Criminal damage
FOR a New Yorker enigmatic Fun Lovin' Criminals singer and guitarist Huey Morgan doesn't do a lot of coffee.
Then the cheeky chappies from the five boroughs haven't done a lot of anything that might endanger their health in the past five years after an enforced silence due to a court wrangle with the manager they fired in 2003.
"I'm 42. You can't bug it out like you used to - you've got to get your greens boy," he says on the health front.
On the other issue: "Stuff like that doesn't put you in a great frame of mind to be creative or make music.
"It was one of those things that prevented us getting back in the ring.
I don't think people want to hear about problems, everyone's got problems and they deal with them, so we figured once that was finished we'd just continue where we left off which, luckily for us, was in a good spot."
One of those being a memorable sold-out Octagon show. FLC return to Sheffield, this time Plug, a week today armed with latest album Classic Fantastic from which We, The Three/Keep On Yelling (featuring Roots Manuva) was a recent double A-side single.
Huey says there was never any consideration that the now London-based band who brought the world the inimitable song Scooby Snacks would split amid their costly legal battle.
"We played a couple of gigs just to keep it together as a group but we weren't writing in the studio as a band. It's actually made us stronger going through that together, as clichd as it sounds," says Huey, who had his own award-nominated BBC6 radio show.
"A few people have come up to us and written letters to us. It's kind of humbling for us because we just lay down what we lay down and it's cool people dig it as much as they do. It's the best compliment a musician can have.
"It's good to be in this band. We have a lot of fun. If we can still do it and people still want to hear it, that's cool with us.
"Just being creative people we wanted to work together anyway. That's the most important thing even if nobody else shows up.
"We probably dropped the ball a couple of times with the social networking updates, but more importantly the three of us made a record again and we want other people to hear it.
"For that to happen it was a long way to go. It was a journey of a thousand miles but the tour is the part we enjoy, it's a thousand miles we like. We go out and have fun and interact with people who approve of our music and our sound."
FLC formed in 1993, bringing a street-wise hobo hip-hop, rock 'n' roll blues-jazz soul combination to a UK obsessed with Britpop three years later in the shape of album Come Find Yourself.
By 2000 Huey, an ex-con charismatic New Yorker with Irish/Puerto Rican roots, and cohorts were major stars who'd spent three weeks touring the world's stadiums with U2.
"That was something we never strived for - it was like being dropped into a movie. We were just three dudes who were happy to be liked by enough people that we could pay our rent.
"We never really aspired to jets and things like that. We were a bit more low key, especially with our music. We didn't expect it to be as commercially viable as it turned out to be for a couple of albums."
Now you sense just getting another record out there was going to be a relief. Having penned around 50 tracks Fast, Frank and Huey harvested 13, flew an engineer in from NYC and mixed Classic Fantastic in a week.
"We tried to touch on a little more dancey vibe on a couple on them and there are a couple of songs we don't take ourselves too seriously on.
Everybody's taking themselves too seriously now and maybe music should be a bit more fun, not so preachy or decision-led. It's more about the experience than the actual conclusion.
"We just wanted to get back out there. We'd wanted to release stuff as it was building up inside, stuff we so wanted to do.
"Now it's almost like we're reintroducing ourselves to people as five years is an eternity in music."
The resulting album was as eclectic as anything FLC have tendered before, throwing dirty grooves and even reggae into the mix.
It's certainly more paraffin for the touring fire.
"It's good to see people again, go on a little road trip and see our friends - those friends usually come to the gig and we have a party," adds Huey, who says they won't, as some bands do, dodge their most celebrated hit for the sake of cool.
"You and your girl buy the CD and go and see a band, you're looking at 60, and they don't play the damn song...I don't think that's fair.
"We still love playing the song because we think it's funny people like it.
"We get a kick out of the fact people get the whole idea behind it.
"Your life...you write chapters of it during the records you put out.
"We listen to an old song and remember exactly what we were doing when we wrote it, so for us it's like it documents proof of our existence."
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