UFO - Actual Sightings Recorded! Page 3
By Martin Popoff

"I do carry around a notebook, but I'm a 'no time' person," cracks Phil in response to a question about his preferred working hours. "I just got up now. Because I was watching The Toughest Police Forces In The World. They were doing Johannesburg, and I thought, well, I'm going to have to watch all this. It was 4:00 in the morning, man. And the worst one, oh what was that? The 50 Bad-Assed Rockers and they're counting them off and they had Def Leppard in there down near the bottom, and I'm thinking, well hang on, these were supposed to be bad asses! Sorry, I'm off on a tangent."

Do the lyrics come easily? "I always think I have lots of stuff kicking around but when I get down to the nitty gritty, I haven't got that much. I think I've got stuff that is so fabulous and great and when I look at it I go, 'f**king 'ell, what a pile of shit' and I start from there. So, no. You just reminded me, no! I've not got anything knocking around, and I'm supposed to be working on my solo album (laughs)."

How are relations with Michael? Cordial? Professional? "Yeah, I guess we kid around. I kid around and neither of us gets the joke (laughs). No, seriously, Walk On Water was fine and this one actually went even better. I think having Mike Varney involved made everything even easier. It's notÉ we don't sort of hug one another and dance around together, but we have a fine relationship. We get on and play. In actual fact, we go straight to the music. It's a bit like, 'oh, I like that, oh, very nice, oh, I love that solo, Michael' blah blah blah. It's a bit like, 'I love the way you rolled your van over three times and what a mess it looked. How did you survive that?' No, I mean, Michael crashed his van before we started the album so we had that conversation. It's regular, but not, 'oh I missed you! Lovely, it's great to see you!' (makes kissing sounds). It's a regular relationship; how you would be with someone you work with."

UFO - Actual Sightings Recorded! Page 4