WHEN THE STEREO MCs released Deep Down & Dirty in 2001, their first album after a nine-year hiatus, it was with a sense of unease, rather than a celebration of the band's return.
'Re-entering orbit,' said frontman Rob Birch twitchily on the tense title track. And it was an aggressive, rather wired album that reintroduced Stereo MCs to a public who had heard or seen little activity since 1992's acclaimed Connected LP.
Birch says his mood and that of Stereo MCs partner Nick Hallam (the band also comprises drummer Owen Rossiter and vocalist Cath Coffey) around the release of Deep Down & Dirty was defensive - as if any minute they expected a door to swing open and a mob to be waiting to pounce.
'I think unconsciously we had to come out with our fists up,' says Birch from his home in Brixton, London. 'Because the press in England can really turn on you. Everybody was saying that if it's not as successful as Connected, then we're a failure. And if you're a failure in England, people turn their back on you.
'So we really felt like we had to come out with our fists up and be ready for the bulls***. And I think we were right. We had to come out in a warrior stance, because we felt that was the only way we could deal with the music business at that point. It was really a bit like we'd been boxed up, dead, ready to be buried, but then we were punching the lid off the coffin.'
Birch says the nine-year break between Connected and Deep Down & Dirty - a period during which many acts would have imploded - was necessary for him and Hallam to try to pick up the pieces of their dysfunctional personal lives.
