Black Box Recorder: Fatal attraction

In these days of bland, prepackaged pop acts, Black Box Recorder's morbid lyrics make their songs stand out. But, Fiona Sruges asks them, isn't that commercial suicide?

Immaculately turned out in a tweed coat and scrupulously shined shoes, Luke Haines is sitting in a Camden pub, trying to explain where his band, Black Box Recorder, fit – or, rather, don't fit – into a musical landscape dominated by prepackaged pop acts and surly rock quartets. Alongside him is the similarly dapper John Moore, the one-time drummer of The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Sarah Nixey, the group's alabaster-skinned singer.

"We're not interested in other people's music," Haines thunders. "Music's gone back to a pre-Beatles era when everyone was listening to Tommy Steele and Adam Faith. It's granny music. The generation gap doesn't even exist any more. Nine-year-olds like exactly the same music as 80-year-olds. Where does that leave Black Box Recorder? Who the hell cares? We like our records – that's enough for me."

Haines's career has always been powered by contempt and a near-pathological determination to rub people up the wrong way. The former frontman of The Auteurs, he has written songs with titles such as "Unsolved Child Murder" and once recorded an LP about Seventies terrorism under the moniker Baader Meinhof ("That album's time has come"). Two years ago, he called for a pop strike, entreating musicians to down tools and consumers to put away their wallets to bring the industry to a halt.

"Oh, that," he sighs, with an air of boredom. "That was a gag based on the idea of pop stars making a stand not to work when they don't actually do anything anyway. The problem was that some people took me at my word. I found myself talking on the Today programme to John Humphrys, who was taking me seriously and saying things like, 'No, Mr Haines, I don't like pop music, either.' I don't think it was a coincidence that, soon after, the Today programme was accused of dumbing down."

Black Box Recorder specialise in pop songs spiked with scabrously cruel lyrics. It's a testament to the trio's innate morbidity that they are named after a device that relays the events leading up to fatal plane crashes. As the band's co-writers, Haines and Moore are champions of the understatement; terror lies beneath the thinly veiled normality of their lyrics. Their first, quasi-concept album, 1998's England Made Me, contained the single "Child Psychology", which advised: "Life is unfair/ Kill yourself or get over it," and was banned from national radio.

Their second, The Facts of Life, tackled, among other things, the perils of adolescence and the English motorway system. Now we have the deliciously sinister Passionoia, which investigates the meagreness of modern aspiration. In "The New Diana", the narrator dreams of "riding on a yacht, reading photo magazines" just like the Princess of Hearts; "Andrew Ridgeley" looks at the washed-up Wham! star through the eyes of a fan. But Black Box Recorder's secret weapon is Nixey, whose semi-spoken delivery lends the proceedings an air of eerie elegance.

I note that, since forming in 1997, the band are already on their third record label. What went wrong? "That's just a result of poor circumstances," insists Nixey. "The first one didn't understand us, the second went bust."

"Maybe we're on some sort of stealth mission to bankrupt the music industry," says Haines with a derisive snort. "Ha! None of those idiots would realise. Our mission could be to do damage from within."

There's a certain self-consciousness to Haines's ill temper. Even he admits that his reputation as a curmudgeon is "useful" when it comes to getting his way. "It's always good to have some sort of reputation in this business," he confides. "The nice boys in music, they come last." Really? Coldplay are not doing too badly. "True, but I bet they have their dark days." How about Travis? "OK, OK. I'm completely wrong. I guess I'll just have to mend my ways."

The quest for a hit is still something that drives Haines, having been unforthcoming in his previous projects. In 2000 he finally achieved his goal. The song "The Facts Of Life" went to No 20 in the charts. "It was done scientifically," he beams. "It was a blatant attempt to make a hit and it worked. We even got to play on Top of the Pops. What people fail to understand is that making records is really very easy. But then everything that we write sounds like a hit to us. Whether it gets played on the radio or is liked by critics is not really within our control. I'm a bit too long in the tooth to worry about things like that."

Moore says he gave up chasing the pop dream years ago. After his three-year tenure with The Jesus and Mary Chain in the mid-Eighties, he moved to New York and struck out on his own. "I had my real stab at stardom then," he recalls. "I guess I got it out of my system. I released two extremely expensive records, which few people bought. I realised in the end that I was fairly ridiculous. I had huge hair and a huge ego, both of which needed squashing. I think you need to have all your ambitions dashed before you can approach a career in music with any seriousness."

I wonder how the band would cope with the attention if they had a real Robbie Williams-sized hit. "Oh, I think we'd rise to the occasion," laughs Moore. "In my mind there still is that element of greed: the first-class travel, big hotel rooms, great clothes and restaurants. But as long as you have enough money to do the next record the way you want it, I guess that's fine. I think success is just being able to continue."

The three met during a studio recording of a band called Balloon. Nixey was singing backing vocals, while Moore and Haines had been drafted in to play on a couple of songs. Moore remembers feeling an "instant chemistry" with Haines. "We both laughed at terrible things," he recalls cheerfully. It was Moore's idea to start the band. He had even decided on the name, having recently been on a flight where he was convinced the plane was suffering mechanical failure.

Nixey, to whom Moore is now married, got involved a few weeks later when she received a mysterious fax. "It said, 'Come and sing a song for us, we'll make you famous,'" she recalls. "Later John rang me and sang the song down the phone. First I thought, 'They've got a nerve,' but then I got a bit curious. How could I possibly resist?"

Nixey says she's happy not to get involved with the songwriting. Yet one of the most striking things about Black Box Recorder's lyrics is their acute female perspective. "Oh yes, we've got a highly developed feminine side," says Moore unconvincingly. "You've got to understand that we're writing specifically for Sarah – there's nobody else who could do what she does."

"I have a theory about having a bespoke existence," says Haines. "As songwriters, we're very good tailors. When there are no records around that we want to buy we simply make one that we like. That way we get to create our own bespoke world while listening to quality music. It's that simple."

The single 'These Are the Things' is out on Monday on One Little Indian. 'Passionoia' is released on 3 March