Moving on to when Hugh Cornwell left, that must have been quite a shock? Did it make you question your own future with the band at the time?
JJ: Yeah. Obviously he'd thought it through, so I didn't try to stop him. He's not as rash as I am. My first thought was that it would be the end of the band, but of course, there were more than just me and Hugh in the band. Jet and Dave wanted to continue and also we'd already written most of the material for the next album. We starting looking for a singer and found Paul. He's been really brave, because he was not accepted by the majority of fans for a long time. Effectively, we had to start from scratch.
You took a bit of a back seat vocally when Paul joined didn't you?
JJ: I did, yes. I wanted him to take the lead and have the chance to assert himself. We knew the fans wouldn't like the change at first and it was important for them to see what Paul was like. It's taken us 13 years with Paul to re-establish ourselves.

Have you organically grown together into a new band or have you made some conscious musical changes along the way?
JJ: Well a few things were conscious, like me not singing for the first few years with the new line-up. But I still think we can claim to be The Stranglers. It's been quite a healthy process though; I don't think we had a lot more life left in the old line-up. I think we'd gone as far as we could have done and now, 13 years on, we a more confident band.

What would you say has been the key to the band's longevity?
JJ: Definitely a collective determination and never losing sight of what we're all about. I still want to write and develop my writing and interpret the way I see the world. Also, we're still a stonking band live. Paul is quite something to behold on stage! I think the key really is that we don't leave in a musical vcauum, we all do other things and enjoy getting together to do this.

So what else can The Stranglers achieve now?
JJ: We're just going to continue to write good music. We get older, have different haircuts along the way, but the music should stand the test of time and out-live your grey hair and wrinkles. We're working on our new album now and we hope to finish it this year.

To read The Stranglers' biog, click here.
Check out The Stranglers' official web site.