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When you look at what we can call the golden era of concept albums, which starts in the mid or late '60s and ends maybe in the early '80s, it's an interesting time for music. You see all these very established and popular acts and bands and artists that were somehow on the top of their game but really trying to experiment.

What we hear now is great-sounding records with great-sounding grooves and loops. And the sound of these records is irresistible, but the craft of songwriting is just about over. That's why, whenever I get an opportunity to do an album full of standards, I jump at it because I miss it.

If part of the purpose of making an album is to get some radio play, then you might as well think about that. But that's not really how we picked the songs.

I guess when we were up against it, we knew this album was going to be compared to all the classic early material, because it was going back to the original five.

We have been trying to play a lot of different kinds of music, and probably the next album will go back more towards the direction where you couldn't classify each song as a certain kind of music. This album you can.

Making an album should be an honest experience. It shouldn't be about trying to gauge where popular music is today; it should be about artistic expression and putting down what you want to put down.

We've been working on a new album, which is going to come out next spring, which is very different, a change of style for us - it's going to be almost like rock music.

But when our first album came out, I didn't think it was going to sell a lot of records.

I wanted contemporary music to be treated the same as the traditional repertoire - performed regularly by people who knew each other and the music. That is the way you convince an audience.

I think the theme of the album probably was just that it was our first record.