James Attlee predicts big things for exciting Liverpool group.

Influences are not confined to the musical. "There's a Polish writer called Bruno Schultz who wrote a book called 'The Street Of Crocodiles', which is basically episodes in a imaginative life of a boring person in a boring town. There were various ideas in it I found interesting. In the title story, the hero is walking down a street when he suddenly gets this weird feeling that the whole place is like a movie set, which reminded me of Phillip K. Dick, who is another writer I really like.

Surely being responsible for playing all those different instruments must create pressures for Tim, l suggested. Wouldn't it be easier to draft in some support?

"We've been together five years," revealed Pete. "There was another feller who came in just long enough to change everything and then leave, so we're a bit suspicious about getting anyone else in. We'd rather use tapes and have the two of us who are 200 percent."

Having virtually all the instruments played by one person, whose technique is frankly idiosyncratic at times, adds to the uniqueness of the Free Zone sound. One trade mark are the atmospheric keyboard sounds-often comprising of simple repetitive figures layered in away somewhat reminiscent of solo Brian Eno, before his ambient days. Tim handles the charge of being somewhat of a primitive on the ivories with aplomb.

"I listen to people like- I don't know, who's a sharp keyboard player these days? Bruce Hornsby, say, and I go 'he's quite flashy isn't he? 'l suppose l can do some flashy stuff, but when we were recording I'd actually worked out in advance some more complicated parts and we'd put the guitars down and the organ part or something, then we'd put the piano down and it would spoil it, it would be too much. The engineer was a very good guy, and he'd say 'do you mind me saying this, I think it spoils it,' and we'd go 'oh good, we think so too'."

Was the low-tech approach, using organ and soon, very much a conscious decision I wondered?

"It's just a personal preference for sounds. Most of the keyboard playing around apart from the 'house' piano is very textural, and l like that but...l don't know if the fact that I listen to classical music as well has an influence. I just love the sound of Hammond organ, and it was the fact that they had one at Amazon Studios that was one of the deciding factors in going to record there."

The Free Zone are currently looking forward to venturing out more often live beyond Liverpool's somewhat incestuous city limits, where gigs tend to attract the same faces - "I find it so much more invigorating playing to a bunch of complete strangers," says Tim - but at the same time have no plans to ship out at the first whiff of success.

"If you go to Manchester you find that the bands that have made it are still around and being of some assistance, like New Order putting up the money for the club that has played a key part in the city's musical prominence. Everyone who comes from Liverpool, if they ever make it big, they're never seen again!"

They have aimed their live appearances at the pub/club/college circuit rather than choosing to appear on any Christian circuit.

"The only Christian gig we ever played in Liverpool was The Crossfire Festival," explained Pete. "It was a weird thing, I don't think they knew what to do with us."

"There was a real feeling of Christian love there," explains Tim, "but the music was so awful! Basically we want to see bands that make us go whooah, they're really good!"

"Making good art is good in itself," states Pete, the thinking-man' stub-thumper.

"It's a real powerful witness, I think it's underestimated by a lot of people," adds Tim. "If I was not a Christian, what would impress me would not be a bunch of Billy Grahams. What would impress me would be people that communicated to me on my level. One thing that impressesmeaboutU2isthatthey're utterly natural. Everything that comes out is very much what Bono feels - it's not trite, it's not trying to adopt a persona."

Triteness is a characteristic that's never suffered gladly in the city that serves as the band's base. Their home and the headquarters of their record label Cheep Records is in Liverpool 8, famous for its riots and as a politician's pit stop photo opportunity. "It was great, the local gangster just got arrested, we were laughing our heads off," Tim told me.

"He's the fella that when they have Panorama documentaries on Toxteth they go and talk to this guy as a representative of the local community, and him and his associates will be going on about how they never ever have anything to do with the hard drugs, which is what they've just been arrested for..."

Plenty of opportunity for weird paranoid feelings to work up into songs for the next Free Zone release, no doubt. For now, we'll have to make do with the love of Mammon.'