MELODY MAKER INTERVIEW, OCTOBER 1996.

For ORLANDO pop music is better than sex. So expect their new single,'Just for A Second', to induce at the very least orgasmic raptures we have to exist for people to say, 'There's no one else like this, who think like this, who believe in this, who sound like this,'" says Orlando's Dickon, getting stuck in. "We have to exist, because we are living answers to that one question." What question? "Pop, question mark." "We," suggests Orlando's Tim, cool as f***, "are the answer." WHEN you meet Orlando,they're glowing. Like stars. They're so on the brink. Their new single, "Just For A Second", will push them over. An explosion of strings, disco and drama crushed against a mournful lyric - in a pop world overburdened by lads 'n' laffs, it's a deadly serious/ seriously deadly refresher course in loathing, sexual paralysis and life size hatred riding the best Europop pulse this side of Gianfranco Bartolotti's jugular. For Timothy(Mark, ex-actor, frontman / arranger, torso) and Dickon (Edwards, guitar, lyricist, stagefright), sat in a dingy Thai bar sipping Kahlua and milk, it's their chance to walk it like they've talked it. "There was a certain period when, even though we'd got a deal and were reasonably famous in music press circles, there was always the thought that maybe we were not wanted. Now, we're getting letters every day from everywhere; people are telling us that we are THEIR BAND, we've been chosen," says Tim. "And we are," adds Dickon. "We've got a lot to answer for and we'll answer every bit of it. There were loads of people who wrongfully thought we were some kitsch, ironic, retro-act, and were really ready to despise us. I would probably have been one of them. I was really vened it was gonna go all Sigue Sigue Sputnik,y'know, well-connected over-exposed and NOBODY really cares. But we're polite to everyone who hates us, we don't mind and we've found them coming round" Tim picks up: We can convert people, and we do-they come to you afterwards and say, 'I hate to admit it, but I'm going to have to like you' See, if you want a band like us, we're pretty instant. If you're against us, you'll come round eventually," Dickon: "We have no ulterior motive other than making the greatest pop music. If you love pop music, you will love Orlando. If you don't love pop music, you'll like Kula Shaker. It's really that simple." IS Orlando an act of love or revenge? "Revenge," says Tim, at once "I don't have any interest in love, it's not one of my motivating forces, so it's all revenge. It's wanting to be on peak-time television, being watched by all those people who told you you'd never amount to anything. It's winning every award going and winning an Oscar in the same year, and your face being on the front cover of every tabloid, not through scandal but because the entire world has decided you're the greatest star who ever lived. Just everyone knowing you; all those people who ignored you or snubbed you or punched you in school them all being sick of hearing your name, sick of people asking them if they knew you. That's my main motivation now." "All I want," says Dickon, "is total and unconditional love from the whole world, everyone, even undeveloped, native tribes in the Amazon rainforest. I want the whole world to love me." Is that because you find personal, true love, impossible? What surprised me most when I first heard you was that a band so supposedly "romantic" could be SO lyrically anti-romantic, cruel, CLEAR. On the single's flip "Something To Write Home About", sex is nothing but fear, anxiety, loneliness intensified ("Were you just winning a bet? Does nature have to be so awkward? After several nervous fumblings I feel I'm dying... I lay awake all night, pinned between you and the dissaproving wall"), Dickon: "Well, the only reason I ever have sex is laziness and bad discipline. I just can't say no. I've never been in love and girls, relationships, sex, don't interest me at all. It's monstrously arrogant to expect someone to love you when you don't even love yourself, to expect someone else to find something good about you that you can't even find after 20 years of trying. Bodies, women's more than men's, actually appal me. I prefer animals, the purity of them. We're saddled with all sorts of ticks and mannerisms that stop us being beautiful. I'd rather look at a giraffe's or a lion's body than a human's. People always ask me, what side do I bat for, sexually. I say, I've got a note from my mum and wish to be excused.'" Tim chips in: "Half of me thinks that love should be this horrible, nasty unpleasant, very dangerous thing, which I've experienced and I have utter contempt for, because it seems to be a gigantic waste of energy," he sighs. "But then the other half thinks that maybe it just means being cared for, so in that sense I'm. contented at the moment. And bodies fascinate me." What's the major difference between you and Dickon? "Basically, I'm happier, and perhaps less thoughtful But we're both our own contradictions. He wants to be loved by people he can never love. I want revenge on a world I can't totally give up faith in. And the only thing that will enable us to do both those things is pop music. And that's why we're doing this." IS it a choice between Orlando and death for you? 'Absolutely" says Dickon. "If Orlarldo fails, I will voluntarily opt for euthanasia. I have tried everything else. This is my last chance. All my life I've never felt like anyone, never found a home, never progressed, never found anything lasting, other than the fact that pop records have always been a reason to carry on. Orlando is where I could be someone, figure myself out, find a way to live. It is completely a life and death situation." Tim: "I believe in the sanctity of human life so I can't say that. I can't die. I'd live. But it'd be an unutterably miserable life. It sounds pathetic, but I am pathetic: I can't do anything else. I've done every job under the sun, I've tried everything I could. That feeling when it hits 10'o'clock and you know the day is over for you and tomorrow all you'll see is the same machinery and people - it's just terrifying. I just couldn't do it. Not because I'm better than anyone else. I'm just weaker." "Any failure of Orlando is a complete reflection on ourselves as people," says Dickon. "We've given so much of ourselves to this, in my lyrics, which are the only way I can really communicate honestly with anyone, and in Tim's music and performance. We can't fall. We won't fail." "Orlando is happening," giggles Tim. "There isn't any kind of problem we can't get over." IT'S this irresistible confidence that strikes you when you hear "Just For A Second". What's weird is that, for a record so filled with lack, so charged with sadness, what overwhelms you is a sense of bravery, a final chance to strike out at the world and go down windmilling. Crucially, it floods you with something beyond appreciation and more akin to heart-tugging FAITH. You can't just "like" "Just For A Second", you can only love it, and then you are with Orlando for life. I just hope Orlando are prepared for celebrity. "Y'know how everyone has sung into the hairbrush in front of the mirror at some point, says Tim. "We spent our adolescence singing, doing photo-sessions, walking down airplane steps, interviews, press conferences, TV appearances, radio-chats and video-shoots in front of that mirror. We are fearless of fame." All you wonderful people out there in the dark should love this band unconditionally. Lives will depend on it. Yours. Naked soul with a handbag heart. Absolutely the answer.