Julian Colbeck drops in for coffee and bagels with a band who know what it's like to be big in Japan...

If you are Japanese, Workshy are a band who have made it: singer Chrysta Jones is a star; their songs, songs to be covered and coveted; their street-chic London style, a style to be copied, admired, photographed, talked about.

The band are signed directly to a Japanese label (Fuji's Pony Canyon), they only tour in the far east, and rather than merely have they exude a sound that's as smooth as silk. Yet Workshy are an entirely English outfit. And to complete the incongruities and contradictions, their high gloss, breathily vocalled music is currently being knocked into shape in what can best be described as a decorative minimalist's delight at the end of Brick Lane, deep in the heart of Bethnal Green.

"Bagel?", asks Mike McDermot as we finally open the double dead-locked front door and push past a giant screen and wardrobe-sized flightcase into the studio in question, a small writing and demo room. When in Bethnal Green... and damn fine they were too. Over a steaming cup of frothy deli coffee Chrysta explains why they decided to look for a space in the first place.

"Working in people's flats became a pain in the arse. For a start you've got to solve the problem of whose flat you're going to work in when there's three of you writing. And it always ended up in my flat. That was the problem, so we started looking."

At that point Workshy was a 3-piece. Guitarist and cowriter Kevin Kehoe parted company with them a few months ago. The reduction of the group to a duo doesn't seem to a problem musically, but Kevin was the most technically-minded of the trio, and this mantle of responsibility has fallen on to Mike's half-reluctant shoulders.

"We were always behind when it came to technology," admits Chrysta. "We were still recording onto a dictaphone when everyone else was into hard disk. But once we got a bit of up to date technology we had to start taking ourselves a bit more seriously."

Needless to say, the thought of £50 a week rent provides a reasonable incentive to knuckle down. There's also the psychological bonus of 'going to work' — a new and different space. The name of the band clearly has some significance, as Chrysta freely admits that "there are times when we come here, sit, talk crap for half a day, have lunch, and go home." But as Mike points out: "Most people do that at work anyway. It's just that they have to hide it. We don't."

"Hangovers allowing," Chrysta and Mike come in five days a week. Essentially they use the studio for arranging and organising songs rather than initial writing. They find that ideas are best generated away from all forms of sequencing or gadgetry, written simply on guitar or piano. Once a song idea has gained some form of identity, they'll come to the studio to develop the idea and work on the arrangements.

"Otherwise ideas tend to become formulated by the technology," says Chrysta. "You know, repeat that phrase here, or that chorus there. Sequencing shows you too quickly what a song is going to be like. It doesn't give you a chance to live the song first."

"The joy of this stuff, though, is that it allows you to arrange to a greater level than you are actually capable of playing," says Mike, himself an accomplished bass player who's effectively abandoned the instrument in favour of a share of lead vocals and plenty of songwriting.

Workshy are just embarking on some more recording with producer Glen Skinner, who produced tracks on both the debut album The Golden Mile, and the follow-up Ocean.

"He'll come over to hear what we're up to, like he did last week. We played him the song we thought he'd like to do," Chrysta explains. "He had this big drive, which he plugged into the back of our S1000, that had loads of loops on it. So he can generally bring it closer to being pre-production. We're going to go into the studio with a drummer, then sample it and bring it back here and loop it all up."

In terms of equipment, the S1000 does the lion's share of the work albeit, at 2MB, with pitifully little internal memory — much to Mike and Chrysta's evident embarrassment. "Still, it helps bring what we do to life."

Notator with Unitor runs on the Atari, which is linked to the splendidly low-tech Studiomaster Studio 4 4-track recorder/mixer, a chunky 6-input box of tricks almost totally devoid of LEDs or displays, on which vocals and the odd bit of guitar can nonetheless be recorded.

Although it is Mike who formally acts as engineer (they'll occasionally get someone in to mix): "Even I, who refuses to learn it, know how to use Notator just by being within feet of it," says Chrysta.

Atop the S1000 are a couple of processors — a DEP5 and a GP16, the latter used extensively live. On top of these is the rare sight of a Korg P3 piano module, which both Mike and Chrysta swear by. "Great piano samples," they maintain. Far better than anything in the loyal M1 parked alongside. They also love what they call the P3's "Bergerac guitar" tone. Underneath the rack lies a somewhat dusty old Grundig turntable ("for when the CD isn't available for sampling off"). When Workshy occupied the basement of their current workspace they were showing some people around the premises, talking about the theoretical problem with rats in such a location. "Though we hadn't actually seen any," says Chrysta. "And then we turned around and saw this massive dead rat draped across our turntable."

The move upstairs followed soon after.

