Mike Rimmer met up with FUSEBOX front man Bill Buchanan

Fusebox

Mike: You've taken a long time recording a second album! What's been going on?

Bill: Man, no kidding! Two years in the making. It took a year to write it, a year to record it. I think this is becoming a routine for us, we just take forever to do everything! But you want it to be right, you know? The whole record has this theme of gratitude that runs throughout it.

Mike: You'd better remind people who you are then!

Bill: We started out as Rebecca St James' backup band, got our own record deal and started opening up for her. So we were doing double duty for three years. We went around the world twice with her doing three tours. It was a great time but we felt by the end of 2002 that it was time to "leave the nest" and do our thing. I'm the main songwriter. You know the record labels usually focus in on one guy, so I guess I happen to be "that guy"! I just try to take it, do it humbly and just try to do the best I can with the job.

Mike: You mentioned the theme of gratitude, do you have a lot to be thankful for?

Bill: I came from a real crazy background. My dad was a real abusive dude, parents got divorced when I was 11 years old. I saw way too much for any kid before the age of 11. So I've carried that throughout my life. In my own marriage, the biggest struggles have always been to keep it together because I didn't know about that growing up. I didn't know what it was like to "work things out" when times get tough. So that's always been the biggest struggle. Love your wife, take care of your family and God has always been working on me and helped me to stay faithful to him and to my family. All I have to say is you can hear my gratitude on this new album. I've really reached the point where I share my story from the stage and I allow people to come to me and go, 'Man, I'm going through that,' 'My dad's like that,' 'My husband's been unfaithful.' Man, I get it all through email and when we get off stage. So on this album I just really wanted to express my thankfulness to God for delivering me and my family; me and my brothers and my mom from so much nonsense that my dad put us through. It's just been an amazing thing to be able to do that. I think this album is "that" album for me; my gratitude album.

Mike: One interesting cover version on the album is Joe Cocker's "You Are So Beautiful". Are you a fan?

Bill: You have no idea how big a fan I am of Joe Cocker! People always talk about the rasp in my voice.totally got it from him! I was a huge fan as a kid. I always loved this song but I saw him at a festival this past summer and I closed my eyes and I said, 'Man, this is a worship song that's sung to God! The words are perfect!' So you can imagine, I went to my record label and I said I wanted to do 'You Are So Beautiful', the Joe Cocker song.' They wondered what in the world I was talking about. So I played them my arrangement of it. It's very haunting and a very different arrangement to the original. Soon as they heard it, they loved it! It's the last track on the record man and it really is a highlight.