D:In the beginning of Chumbawamba when the band was just Boff and I, we tried to make every show into a different concept. We had a beach concept and a bedroom concept where we wore pyjamas and had a matress on stage. It's a natural part of this band. One of the reasons why we chose agit-prop for our label was because of the history and tradition of using really basic agit-prop street theater to get ideas across in a rock environment

MRR: Do you think you started to do these things as a way to do something besides just music?

D: At that stage we couldn't really play music anyway and it was a way of involving a lot of people. There have been times when we didn't use it that much, but it crept back in and has become an important part of the band

MRR: I know that the theater aspect has changed within the band. 3 or 4 years ago, the theater was more symbolically political, using blood, television sets and sloganistic banners, whereas now it seems to be simple and more streamlined yet still very political

D: It's now more involved for me

MRR: How so?

D: I think over the years I've gotten more confident with doing the theater where I used to just stand there and be stiff with a sour face. It's more of a role now and I enjoy getting into them

MRR: Each piece has its own characters

D: Yeah, I would call them characters but I'm not sure how different they are. I don't have a wide range of acting abilities. I think we first discovered characters when the "Pictures..." record came out and then we started leaning more towards characterisation. Sometimes we will build a song around a certain character

MRR: Do you think everyone in the audience knows what the characters are about? At one show the band hardly did any introductions or explanations of the songs. Do you like to leave it up to the audience to interpret?

D: I don't think we're that good at talking in between songs, but we try

MRR: Do you feel comfortable on stage? When you're doing the theater pieces, you must realise how exposed you are to the audience, especially if the piece is somewhat abstract like the one about the police dog that bites the police officer

D: Most of the time I do, but it varies from gig to gig. I think what we're doing now is a reaction against what we were doing a couple of years ago when everything was so obvious

MRR: There's a new song that the band does called "No Sir, I Won't" where you dress up as an army officer and, except for shouting a few commands, you mainly just run in place with an angry face. Now that piece is one of the simplest acts in the set yet it is so powerful and clear as to what the band is saying. I see it as being a lot stronger than a dogmatic anti-authoritarian message. Now, I'm wondering if you think the way the band used to be is a bad way of communicating a message?

D: No, but I think we've grown from it. Ir's a change. I think the theater aspect always came across no matter what we were doing because we've always been in an environment that has been dominated by live music so it stood out from everything else that was going. I think today we've defined what we're doing better. Maybe in 4 years we'll look back at what we're doing now the same way as we look back on what we did when the first album came out

MRR: You seem to concentrate a lot on the theater aspect than the music aspect of the band

D: I've always done most of the theater but it varies from set to set. I think I started doing it simply because I was willing to do it. We all used to try and do it but now it's ended up with just me and Anne doing it. The other people were better at playing music. That's just how it worked

MRR: Do you still enjoy singing?

D: Yes

MRR: How do you feel about audience participation? Do you go out of your way to bring people into the band's live set?

D: I think that it's a good thing to do but you can't plan it. You have to feel your way around each situation. Tonight, when people came out of the audience and did Elvis impersonations, that was good. It had an energy of its own

MRR: Have you ever thought of taking the theater into the audience?

D: We used to put one of our record covers up and sell shares of the records. Really early on we used to start out in the audience. I would just start singing a song and we would gradually make our way to the stage. That really took people by surprise but it got to the point where I couldn't project my voice. In this set, when I do the Elvis impression I always try and come from the back of the audience. It's strange because in England when I did it people would take a quick look but then turn away. Here, people really get into it. I guess people relate to it a lot more here

MRR: How did you go about planning the theater parts?

D: Usually it come after the music but sometime it comes before. For me personally I can't rehearse new theater parts except in front of an audience . When I came up with the dog one, most of the band thought that it would never work and I never felt so intimidated as when I was trying to work it out in our own basement. I found that reallly odd so now I don't really practice until we're onstage and now it has developed and is coming to a peak

MRR: What about the booklets that the band hands out at shows?

D: We tried to do it at every show but it got to the point where there were 700 people at our shows and that would take 3 days to print that much up on our printer. Plus, later on the new album came, which only repeated what was in the booklet. It's really good if we can get it down in Europe and get the lyrics transltated which is the best thing that we could do

MRR: In your current set the theatrics use humor and sarcasm where the sets of the past were a more straightforward, political message. Do you think you'll continue to persue the humorous aspect?