A Seck 1682 provides more than enough inputs, even when Chrysta's trusty Casio CZ1000 and a spare Kawai K5 are brought into play. The Seck, like the Studiomaster, is strangely devoid of LEDs, and Mike feels that the EQ isn't as good as that on the Studiomaster. The Studiomaster can get rather hungry for tapes, though, as Chrysta reminds him, fingering her large TOA mic and demonstrating how easy it is to erase half your tracks on the wretched thing because of the miniscule, hard-to-see track select buttons.

"For the moment we still mix down onto cassette," says Mike. "It's the weakest link in our chain. We really must get a DAT." It's nonetheless important to accept a room's limitations, and work within them. People who spend thousands producing 'better than average' demos — but still demos — would perhaps be better off spending the time and effort on the raw songs rather than on the technology. It's a lesson Workshy seemed to have learned well. Accordingly, problems with soundproofing, or engineering anomalies, don't phase them at all.

"We did a bunch of backing vocals and sampled them off, and they had this weird... well, they were crap basically, but they've got this weird quality and I think we'll end up using them in the final recording of this single."

As far as extensive sampling goes, Workshy currently favour restraint when it comes to using sampling as a labour saving device for vocals on repeated sections. Chrysta, who undertakes most of the lead vocals, feels this further "rigidifies" music "that's already becoming rigid" by extensive use of loops.

"I don't want to get into the position where you're being sucked into the technology, more than thinking about the music," maintains Chrysta. Fine, but how do you safeguard against that? "You just be really illiterate," she says with a knowing smile.

Workshy's current single, 'Never The Same Again', taken off Ocean, was originally recorded in Lisbon. "It was our first sojourn into loopage," laughs Chrysta. "It's also got this sort of emulated conga that's taken from Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. It got picked up on by Cowboy in the UK, and has been remixed a couple of times."

This latest remix is by Kiss FM's Dr. Bob Jones, though Ashley & John, aka Black Science Orchestra, first remixed the track earlier in 1992.

Workshy were originally signed to Magnet, back in 1988, and were later inherited by WEA. "It always meant that our A&R person never actually chose us," says Chrysta.

Nonetheless The Golden Mile managed to gain good enough exposure in Japan, thanks to a lively international department, and keen-eared anglophile and independent promoter Toshi Yajima. When WEA bowed out there were several offers on the table from Japanese labels. Despite the strange — to English ears — name, it was Pony Canyon who won out.

Are there any problems, I wondered, being signed to a Japanese record company?

"I think the company sort of regards us as sort of mid-European pop," says Chrysta, wincing at the thought of it. "The first day we went to Japan we got into a lift and we heard our record... that's how they see us, lovely swaying palm trees and a nice cocktail dress and soft vocals.

"It's like, their favourite question in Japan is 'Has anyone ever told you you're like Swing Out Sister?', or 'you like Sade?' What might offend us culturally might not offend them. They can't understand why we don't like to be thought of as 'pop'. There's this group called Grasshopper, who have a number one album throughout SE Asia, who covered one of our tunes. It was already pretty cheesy, but it was knowingly cheesy, and they took it, you know, literally."

There's also the pressure to repeat a winning formula. Whilst this is hardly unique to the Japanese market, the pair are amazed at how literally 'repeat' means in this context. "They want us to repeat it exactly. That many ballads, that many pop-latin tunes, the same producers, the same musicians. And if not the same musicians, then the same musicians that Sade uses," sighs Chrysta, clearly up to here with that comparison.

Perhaps the most striking difference, however, is simply that of culture; how you treat people, how you're expected to behave. Chrysta recalls how, during their most recent Japanese tour, the band's Japanese liaison breezed up to her before the first show with a request: "You wear corset".

"I said, oh, really, why? 'You too fat,' he said. I mean, God, they're so diplomatic. And then they arrived with a corset that would fit a Barbie doll. So I put it on and looked like the Michelin man, and asked them if they still wanted me to wear it.

"We never drink before we go on stage. Just one beer perhaps, but once the road manager, who I'd never even met before, came up to me and said 'excuse me, no drinking before stage'.

"I couldn't believe it. I told him to **** off and die, and to leave me alone. I was a grown woman, and I didn't need telling I can't have half a can of Heineken before I go on stage. It wasn't like it was a whole bottle of Schnapps or something."

Workshy may sound all breezy and innocent, but this slimmed down (and not remotely fat) twosome is clearly not to be meddled with.

Plans are already afoot for a move in the new year to new premises, and a re-equip, perhaps with a pair of ADATs so that work can be taken to the next level, or beyond, in-house. Not that Workshy intend to get sucked into the technology trap themselves; an engineer will have to be found for this venture.