Scaramanga Six are a British rock band playing at The Brief next Saturday. Here founding member Steven Morricone talks to Graham Moody about life in an 'evil pop group', the music industry and his best and worst festival line-ups.

Graham Moody: You've just realised your sixth album, was it long in the making?

Steven Morricone: This one was actually made very quickly because our fifth album is still unfinished. We were working on it the past couple of years with Tim Smith from the Cardiacs but he had a near fatal heart attack last summer and it would have been quite insensitive to push it through. So we decided around September to start a new one from scratch and so far it's been labelled as our best yet.

GM: What can people expect?

SM: We have often billed ourselves as an evil version of a pop group. To our ears what we play is pop mostly but to others it can be a little over the top and extreme at times. We put have stripped it back a bit on this album and there are some quite gentle moments which is unusual for us.

GM: You're self-managed and self-releasing, has that always been the intention?

SM: We do absolutely everything ourselves and we've been doing that so long it just seems natural. I have seen many bands I rate gets to the point of being involved with a large recording label where it all gets watered down and the band regret it. We are not against the music industry, we just find it much more satisfying being able to do it ourselves.

GM: What band would you like to have been in?

SM: I'm in my favourite band ever, being able to do everything exactly how we want to. I suppose personally I would always like to have done Jean-Jacques Burnel's job in The Stranglers.

GM: What song would you like to have written?

SM: Probably one of the old standard songs, If I Ruled The World. My favourite version was done by James Brown.

GM: What would be your fantasy festival line up?

SM: The Cardiacs, Magazine (who have reformed now), someone like Otis Reading and probably something latin, like Sergio Mendes.

GM: And your nightmare line-up?

SM: Oasis and Chris de Burgh - all that's bad about British music.

Scaramanga Six supported by Zag & The Coloured Beads and The Display Team, The Brief, May 9, 8pm, £4. Call 020 8686 6878 or thescaramangasix.co.uk.