Scooby: When and why did you decide to form Mice?

Julianne: Tim McTighe, I met a couple of years ago when he was in a rubbish band with Mark from All About Eve, a really rubbish French band. Mark said I really think you ought to meet Tim cause you'd really like him, and I met him, we wrote some songs and he's a great song writer. Then he joined a group called Powder from Camden and I went off with Bernard Butler from Suede, both our projects failed for different reasons, so we caught up with each other again and wrote an album together. Dominic the drummer was Bic from Levitation who is on the album, Ali the keyboard player we found through a Melody Maker ad, which I was very surprised at and x, y and z. I think that's about it really.

Scooby: How did you choose the name "Mice"?
Julianne: Oh, yes, yes. Dreams, the Dream. It was a desire not to have a three word name, cause I was fed up with having All About Eve and I was having loads of weird dreams about being over-run by mice and stuff. It's weird. I did have these dreams for no reason, but I'm not saying they were prophetic or anything, but it was just nice to have a name that didn't really mean anything, so it didn't detract from the music. Just like a brand name really.

Scooby: What bands do you currently listen to?

Julianne: Oh my God. Err.. I don't really listen to a lot of current things, I was packing my tour bags with tapes and things, I can tell you what was in there. There was a Pulp album, a David Sylvian album, it was an Elton John album!, it was a wire album, gosh, what else do I carry round, compilation albums, I don't really go to see bands anymore, I don't know why. I'm not crazy about anyone at the moment. I tend to listen to a lot of old albums, ludicrously old albums, the stuff I was listening to when I was doing my A-levels.

Roadie: I'd just like to say my Gran was born in Stoke-On-Trent, but don't hold it against her!
Julianne: I mean, do you know any of Ultravox's stuff before Midge Ure joined them?

Scooby: A bit.
Julianne: I thought Ultravox were disgusting once Midge Ure joined them, before that they did three albums with this guy called John Foxx singing and they were like, if it was done now it would sound current, so I've been listening to them quite a lot. I'm ashamed to say the last single I bought was Babylon Zoo!! But I mean... What are you listening to?

Scooby: Anything. I still listen to All About Eve a bit, as I always have, I love Pulp, Menswear, I saw Menswear at Rock City and they were excellent.

Julianne: But Pulp are my favourite, I've got their Different Class album and it's one of those ones where you just have to keep playing it and playing it. And I love sleeper.

Scooby: Sleeper are cool.
Julianne: Yeah, the singer, she's a great singer.

Scooby: How would you describe your current sound?
Julianne: Errmm... Wellll... It's very hard to say. It helps when you talk to people after gigs, oddly enough a few people have said that it reminds them of very early All About Eve, when we were doing things like 'Flowers In Our Hair' and 'Our Summer' and stuff like that. It's very uptempo, cause we got quite moody towards the end, which I don't regret, I really liked that, what I really needed to discover was a sense of fun, that was lost in All About Eve, cause as people we were ludicrously fun loving, we looked so po faced all the time, but in real life we did like to have fun. It's all very fine to Pre-Raphaelite all over the place, but that was just one side of us.

Scooby: Is your current sound something that you would like to change?
Julianne: I think it's developing, because this is a real mixture of songs I wrote, from when All About Eve ended and the first few songs me and Tim have wrote together, and we've got some things in the pipeline that we're dying to do, I love it, but it's pointing to something else, this is just the forst thing we've done. It's kind of wierd when you start writing with someone, it's kind of like dating them or something and you don't know what kind of chords they like at first, but you get to know them and then it all flows out. I mean, I don't know where it'll go.

Scooby: Do you enjoy playing live?
Julianne: Yes, and I'd forgotten how much cause I didn't do it for years. It was about a couple of years ago, we did one gig at The Splash Club just before Christmas with Bic on guitars, that was really exciting cause he's mad and frightening. Yes I do, I mean it's very wierd on this tour, there have been smaller audiences, which I do enjoy as much as a full Astoria or something, because the people who come, come to see us with great interest. So yes, I do. I mean, at the moment everyone who see's us at the moment is seing us in our teething period, cause we're all just getting to know how we are on stage. Now I've started I don't know how I left it so long.

Scooby: Is there a song you wish you'd written, or would like to cover?
Julianne : The song I wish I'd written was on the telly last night. It's by Bjork. Do you know the song 'Possibly Maybe'? I mean, I haven't got any of her records, but that song was absolutely brilliant. Apart from that, maybe something old. I wish I'd written 'Hounds Of Love' by Kate Bush and that one where she says "Hello Earth" on the concept side of the album.

Scooby : Is there any of your own songs that you like in particular?
Julianne: Errmm.. Yessss, but I'm not going to choose one of our new songs because they're too fresh, but of the old stuff I absolutely adore 'Wishing The Hours Away' off the 'Touched By Jesus' album, mainly because Dave Gilmour helped on that and did a brilliant job, and a lot of people can't stand the 'Ultraviolet' stuff. I don't know where you stand, so I won't embarrass you by asking.

Scooby: Oh I like it!
Julianne: Yeah, cause there's a couple of songs on there I really love, like 'Outshine The Sun', because, I don't know, it was one of those songs we wrote where we were on some kind of high. We weren't on drugs, just some natural telepathic drug, it was very special and just sort of sums up the line-up of me, Mark, Andy and Marty, so that's probably the one.

