Rachel Stevens’ “Some Girls” was one of your biggest hits in the UK. What do you remember about recording this track, and is it true that you used the synthesizer once owned by the Thompson Twins?
Ha! Yes, there was the Thompson Twins’ Fairlight IIx sampler, the big old white ’80s machine with the computer monitor on top. It had apparently been on stage at Live Aid in the USA. I remember scaring Rachel slightly, as I’d come up with a supposedly great idea for the b-side, which was an extended version, but with new spoken word sections. As it was a glam-influenced track, I prepared some questions about 1970s Britain and took Rachel into a small room and began interviewing her for some soundbites. “Rachel, do you remember anything of the three-day working week? Or the 1978 winter of discontent?” I wasn’t trying to be a smart-arse, I just thought we’d get some interesting words out of the exercise. Her reaction was somewhere between bemusement and terror. A year or so later, I worked with a pre-Saturdays Frankie, who, during our session, expressed relief that I was reasonably normal — she had been worried, as her management had told her of the Rachel interview, and that I “was a bit of a weirdo.”
– Idolator