Fischerspooner on Fashion, Faking It, Scissor Sisters

'I think the Scissor Sisters crossed over because they have a really playful sound and well executed, catchy songs. People say that we should have been as big as them, but to me our project feels more outsiders and although our project is totally ridiculous and I try not to take it too seriously, it feels to me that it has a bit more edge to it. Some people can see it, some don't. Sonically we're more severe but in the end, I don't know what makes people buy things.'

Sitting in the atrium of Liverpool Street's 5 star Great Eastern Hotel, Warren Fischer smiles as he considers his relative fortune. Hotly tipped and equally reviled as electroclash's great white hope, his band Fischerspooner were comfortably eclipsed in the pop charts by fellow New York electro types Sister though five years on he's both wealthy and free. That's free in the sense of the commercial restraints so many artists become shackled by with record deals and free by being the background member of one of the most fashion conscious and flamboyant bands of the decade.

'Casey and I are very different, he's more concerned with image and I'm more the 'normal' guy in the band,' he chuckles.

'But I love the way he is and he doesn't make me feel uncomfortable, though it's not personally what I'd choose to do.'

And free to speak his mind about the music business game the duo have so successfully played:

'The music business as we knew it is now dead. It's totally gone,' he asserts.

'We, as a band, are in a perfect position because we're still a relatively new name and we have some profile, so we're in an open market and we have an idea of how we're going to move ahead,' he suggests, 'The signing we did with Capitol to me was the end of an era, a few more acts possibly signed to a major after us, but really all that is now gone.'

Which presumably explains why new single 'The Greatest Revenge' comes out on uber-hip independent French Kitsune, though he sounds surprisingly fatalistic about their chances of mega success.

'What's happening now is that labels are making less and less money and still the press doesn't say what's the full story,' says Warren.

'There was a headline on the New York Times recently saying that although Radiohead gave away their new album recently, they let you pay what you wanted, all the money went into their pockets and the album still got to number one in the charts. Sure it went to number one, but it only sold a third of what albums used to sell. It's actually the worst selling number one ever, and it went to number one because no one else is selling any records. The whole number one thing is meaningless now. I have nothing against Radiohead and I'm not saying this to try and make them look bad. What it shows is that people love and respect Radiohead so much that they are going to air or glorify their efforts. People are so interested in finding new strategies but, when you look at it sales are down across the board. There's a generation of people who are growing up now who are used to music being free and have no guilt about getting free music. Do you think they'd care if EMI is going to get their $10- '

Skrufff: You're here in London again on a DJing trip, how much is London a special place for you to play: how is it different playing here from anywhere else-
Fischerspooner (Warren Fisher): 'London is an amazing place for music. People seem to care more about music here than anywhere else in the world or rather seem more interested in new music. Londoners pride themselves as being educated and smart about music. We get to play a more challenging style here because the London crowds are so open-minded towards harder music. Of course there are plenty of DJs around who play a lot harder and a lot more obscure stuff than us, but from our perspective it's still a great opportunity to do something Tags

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