[TheBang]

When you get the monitoring right, do you deliver a better performance?
Yeah, you do. When you get that sweet spot as well. That’s one of the things I like about having Funktion-One behind us - it just feels fantastic. There’s a bit that’s been completed on the inside of your head. You feel like you’ve got all your skills available and you can take them anywhere.

The brilliant thing about working with John… I spent years and years in the ‘80s, spending hours trying to explain to monitor engineers what I was hearing. It would just go on and on and on, and it’s so demoralising. John walks up, and tweaks, it takes him less than a minute and he gets it. He understands. He’s a master. He is a master, there’s no question. When I went out on tour with my own band last year, I refused to go unless John was available. There’s just no point because you end up getting into these conversations about sound, which are untranslatable. But because we’ve grown up with John and also because he is such a master – he’s an extraordinary sound engineer – you just say to him, ‘John, can you just do that thing that you do’ and it’s great.

In our early days, when we’d go and play some clubs in America and other countries, the sound system would almost literally be falling to pieces, I remember club owners would be coming up to John and shaking his hand, saying, ‘Oh my god, how did you get it to sound like that?’ He just understands.

Some people are really good with animals, John is fantastic with sound and speakers.