Dylan Behan talked to sonicanimation's Adrian Cartwright about their new album "Reality by Deception" (out now thru Festival Mushroom).

Now what's this about you being electrocuted while you recording? "Heh heh heh. We were recording "It's Time", which was like the hardest track on the whole album to record. We had about twenty or thirty goes at it trying to get the right mix and everything. We finally got it right and then the DAT tape jammed up, and I was freaking out so much cause we'd finally got it right, that I actuallly pulled the machine apart to unjam the tape, forgot to unplug it and sent myself across the room."

Did you have to go to hospital or anything?
"No, no, I was fine. I don't think it was a huge voltage. Just enough to go 'ohhh what was that'."

Where does the title of the album come from?
"Well, in the past few years there's been really a lot of bizarre things that have been happening and lots of people that we've met, who really aren't what you'd percieve them to be. And so, the whole 'reality by deception' is, sort of everywhere in life there are people who appear to be a certain thing and in reality they're not, or things don't appear as they seem. Kind of like, you might meet someone quite rich or quite famous, or who appears to be when in reality they're not. It's quite hard to explain.

Does it kind of tie in with the underlying theme of the album on songs like "super showbiz star" and "i'm a dj", where it's kind of a pisstake on the current "god is a DJ" mentality within the industry? "Yep yep, you're getting it."

So why the mockery of this current socio-cultural trend?
"Umm, because no one has done it yet. Heh heh heh. No no, there's been a lot of DJ's we've met who have been really awesome people and there's been a few who've kind of taken on the sort of superstar DJ thing and just run with it. A lot of people retaliate at that say "god, look at that, they're just playing records", but there is a talent to it as well. A lot of them are really good at it, but some have just taken the attitude a little too far and we thought it deserved to be spoken about."

(under my breath while coughing) Groove Terminator...
"Heh heh heh. I'm not saying nothing."

What kind of a show can we expect on the upcoming tour?
"A truckload of gigs with a lot of energy. Three or four of the tracks from the last album and then the rest of it is kind of new stuff. It'll be mixes of like hardcore dance stuff, and then Theopolis (Thistler) and Didley Squat which we'll probably have to play to the day we die. But we don't mind at all. Yeah, and we'll have Robbie and Theo the big furry creatures will be there as well."

Do you ever feel as though like they overshadow the band at all? "Umm, sometimes we do. We were planning on killing them off, but we had so many protests about that. We're really into interacting with the crowd, and we get a lot of people who e-mail us and want to be in the suits. Yeah, it's kind of cool, the band gives em passes and they get in and they get to dance on stage and get to meet a few people. It's all good."

I've described you to friends as being "Play School meets the Prodigy". What's your reaction?
"(laughing) It's quite appropriate. Yeah, one day we might do a bit of a Wiggles thing and actually earn some money."

How would you describe the new album in say five words or so? "May Contrain Traces of Nuts."

Do you consider it to be a kind of departure, a progression or a combination of the two - a "depression" as I like to call it? "Well yeah, there is kind of a slight combination of the two, but I think it's more of a progression. I think we're starting to find our own sound - whatever that is."

The press release mentions that you came up with some of the songs by improvising. Was this from fooling around in the studio, or on stage? "Umm, yeah a little bit came about from on stage. Like the track "rhabdomyolsis" came about live actually. It sort of created itself somehow, into like an eight minute track, out of just bits and pieces that we were free-forming with live. The way we play live we sometimes change all the sounds in sequence, reverse bits, and it just came about like that. A lot of it was jamming, like I'll hop on the electronic drum kit and play a few beats and then Rupert might sight down and come up with something that goes with it, and we made a few tracks like that as well."

Do any tracks stand out, or is there a message to the fans?
"I guess the whole message of the album is we try not to take anything too seriously, and I suppose that's the message. Don't take life too seriously."