Scooby: What have you got planned for the future?
Julianne : Errrrmmm, I would just love to play and play and play, but there's a single out tomorrow called 'The Milkman', we're going to bring out another one about a month later, there's an album already recorded, which we want to bring out in a couple of months time. But certainly since these dates I would like to do a support to somebody, you know cause I haven't done anything for a long time, you can't really expect people to flock to see a band they've never even heard of. I mean I wouldn't pay seven quid or whatever to see someone I wasn't sure of. But I also want to see the rest of the world, cause I mean in All About Eve we never did, we didn't even play one gig in America. I really want to do that.

Scooby : Are you involved in any side projects?
Julianne: Ermmm... Errmmm... Kind of. But not really yet, but Polly who used to be in the Popinjays, who I did a B-side of 'The Milkman' with, we want to do this album together, it's gonna be called 'The In Crowd', we're gonna be the ideal band, a band every parent would like, like clean living christian children who idy their rooms and that's what the lyrics are going to be about, that's just for fun and my cousins band supported tonight, I want to do something with them cause I think they're great, even if my cousin wasn't drummer with them, but I'm much more open to side projects now, I'm much more free. Sorry, am I talking too much? You haven't got a train to catch or anything have you?

Scooby: No, no, I'm fine. We've got a car. Carry on! Does it annoy you that you only seem to be recognised as Julianne Regan, Ex-All About Eve?
Julianne : Err... It's kind of inevitable. If you're a promoter, or you're a gig or something, and noone knows who Mice are and so you've got to try and attract people by sticking my name there. I don't feel comfortable with it, I can't wait till my name is dropped from the posters and adverts and things like that. But it is inevitable, but I don't want people thinking that they'll come along expecting All About Eve, and I'm trying to make that really clear at the moment cause it is a really different band. I mean, I'm not at all ashamed of the old stuff, and the old band, we're all still really good mates and we all write to each other and that.

Scooby: Do you feel that your work in Mice is completely separate or still linked with All About Eve?
Julianne: Well, it's funny cause I thought it was completely separate when we were making the album, it just felt new and different, but since I have been playing live there have been a couple of songs that just make me feel like it was All About Eve, and I don't think it's too shocking to people, it's a very new thing with different people, and yes there are songs that have gone off on a completely different tangent, but there are things that an All About Eve fan wouldn't feel alienated by. I wanted it to be separate because All About Eve is its' own little thing, it exists and it's kind of on ice and I don't feel like we've split. When you fall out with someone you split, but we all just drifted apart, doing different things. I mean, I'm always round Andys' house knocking songs out, but there's still this umbilical cord to them, but this is definately a new thing. It's good that All About Eve's there so we can use it whenever we want to. I mean, there is a track off the 'Mat's Prozac' single called 'Julie Christie', which I wrote while I was in France, with a guy called Bird and things just weren't working. He went out and I wrote it while he was gone. A few people have said that it reminds them of very early All About Eve. Can I have this copy of Arsenic?

Scooby: Yeah, feel free.
Julianne : Oh that's cool, cause, like on the tour bus we have read everything. Even The National Enquirer! Julianne: Did you embroider that bag of yours yourself?

Scooby: I did.
Julianne : It's very good.

Scooby: Oh, thanks.
Julianne: Did you ever go to The Batcave? (referring to said bag)

Scooby: No. Did you?
Julianne : No. I never did, but Tim Bricheno and Andy Cousin, they played one of their first gigs there. They were in a band called 'Aemoti Crii'. Did you see us at Rock City in Nottingham?

Scooby: Yes I did.
Julianne: Cause it wasn't very busy there, but thankfully in Liverpool there were about 120 people there, including my Mum. I was glad it was busy, cause she's seen us when we played places like the Albert Hall and stuff.

Scooby: Earlier you said about the first gig you ever went to, well the first gig I ever went to was All About Eve in Nottingham.
Julianne : Really!?

Scooby: Yeah, I was about 12 or so.
Julianne: Gasp... I went to my first gig at 12. It was Queen and it was just before 'Bohemian Rhapsody' came out. Where we headlining or supporting something?

Scooby: Headlining. In about 1988 and you had a really sore throat and couldn't sing properly.
Errmmm, do you mind that a lot of All About Eve fan types still expect you to be a Gothy type?
Julianne : No, not really. I kind of understand how they expect to do old things, and it's not that I've fallen out of love with those things, but what I've done is compartmentalise things. Like that is All About Eve, and this is Mice, but I don't really mind, bands are missed when they split or don't ecist anymore. I mean I know what it's like to be a fan, I've been obsessed with bands over the years. What I've enjoyed about this tour is that I expected there to be more heckling and slating, but it's been very very scarce. What would you like to be?

Scooby : I don't know, I mean, I've always wanted to be in a band, but I can't sing and I can't play any instruments, so I thought I know, I'll do a fanzine instead!
Julianne : Well maybe you're like me then, cause I started off writing. I always wanted to be a writer for the NME, but I interviewed Gene Loves Jezebel, and they just liked me and they asked me to play bass for them, so I spent the whole weekend listening to the 'Metal Box' album by P.I.L. playing bass along to those songs, so I joined them, and I had no plans to join a band, and here I am. I mean, if you want to do it it will happen. Do you have any instruments?

Scooby: Erm, I have a guitar.
Julianne: Electric or acoustic?

Scooby : Both, and I can't play either of them, so they just sit in the corner of my room and look nice.
Julianne: All you need is a pedal, because once you have one of those you are a guitar player. So good luck for the future and I hope your dreams come true. I've got to go and help pack now, so thank-you very much.

Scooby: Thanks a lot, it's much appreciated.

'Arsenic & Old Lace', Gaslight Productions, P.O.Box 133,
Beeston, Nottingham, NG9 1FW Interview kindly transcribed and provided by Chris