Belle And Sebastian Into Napster

Belle and Sebastian and Limp Bizkit in the same corner?

Belle And Sebastian trumpeter Mick Cooke is the latest musician to join the Napster debate, albeit with both positive and negative views.

"There are certainly positive things about Napster, from a musician's point of view," said Cooke in an email to nme.com. "Recently I received an email from somebody who discovered the music of Belle And Sebastian on Napster. He says he's a big fan of the band now, and has since bought all the records."

"On the down side though, our engineer Tony Doogan says that he'll give up sound engineering if MP3s become the standard because the quality is so poor — in the same way a painter might despair at the quality of JPEG's."

Cooke, whose band entered the Canadian campus charts at #4 with new the single "Legal Man," said he also doesn't believe Napster will bring the music industry to its knees.

"I think most people would rather have physical formats, with the artwork included," said Cooke. "I reckon that you can't show off your record collection on MP3 format. It looks a bit shite really, like all those people you knew at school whose record collection consisted of a wall of copied cassettes."

The band, whose new album Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant release on June 6, are currently looking at west coast tour dates (THIS MEANS YOU VANCOUVER!) according to their Jeepster label website.

And if you need a gift idea for the Belle And Sebastian fan that has everything, Cooke is currently finishing up a lyric/music/tab book that will include all released material including the four EPs.