Having spent my formative years going to [nightclubs] Cream in Liverpool and the Hacienda in Manchester, this really ignited my love for dance music, and ‘Egg Shaped Fred’ was one of our early tracks where we’d jam our distorted guitars over drum loops from an AKAI S900 sampler.

He kept a record of the original vocal that is now being released on the outtakes CD and listening back he was right. I was planning ahead and already had the idea of a skit on a concept record already written down, this song does what it says on the tin and describes a particularly debauched night in the life of the characters on the record.This remix was included on Oakenfold's compilation Resident: Two Years of Oakenfold at Cream, as an indicator of being one of the most played songs at major UK nightclub Cream, as well as in nightclubs around the world, over the 1997–1999 period. Being a huge Prince fan, I loved the way he wrote, produced and played all the instruments on a track, this was the first commercially released track I got to do all that on. This special 21st anniversary vinyl edition comes as two LPs in gatefold packaging featuring the iconic 'roses' cover art. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the release of ‘Attack Of The Grey Lantern’, a very limited number of this beautiful vinyl picture disc featuring the iconic roses design, are now available signed by Paul Draper.

This was going to be the big single after the album was released to turn us into a huge pop group, but for some reason or another (everyone has a different story) it wasn’t released and ‘Taxloss’ was put out instead. The amount of times I’ve sat in pubs trying to explain to people what ‘Stripper Vicar’ is all about is mind boggling, and in the mists of time, I’m not sure I can even remember myself. The title was elongated as it seemed to earnest and this whole track was the most long winded and complicated to finish on the album. At the start of the recording sessions for the album I’d decided there would be no love songs on this album, or any Mansun album.Although this song sat neatly with the narrative of the plot, I thought I’d challenge my own rule on this song, I remember the chorus being really emotional, and it still feels like that now. The amount of times I’ve sat in pubs trying to explain to people what it’s all about is mind boggling, and in the mists of time, I’m not sure I can even remember myself. I dont have the album in any other format and dont really know it that well so cant compare but compared to my admittedly small collection of picture discs this is comfortably the best.

I remember being off my tits in Ibiza when Paul Oakenfold’s ‘Wide Open Space’ remix came on in Pacha and it blew me away. Attack of the Grey Lantern is the debut album by English alternative rock band Mansun released on 17 February 1997 via Parlophone.We originally recorded this song with a hip hop groove and some exceptional swearing that was rejected by the record company, these versions appear on the outtakes disc of the box set and its really interesting to hear these early versions and how we finally arrived at the finished version of this song that closed the album. A bizarre pseudo rap about a transvestite vicar who cross dresses like his daughter, it seemed a good idea at the time and slightly subversive but seems a little tame by today’s standards where such things are pretty run of the mill. It doesn’t make sense in this era of streaming and the resurgence of vinyl, however the idea of this track is to reinforce the idea that the album was a skit of a conceptual record, not in fact one itself, which is obviously a paradox, which my younger self would have thought hilarious. It was complex to work out how to piece all this together, like a jigsaw, but great fun, the mastering engineer didn’t think so though.