I read that Noel Gallagher plans to take Oasis in a more "Beta Band direction." Any comments on this?

Richard: He'd been to a preview of our album a while ago and we were at a club later on and he came up to me and said, "I can't believe how you guys do it. I wish I could write songs like that." And I said "I'm sure you could, you're an amazing songwriter. It's just that your band's shit." [laughs] I think he's alright.

Who's opening the show tonight?

Richard: No one. We DJ for a while before we go on.

Who would you have open if you could choose?

Richard: Some of the hip-hop groups we mentioned before, though they'd be hard acts to follow. I think we'd like to get into playing with more hip-hop bands because right now the majority of our audience is a white audience and I don't think a lot of them get it. There's a lot of rhythm in our music and some black people who've come to our gigs have said that it would be great crossover music. We could play with The Roots or whoever.

How do you think you'd do in front of a hip-hop audience?

John: We would definitely do well. Anyone who is slightly open-minded we would do well playing to.

Richard: With The Roots, they go through a bit of jazz, a bit of reggae... The audience at a hip-hop concert always comes to get amped up and to dance. A lot of our audience is just a middle-of-the-road lot who just stand there folding their arms waiting to be entertained.

I heard that you wanted to release more material more often but the record company wouldn't go for that.

John: It was probably Steve [Mason, lead singer] who said that referring to the four-track stuff he does. He makes a lot of stuff and when he's done, he just wants to get it out. He's got one out already under the name King Biscuit Time. He's doing a duet with Jennifer Rush soon that came about by her hearing the Bonnie Tyler song." [The Beta Band nick a couple lines from "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" on their song "The Hard One"].

Chart: Jennifer Rush, what's she been doing for the last 10 years?

John: Listening to our album (laughs).

JOHN AND RICHARD'S DESERT ISLAND DISCS

John: