The band chose to work with Wendy Melvoin, an original member of Prince and the Revolution.

"We've actually known Wendy for kind of a long time and when we were trying to figure out producers we realised that we didn't know any at all. We couldn't think of a name of a single producer. So we did some serious research and talked to about 20,000 producers. Pretty much all of them have done a Nick Cave record. Wendy put her name into the hat on a joke, sort of on a whim you know? 'I won't get the job but let's go and try a song for fun' and of course we did and it was great and we ended up working with her."

Z laughs off the question that Wendy may have brought some influence in the sounds from her Prince days.

"Don't get me wrong, I like Prince. We don't sound anything like him. Well not in this band anyway. Wendy is like the best guitarist, bassist and drummer that I know. She's like an amazing musician and so she approaches production from a very musical level and gets really inside the songs. She was kind of the perfect person to be there, to help us realise how exactly we wanted things to sound, where we wanted things to go."

As Z approaches completing her last sentence a mild level of woo-hooing can be heard. As she finishes the rest of the band enters the room.

"The toast is done!" says the band's drummer Tennessee Thomas rather cheerily.

Z asks both her compadres if they wish to join in. They accept and you can then sense the general level of happiness increase as the girls gather their food and arrange themselves on the sofa opposite me. Z remains in the middle and to her left and my right sits Tennessee, with bassist Charlotte Froom to my left. >>