These Chains

Introduction: Steve Hogarth in the Radiation press release said: "I think with These Chains and the album generally, a lot of it's to do with my reaching forty, and watching my friends' lives as well. You're twenty and you've got your dreams and ambitions; in your thirties, you begin to feel like you're a proper person; then when you get to the end of your thirties, it all starts to fall apart again. This sudden disillusion of things that you thought were solid and sorted.

"One early morning I was driving through the countryside and the sun was rising on the fields and it was really beautiful", reflects the vocalist, "and I thought this is the one thing they can't take from you. They can take your house, people can leave you, but there's something going on here and it's for everyone. And I thought a lot of our perceptions of what we need are misplaced. Like in that song, the themes, 'these chains are all your own, this cage was unlocked all the time'.

"The chorus there sort of sums up the album and links the personal statement of something like Now She'll Never Know and the little story of the Three Minute Boy. They're both about people being victims of themselves, or people who fail to deal with the things that are happening to them. All the albums I've done have been very personal, they're just where I am at the time."

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