Morcheeba glided onto American airwaves three years ago with the release of their elegantly damaged Who Can You Trust. As graceful and dusky as a breezy summer evening, the Dover, England-based trio whipped up a deliciously edgy cocktail of blues-infused hip-hop, tripped-out soundscapes, and simple balladry, with liberal dashes of pedal steel, French horns, strings, sitars, and psychedelic bass lines. |

The band's second offering, aptly titled Big Calm, moved the threesome beyond its original trip-hop roots. This time out, Morcheeba's eccentric mix recalled rock's zenith, summoning the ghosts of both Led Zeppelin II and Cream's Disraeli Gears. That's not to say the band has abandoned its sophisticated, laid-back styling; it's just suffused it with a few sleight-of-hand tricks.

Songwriter/beatmeister Paul Godfrey's brutally honest songs are the perfect grist for singer Skye Edwards' detached, drop-dead delivery. This honesty may be the key to Morcheeba's success -- both in the artless observations about life, love, and loss, and in the unapologetic paranoia that is shot through such songs as "The Sea," "Fear and Love," and "Shoulder Holster," the beloved step-sister to 1996's Trigger Hippie.

Having just tied up a relentless ten-month tour, which brought them to American shores twice, Morcheeba's finally got some down time before beginning their third album this summer. Or so they say. The band's spokesperson said that the group may be forced to rethink its schedule, since so many high-profile tours have been tossed its way. But with fans like Madonna, Fiona Apple, and k.d. lang, that's no surprise. The Rolling Stone Network spoke with Godfrey and Edwards during their short breather about the stress of the road and what's up ahead.

You were on the road for ten months last year. What's Morcheeba up to now?

Paul Godfrey: We're just relaxing. We're not in the studio right now, although we were just in recording a song for a film. It's a Tommy James cover called "Crystal Blue Persuasion" for a movie called Walk On the Moon. I'm also getting married.

You've had a good year.

With so much work and so much praise, it was really good. Things are really starting to happen now. But it was a year of touring for me. We did ten months straight and we all went insane. Ross [Godfrey; Paul's brother and Morcheeba's guitarist] was nearly crippled, I went mad, and we all fell out. It was a real tour-madness tour. We're talking to people about starting our own publishing and record company. I want to get more involved in that kind of thing. I feel like a bit of a lemon on the road, because I never have enough to do -- there's just no real life. There's nothing really to write about because I'm not listening to ordinary people, normal people, which tend to be more inspiring than anyone you meet in the business.

What about the next album? Have you started working on your follow-up to Big Calm?

We're not going to start a proper album until the summer. We put out that instrumental thing, Beats & B-sides, late last year, repackaging it with our first album, Who Can You Trust, but there probably won' be a new Morcheeba album until 2000.

Skye, tell me about the tour.

It was quite intense, going around Europe, America two times, back to Europe, and the U.K. It was just really difficult, we only got one week off for a holiday. I was quite stressed. We all started losing it. Ross twisted his back from the way he holds his guitar. He had to see an acupuncturist every other day. We were all happy when it ended.

Are you still considering doing a solo album for Paul and Ross' label?

They were talking about getting their own label and publishing company together. I have a few songs I'd written years and years ago, before Morcheeba, and I bought myself a little four-track. After the children are in bed, I kind of strum a guitar, and I'm getting some stuff down. So perhaps it will happen sooner than later.

I've noticed on your last tour of the U.S., you'd seem to have come out of shell and were more comfortable in front of an audience.

Yes, I think I was. It's just from performing so much -- three, four nights in a row.

What did you do to stay sane?

We stayed out of each other's ways. My savior was my mobile phone. I called all my friends back in the U.K. Plus we had two buses -- a girl bus and a boy bus. Our tour manager is a woman, and it was me, Jennifer [the stylist and future wife of Paul], and the kids. It was lovely.

JAAN UHELZSKI(January 21, 1999)