ROY HAY was the guitarist in Culture Club. But that's over now...

"Culture club didn't really end with a 'bye-bye' concert, it just wound down. We had a tour planned, obviously George had his problems, and I was getting a bit depressed at the thought of traipsing round the world again, and we weren't being as successful any more."

Talking to Mr Hay in Virgin's offices was at least refreshing in that respect. None of this 'musical differences' lark. The band were fed up, one of them was in deep shit, and they'd passed their peak. "I said I didn't want to do the tour, and everybody else said well, neither do we." Having half expected to interview a pampered pop-star who thought the charts still owed him a living, Roy Hay was an amenable surprise.

"The last gig I did was to 18,000 people in America; the next one will be 1,000 people in Birmingham, but I'll really enjoy it because this project is close to my heart. I'm not saying the musicians are better than those in Culture Club, but the band are more exciting technically."

The project is This Way Up, a collaboration with singer Robinson Reid and a call-up of studio and session players for the album and tour. "After Culture Club I did a bit of writing and demo production for people like Curiosity — it was entertaining, but not quite what I wanted to do." He started looking for a singer — soul and R&B oriented — to augment his batch of new songs. "I got loads of tapes and listened to them all. Er... that doesn't mean I want loads more, thanks," but the right candidate eventually came through a publisher's contact.

"I'd originally thought of doing the Jellybean idea (special guests for each track), but that doesn't really work over here. I remember the guys from Heaven 17 trying to do it a few years ago ("Songs of Quality And Distinction") although I really liked that album... apart from the Paula Yates track."

Much of the material was prepared at his home studio, an enviable concoction of Soundtracs 4400 desk, and two synced up Fostex B16s: "30 tracks of recording, and it syncs up in less than two seconds.

"I tend to write from two different angles, just sitting at the guitar or piano and seeing what happens, or writing from machines. I like doing groove things, and you can't really groove at a piano and write a Janet Jackson song.

"Because I can't sing I tend to write very straight melodies and always leave them open to a singer's interpretation. One of the great thrills of being a songwriter is hearing what a really good singer can do with it."

First steps in a Hay number are some triggered drum samples, the basic chords and maybe a bass line. "I like instant availability when I'm writing which is why I've always refused to buy a Fairlight. I don't like being bogged down by the computer side of it all." The main writing tool is still the Linn 9000 sequencer and drum machine as it was on the last four Culture Club albums. "I'm waiting for the new Linn/Akai to come out which should be very soon I hope. I am getting a bit bored with the 9000, even though it is a wonderful machine... though I did have four of them before I got one that worked. Even now I remember to save to disc at every stage because they do still crash occasionally, which is a bastard. I've had that happen to me after a whole day's work."

He experimented with Sequential's rival 440 system, but found the proliferation of functions slowed up the writing.

"It's good to get a drummer to program for you," confirmed Mr Hay, as he began waving his fingers about in mid-air. "They kind of play it like a small kit, it's really weird, but drummers always program things you'd never think of, and they're very good at getting the feel right instantly so they very rarely have to go back and change the basic pattern."

At home, the whole song is compiled on the 9000 before anything goes to tape. At the studio, the 9000 sequences are transferred to Fairlight (once the instantaneous stuff is out of the way) "and I work the drums out with more dynamics. That may sound a boring way of doing it, but I quite enjoy being that meticulous with a drum track."

Only two sounds from the 9000 ever make it to the mastering stage — the cabasa and hi-hat; both so heavily gated, reckons Roy, that they come over as fairly unreal anyway. "I'm continually nicking samples from elsewhere," he confesses, not especially shamefaced.

"One of the greatest thrills of being a songwriter is hearing what a really good singer can do with it."

What about guitars? "I'm not a guitar maniac, but I do have a few nice ones. I've got a beautiful Strat which is the '82 version with a maple neck, really funky with that out of phase sound. There's an Ibanez George Benson semi which I use for slightly more mellow jazzy things, and a Les Paul I got in LA if I want to rock it up a bit. I don't use it very often, but it's a nice one."

"Some people can't believe I don't use amps." Eh? "It's mostly DI, I might occasionally run a signal out to a live area and mix it with the DI-ed sound, but apart from that I'm a big fan of the Rockman. Funny, though, sometimes you turn them on and they sound brilliant, at other times you just can't get the sounds right. They've got a real personality, it's very odd."

Outboard gear at the Hay home studio is limited to a Yamaha Rev 7 reverb, an SPX and a Bel BD80. "I still like varispeed in the studio to get that nice old Chic sound. I don't think you can beat slowing the tape down for a harmonised sound with a slight delay on it."

Hay began as a classically trained pianist, schoolboy style; "then I discovered Jimmy Page and wanted to be a guitar hero at the age of 15. I got back into keyboards when I was about 20. No regrets... I love playing the guitar, and the thought of playing keyboards live is really boring. With a guitar, at least you're mobile." He's tried the Stepp guitar synth, "and probably ought to buy one", and has used the Roland: "it did have a slight sensitivity problem, and a delay, but I used it live with Culture Club for string sounds."

He pauses for one of the few times in the interview to consider synths versus six strings: "Just to be a guitarist these days is not enough," he concludes. "If you want to make modern sounding music, it's very difficult to do that just on guitar without keyboards. Luckily there are people out there who've become so accomplished on the guitar, it's great to use them."

On 'Feelin' Good About It' he brought in axeman Glen Nightingale plus the Phantom Horns brass section to enrich the sampled brass. On tour the band will be expanded by drummer Geoff Dugmore, bassist Graham Edwards and Gary Century on keyboards.

"I also wrote a big band style song ('Inside My Love') where I got Richard Niles to do an arrangement using the Bandzilla people. That was a brilliant day. I'd written this song, played it to Richard on the piano and he took away a cassette to finish the arrangement. So I said, send me a copy of the score. I can read music but this was... yeah, er, all right Richard.

"I just turned up in the studio and all these guys are blowing and tuning up, then Richard gets on the rostrum and gives it one, two, three ...and they played my song. It was incredible. It was the best feeling, to have your song interpreted by a great arranger, and hear it back."

At this point we draw a veil over the procedings as Mr Hay swallows the lump in his throat, and return to the Virgin offices for one last story, the mixing of the album.

"What I wanted to do originally was have it mixed in New York, but everybody was saying it was sounding so good, why didn't I mix it here. So I started mixing it myself with Peter Henderson and it just wasn't sounding how I imagined. It still wasn't sounding 'mixed' to me. So it went out to America anyway, and (raising voice above the Virgin partitions) if they'd bloody listened to me in the first place we would have saved a lot of money."

How did a fresh set of ears show up on the finished product? "Well, my mixes were probably too precise because I was so aware of every overdub and every little part. I was making sure they were all in the right place, and not getting the right vibe going. In New York they use the mixing disk like an instrument, turn up from nine to five, office hours, put up the faders, get a groove going and then work in the colouring from there. They only listened to what I'd done once, so that by the time the mix was finished he wasn't bored with the song."

Mr Roy Hay. Nice bloke, even if he could do with a haircut.