"Ooh! Oooh! It's almost like [an album] that's never been repeated. Bryan Ferry has come close but it was a moment in time for them as a band. It could have been a nightmare to make for all I know but it's beautiful and incredible. At the time I was listening to that, I was getting into the sounds of records and perceiving how they were made and the depth in that record is incredible. Bob Clearmountain mixed it and I wondered [at the time]: what does a mixer do? And then you start to realise 'ah – that's what he does'. The main difference between my hits later in the 1980s and a record like this is that the musicianship on Avalon is pretty amazing. They could choose anyone to play on their records as could Bryan Ferry afterwards. And the nucleus of what their band was pretty amazing itself. Their understanding of what you could get out of a studio was incredible. My records with Stock, Aiken and Waterman are [comparatively] quite narrow. SAW had a bunch of keyboards but not many, maybe two or three they really liked. A Yamaha DX7, Jupiter 8 and the Linn 9000 were their workhorses. They had their little set up and that was the band. Mike and Matt were the two musicians. Matt was an amazing guitar player but he never put that to the front because it wasn't needed. He was a Ringo guitar player - he didn't do anything that wasn't needed! They were all about trying to write and produce hits for the Top 40. No – the top 5! That's all they were bothered about. They didn't do anything that was surplus to requirements. But they also made some crap records that nobody heard! But they found their formula and stuck to it like their Motown heroes. It never seemed cynical to me because they were honest about it. They weren't trying to be cool. They did go out and accept awards but generally speaking, they turned up in jeans and t-shirts – well, Pete was slightly different because he was A&R and the mouthpiece – because they viewed it as work. I met Lamont Dozier once and he said 'I get up, go into my basement, sit at the piano, press play and record and sit there for two hours. Then I come up, have breakfast, answer my mail, do whatever I do, and I go and listen it afterwards, find the good bits and say 'that's a song''. So it's quite workmanlike in a way. I don't think anybody would belittle anything Motown did. But if you want to put a negative slant on it, it's a factory style of doing things. But I also think: that's bollocks. If you're gonna be good at something, you have to put the hours in."

"People say Lee Mavers is mad or a tortured artist but he isn’t. He’s just lazy. Well, either that or he doesn’t want to tarnish the reputation of what he knows he’s already achieved. I’ve got two CDs worth of unreleased stuff which would knock you out. It should have been released as an album but it won’t see the light of day. But you see them when they reform and they’re still playing the same set as they were in 1986. You feel like saying to them, 'For fuck’s sake…' When I see him I say, 'Hey Lee, when are you going to release your second album?' And he goes, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll do it when I’ve finished the first one…' He’s still trying to nail his first set of songs right after 27 years. So I’ve come to the conclusion he’s either shit-scared of ruining his legacy or he’s just a lazy cunt. All that said though, this is a wonderful album and I do get a great kick out of playing this to people round the world – Americans in particular – to people who have never heard of them. They’re always, 'Wha… What the fuck?' Even though it’s a standard form of guitar rhythm and blues, it’s totally unique. Nobody has done it as good as him since. His lyrics are great, his voice is amazing and the whole vibe of The La's is amazing. Bands from Liverpool used to be really busy but there came a point after the 1980s where unless it was something happening in Liverpool, they just didn’t give a fuck. Liverpool is an island. It bears no relation to what’s going on musically anywhere else at all. I’ve got one scouser in my band and three on my crew and they don’t give a fuck. They don’t care what’s going on in London, they’re still going on about the dockers’ strike. They’re still annoyed that The Beatles left to go to London! [puts on old school scouse accent] 'I’m not havin’ it la, they went shite when they left Liverpool. You ask anyone. They did nothin’. After they left The Cavern, they were nothin’.' And now Liverpool bands get to a certain stage and then they back off because that means you have to move to London and they don’t want to. Liverpool has also suffered for not having a great record label or TV station like Factory or Granada. In more modern times they’ve been in the shadow of Manchester because of that. But that is also their strength. There is no other band of musicians in the world I would sooner play with than a band of scousers. They’ve all got it. And they’re all stoned from breakfast to bedtime. People in Liverpool got Oasis before anyone else did. We played all our early gigs with The Real People. Most people thought we were a Liverpool band."