Inside the hotel suite where Beyond is holding court a showbiz reporter from one of the local tabloids is firing away. 'What do you think of the pictures of you frolicking on the beach?' the hack asks bassist Steve Wong Ka-keung. Steve murmurs a barely audible reply, as guitarist Paul Wong Kwun-chung and drummer Yip Sai-wing grin sardonically.
Being the music-first, image-second rock band they have always aspired to be, recent publicity Beyond has received in the best-selling dailies has not exactly been the sort they would welcome. Pictures have appeared of bassist Steve enjoying the sun with a certain starlet, while Paul was - and still is - under scrutiny by the paparazzi over his relationship with actress Athena Chu Yan.
Not that any of this worries Beyond much, however. The trio joke about Steve's latest flirtation with the sleaze-hungry press with ease; having been around for more than 15 years, they understand the business well enough not to fret over such trivialities.
What furrows their brows nowadays, however, are rumours of an imminent split - 'substantiated' by some newspapers through the increasing number of side-projects the trio are involved on an individual basis, the latest being Yip's capacity as musical director for The End Of Love Generation, a theatre production that ended last weekend.
'As we grow up we of course harbour different tastes towards music,' says Steve. 'We don't find it a negative thing to go out and do our own projects once in a while; I think that actually is a healthy way to go about, it's much better than us sticking together all the time trying to think up new things.' The trio are indeed going off on different tangents in terms of creative style. The difference their solo projects projected - Steve's Canto-pop credits, Paul's riff-driven guest performances as well as Yip's studio knob-fiddling - are illustrated on Until You Are Here, their last studio outing.
Steve's contribution conforms more to the aesthetics of conventional pop, while Paul delivers stretching symphonies of guitar noise. Yip's only composition, meanwhile, is peppered with electronic effects and a solid beat, harking back to his training as a drummer and a more recent infatuation with dance music.
What unites all the elements on the album is an obvious mellowing out. Pompous anthems like Grey Trail or Wide Oceans And Skies have become things of the past, replaced by subtlety and simplicity.