Francis: No, not at all. This is what we set out to do and this is what we enjoy doing, so we are always thrilled when something starts to do well. That's why we're here.

Rick: Yeah, of course. I mean, I think, in the early days it could have turned out that we could have been one hit wonders but I think the fact that we changed our style and realised that we weren't going to get far dressing up as popstars like we did at the time and we changed our style and look and with a lot of dedication from our fans and ourselves we've hung on in there.

Francis: It's what people have been wanting us to do for the last 15 years or so. We've been wandering around trying to make, Something has happened in the last two years or so where our band has galvanised and become focused on what we're doing and it's very much what our fans want. It's generally the vibe of the album which is going to make people excited and it makes us excited.

Francis: From our earlier albums not a lot. From the last ten years or so it's a lot different because we're all very focused and our new drummer, for some reason, has made a difference to us in the last two years. Something has solidified, something has happened.
Rick: There's lots of colours coming out of it. It's giving off all the right signs as well because there's something that we've never had before, well not that I can remember anyway, is the fact that there's banners up in the audience saying'Heavy Quo, Heavy Traffic, Heavy Traffic Heavy Quo' and it's fantastic to see that kind of thing.

Rick: I don't know about that. It's just funny how oak trees grow out of small acorns. I sort of went down to the ship with my son for a day out and got talking to the crew and we just said wouldn't be great to do a gig on the flight deck and they said, well it would be possible so we put all the powers that be into action and there it was and what a fantastic way it was to launch an album.

Rick: We take them with us. There's a lot of lovely ladies that follow us on tour and it's great looking at them. It really is.
Francis: It's fascinating for us because really over the last four or five years the audience is really 50/50 both male and female whereas years ago it was pretty much 70-80% male headbangers. But the audience has really widened, anything from 8 to 80 and there's a lot of very nice looking young fillies.

Francis: I suppose Prince Charlie because we grew up with Prince Charles, we were in that era that he grew up. When I first met him I though wow this man has been really programmed and conditioned to be a king. But it's the education and that. While we were out having a laugh he was actually learning how to command a ship or learning how to fly a plane so I found that quite, the person himself standing there.
Rick: I can't think of anybody. I mean, you meet so many interesting people in this business, not necessarily in this business but generally through life that and right at this present moment no one actually sticks out.

Francis: That's wimpy, that is. I think I probably went about four or five years with a pair of stage jeans.

Francis: Yeah, you don't like changing them once you're comfortable.
Rick: I sometimes think back to what we used to do before we had people like Leanne, our wardrobe lady. What did we used to do? I mean, I suppose we'd do a gig and they'd go into your case, wet whatever, and you'd just sort of put them back on the next day. I can't imagine how else we did it. As Francis said, once you get a good pair of stage jeans they last you because you won't outwear them, they won't outwear you or they'll suddenly become too small for you over the years and you hang onto them for as long as you can. But god knows how long we used to wear them in the early days. They must have stunk.

Francis: No, not for charity. I've been thinking about it lately but somebody who's in this room doesn't like the idea of it! Well, a lot of people say it's identity and all that and I'm just getting a bit of sick but I daresay it's going to stay there.

Francis: I don't know. Obviously the things like Live Aid and such are always very important. But our very first hit was fantastic for us and re-merging with 'Piledriver' and 'Paper Plane' was a fantastic period. The 'Rockin' All Over The World' period was fantastic, 'In The Army' period was fantastic and quite often there are gigs that you play out of the way in East Germany or somewhere in the back end of Sweden and it's not considered to be an important gig and something happens and it's probably the best gig you've ever played and it would nice if you could do those at those‚ at the big venues. But usually it's the gigs that you don't expect to go really well and I think it's expectations that are the problem.
Rick: Right now as well. This is honey to us. The band is working great. I think it's reflective when we play live as anybody who's seen us play live will know. And, I mean, just to be here and have a record at No.17 back in the charts and to be here doing Top of the Pops again, I mean, you just can't imagine how when we first heard that we've got Top of the Pops. I was in my car and nearly smashed it up and thought "yes". It's just unbelievable and we're doing it all again and for the fifth decade, I think it is now.

Rick: A while ago. It's happened a few times actually but this was the most embarrassing one. There was this step on the stage, it was a festival stage and it wasn't our stage, and I forgot this step was there. And I was doing this vocal and I do this big intro and I'm up on the drum riser and I jump down on the drum rise and run straight to the mic and start and I forgot the step was there and I went, I didn't just fall over sort of, I fell flat on my face and I managed to get my guitar out of the way so that didn't get harmed fortunately. But it was really a bad fall. It's not actually falling over that's embarrassing it's the getting up.

Francis: Probably the same. Falling over is the worst. We call it getting our wings. It's kind of one of the worse things you can do. A long time ago. We were doing some gig somewhere and we walked on at the start of the first number and I went over to stage right and the stage and there was a wall there and from what I could see the stage went straight to the wall, so I went waltzing that way and it didn't go straight to the wall and there was a gap and I went down the gap. It was hilarious.
Rick: It was hilarious. The sound of it and everything because his guitar is fully turned up. And he's gone. It was hilarious.
Francis: But as he said it's not the falling, it's the getting back up and carrying on because you get all this macho show off stuff with your guitar, it's part of what you do and you can't do that for at least 10-15 minutes afterwards. You're very sheepish afterwards.