blairgowrie, Perthshire, his old stomping ground. Pastures new. Nothing like them. Here we take an exclusive peek into the twin havens that our indie heroes have created. ANDY BELL Andy lives with Idha and their nine-month-old sprog, Leia, in a flat in Stockholm, above an exceptional pizza parlour. They've been there about eight weeks, trying to avoid trips to Ikea and filling the fridge with yoghurt-based drinks. The first thing they ask you to do when you walk in is to take off your shoes - it is considered far too formal to be stomping around with your boots on. The flat is light and airy, contains a lot of baby toys and only one - one! - guitar (the rest of Andy's stuff is in Oxford, in his old house that he is renting out). There are some aromatherapy candles aglow and no light in the toilet. As we take a seat, Andy is trying to get everyone to enjoy the new Whitney Houston album. Why move to Sweden? "It's an extension of what we were doing ever since Idha and I were married. We used to stay with Idha's parents in a separate room in the grounds of their house, but when they had the baby, it was different. It was originally a hen house, and it had no water or a toilet. We thought we should move on, and with Idha's family being here we thought it was good for the baby - there's security for her and lots of baby-sitters. I love being here, there is a real sense of escape from the phone ringing all the time. Oxford life was getting really boring, it's really cliquey, full of bands". What's Stockholm like? It's very peaceful and spacious - there's no claustrophobia, which does get to you. In Oxford, everything was really cramped. You could spend ages writing a song in Oxford and you'd go for a holiday and write a couple of songs in a day. It's quite trendy in Stockholm. There's a good scene, a gang of people and they really make an effort - it's a bit like Japan. Everyone looks good, me and Idha walk around looking like a couple of tramps. A nation of Cardigans fans? They're all into hip-hop and Lauryn Hill. They don't like anything Swedish - they eat their own here. They hate Abba, too. Strangely, they're mad about the Eurovision Song Contest. It's front page news. What's the biggest difference from England? "They're not so artificially polite here. They say things like, "In England, a person thanks you when you've bought a newspaper! But you've just paid for the paper!" My theory is everyone in Britain is living like a battery hen - there's something like the population of London here in five times the area of England - so you have to be polite there. Everyone is a lot more healthy here too. The off-licences open during shop hours, and you have to queue up and order from a catalogue, so it's a bit like Argos. Makes drinking a bit of an occasion. What will you miss? Marmite and my friends, but it's not as if I don't go back to England. The quality of crisps is terrible here. Whats in your fridge? "Organic milk and bio milk. Cranberry juice and Pripps beer, which is average strength. Carrot juice, coconut flavoured yoghurt drink. Yes, it's all a bit healthy. There's chocolate and tomato ketchup though. And we get a lot of take away pizzas from the shop downstairs. It's the best pizza shop in Stockholm". ALEX LOWE Alex has just done up a mobile home which is situated on his gran's trailer park site, a couple of miles outside Blairgowrie, a popular Scottish tourist haunt. He is planning a pop star village, inviting keen musicians to share the delights of the mobile home park. His home is warm and chintzy - there is a plastic Greek pillar and pot plants in the living room. Everything is mint green in the kitchen and bright purple in the bedroom. Girlfriend Fiona has single-handedly fitted the floorboards. There is a mug with "Sexy Beast" printed on it, a "hot and spicy" cookbook and a statuette of Laurel and Hardy that looks like it belongs in some granddad's house. His oldest chum, Albert, is here too, on a week off from the Army before he goes back to Germany. Also present: Blue the pitbull terrier, who is frighteningly keen on licking everyone. Why move to Blairglowrie? "I'd been in Oxford for three years and it was too busy, too many people. It was very rough - you'd get cab drivers stabbing passengers in the road. A guy couldn't pay the fare and the driver stabbed him. Another cab driver came by and took the passenger to hospital. And this was a black cab. That's very nice and pleasant, isn't it? And there were too many students. I found out I had a share in this land, four or five acres, and thought why pay rent to a guy I've never met, when I can buy a mobile home and live in it up here? It was Mark from Terrorvision who told me about living in a mobile home. He's got one in Yorkshire and really loves the peace and quiet. I've got no rent, no council tax, nothing. It's a holiday every day." What's Blairgowrie like? "It's a bit rough, very touristy, though. Everybody knows each other. There's not a lot to do except drink. There's 46 pubs and only 12,000 people, which is the most pubs for a town this size in Britain. It's a big fishing place. I once caught a salmon this big (stretches arms impossibly wide) and sold it to the local hotel and got £60. It's a big Highland Games place here. Tossing the caber. Lots of museums, castles, heraldry." Are you a bit of a DIY fan, then? "Fiona's done a lot of this. But I'm going to build a studio. We're going to buy a chalet too, so it can be a bedroom for people who stay over. We'll fill the fridge with beer. I want to build a swimming pool too - they're only £3000. And I want to build a conservatory and have a fountain in the garden". Big difference from Oxford? "I love the quiet. It's peaceful. I like fishing too. It's good to get back here, a bit of reality after being on tour. I can write songs here too. I was writing some yesterday while Fiona was still fitting the floor. Our flat in Oxford was a nightmare, so small, and here we're not joined on to any flat, we can do what we want. I've just got a scooter so I just go around on that". What does the town think of the prodigal singer's return? "There was a chap in the pub who threatened me, who thought I reckoned myself. Then he saw me in Tescos and flung me on the ground. Aye, it's a bit rough. I've been barred from most pubs in the town too". Any more pets? "As well as Blue, there are two guinea pigs and a really old gerbil as well. They're with my mum, who lives about 100 yards away. We had another gerbil who died in Oxford. We had to come back to bury her here because she was Scottish and couldn't have been buried in the South." What will you miss? " I don't think I'll miss Oxford, and we're touring soon so that will be good. I do go over to Sweden to see Andy, so it's not like we never see each other. Stockholm's great." Whats in your fridge? "Nothing! A bottle of Champagne to celebrate moving in, and some fridge magnets. One says, "Bored In Oxford", which my girlfriend got me when I was a bit down."