RS: The first few songs are mainly covers, how did you choose the songs that you covered at the beginning?
Pete: To be honest, it was just what we thought would work really well on the dance floor. We weren’t bothered if we’d not written it, because if we knew that it would work then, we wouldn’t want to say well we’re not doing this because we won’t get any publishing on it or anything. We’d rather do something that we think will work really well and move to the dancefloor and radio and get played. It doesn’t actually matter to us as long as it’s a really good track. As for choosing what we did, I don’t know, it just happened. These were the sort of songs that we liked back in the 80s and we thought they needed a bit of a kick into this generation maybe, into this century.
Andy: Another reason was at the time in the UK, which was about early 2002, there was quite a big amount of 80s covers coming out. So it was quite easier to get those on The Box, because in the UK the whole chart kind of revolved around this TV channel called The Box, and if you basically don’t get your video played on The Box then you don’t have a hit, it’s that simple really in the UK at the minute. So The Box was sort of playing loads and loads and loads of these trance 80s covers, so I think that’s kind of why we ended up doing Take My Breath Away and Heaven Is A Place On Earth, because it kind of fitted in the mould of what they wanted to program at the time.
RS: Did you choose singers based on the song or songs based on the singer?
Pete: That’s quite a good question. I think that we chose the singers to fit the songs. There's certain songs on our album that, we’d kind of designed for a certain voice and we had the singer in mind who’d we’d like to sing. Probably about eight out of ten on the album we knew which singer would sing which song and which singer we would like to write with on which particular kind of track. It was quite an organic thing really, ideas floating around in our head. It wasn’t like we sat down with a piece of paper and wrote out, a strict sort of discipline of what we wanted, but we knew generally the kind of feeling that we wanted and the kind of tracks that we wanted the different singers on.
RS: Was it your plan originally to have several singers on this album or did you start saying well I like this singer, let’s get her, and oh well she's great also?
Pete: Absolutely, yes. It’s quite funny being pinned down because it just kind of happened. I don’t think it was probably ever our plan to have one singer throughout the entire album, we’ve always liked working with different people. Maybe this is a throwback to remixing where we were always working on new tracks with different vocals. Every day we’d go in the studio and there's like a different vocal, a different feel, and a different thing that’s interesting to work on. Maybe it’s a kind of a throwback to that, not wanting to be tied down to one particular voice. They’re all great singers on the album and it was a pleasure to work with them all, but maybe it’s kind of keeping that fresh thing where you want to work with something new all the time on the album.
RS: And where did you find all these lovely female singers?
Pete: Most of them are people that we knew. Gina G is a singer who had a big hit in Britain with “Ooh Ahh, Just a Little Bit” that we’ve wanted to work with her for a while. The other singers were people that we knew or knew of and wanted to work with. I mean that was the only criteria, as long as they could sing and write.
RS: Gina G has a few cuts on the album. Were you guys involved at all with the “Ooh Ahh” 2004 remix and “Heaven” song that is out now?
Pete: No, although while we were doing the album we did kind of throw around the idea of doing a mix of that and kind of bringing it back to life. But we’ve not been involved, we’ve just been to be honest, absolutely chocker, which is a very British phrase, which means busy, really, really busy. We’ve not had a chance to do anything at all and I haven't spoken to Gina for a while. It’s something that we would have liked to have done, but we have just been really, really, really, really busy.
RS: Are there any other vocalists that sort of come out of the woodwork or do you still keep your stable, so to say?
Pete: We are working with other vocalists as well at the moment on various projects, which we’ll keep you informed about.
RS: On the Soda Club album, is there a song that stands out as your personal favorite?
Andy: There's quite a few actually. I really like “Make My Day” that we did with Charlotte. I also like “Heaven Is a Place on Earth,” because I was a big Belinda Carlisle fan when I was younger, and I wanted to update that song and I liked what we did.
