Armed with a drum machine, several guitars and a plentiful supply of leather and dry ice, the Sisters Of Mercy have been staging their own invasion of the Goths. Guitarist Wayne Hussey sounds off from behind his shades.

"This has always been an ambition of mine, y'know, to be interviewed by a technical magazine. It's good for the ego, all this talking about guitars, effects, and amps..."

But before we fulfil Wayne Hussey's ambition, a brief word about his involvement in popular music: after playing in various groups, most notably Dead Or Alive, he joined the Sisters Of Mercy around a year ago, bringing stability to their line-up, and a certain raucous expertise to their music. After a succession of singles on their own Mercyful Release label, both as an indie and under license to WEA, the Sisters Of Mercy finally released their debut LP in March of this year.

To everybody's surprise, not least Martin their press officer ("everyone's going to say we hyped it!"), the album charted at number 14 — a phenomenal showing for a band normally considered little more than post-Punk doom-mongers. I asked Wayne about their sudden leap to chart status:

"Apparently we were down-weighted by Gallup over regional sales — we sell a lot of records in places like Birmingham, and none in Cornwall, so they figured we were being hyped up North. But what happens is our very diehard following all go out and buy it in the first week; it'll go down from now on, though it seems we sold as many records as Howard Jones in the first week."

From the glossy black sleeve to the monochrome photos of the black-clad musicians, First And Last And Always is a grimmo tour-de-force. The music is a grinding lumpen machine, a thunderous bass-heavy roar, overlaid by the mannered intoning of Andrew Eldritch's baritone vocals. But what sets the Sisters Of Mercy apart from numerous musically similar 'gothic' groups is the absence of those noisesome tribal tom-toms — a differentiation due mainly to the Sister's espousal of drum machines instead of drummers. So I was surprised to note a credit on the LP sleeve for 'Doktor Avalanche — drums'. Why did you feel it necessary to ditch the drum machine, Wayne?

"Doktor Avalanche is the drum machine." Ooops.

"We have an Oberheim DMX. We used to use a Roland TR808, but since we signed to WEA and they gave us lots of money, we've used the DMX. I had worked with one in the past, so I knew how to operate it," he added, "and I like the sounds on it — they're very middly, which means you can take them to extremes; whereas a Linn has extreme sounds you can't take the other way — it just sounds like a Linn, while the DMX sounds like a drum machine."

You are often compared to gothic bands like the Cult.

"We're not gothic at all."

...but your drum patterns set you apart — who programs the DMX?

"Live, when we go out on tour, I do it. In the studio, Andrew does it as well."

Although the Sisters Of Mercy are guitar-oriented, they do occasionally flesh out their songs with keyboards, adding textures to their recorded works.

"We don't use any keyboards live, either synths or sequencers. There's nothing triggered on the LP either, unless it's guitars or basses used in the AMS.

"The keyboards we did use were a Wave, and a piano, which we treated heavily. Oh — and a harp... zither sort of thing that sits on your knee. It was difficult to mike up as it was so quiet; even when I used a plectrum on it, all you got was room noise. We eventually loaded the sounds into the AMS, and played it from there."

(Technical point: AMS are a British firm who make the most fabulously wonderful programmable reverb/delay/harmoniser units known to man. Not only are they triggerable, they're so good you forget the only thing they can't do is make the tea.)

"We did quite a lot of work with the AMS — mandolin-type things, using an acoustic, harmonised up, then triggered... it's a complicated business, this making records lark."

While the group are known for their espousal of loud and distorted Rock guitar sounds, most of the upfront six string on First And Last... is actually acoustic — a hard bright sound that Wayne describes as "shimmery".

"I've got a Fender six string — an F65 — with a pickup inside it. That goes through the AMS to harmonise it. It's a great guitar for studio work, though you can't use it live because of feedback. But I just love that bright acoustic sound."

What other guitars do you use?

"I've got an Aria 12-string electric which I picked up real cheap, for around £250."

Is it the RS800?

"Dunno... it's been... er... slightly customised. Well, I've broken some of the knobs off," he confessed shamelessly, "and covered it in gaffer tape. I hate the natural wood finish on those guitars — horrible.

"Lots of people say it's difficult playing a 12-string, what with tuning problems and all that, but it's not. I don't string it orthodoxly though, as I've found that the octave G string is always out of tune, no matter what you do; I just use another G of the same gauge, so it's strung like the E and B. 12-strings are very under-rated: try putting one through a fuzz box — it's got such an edge to it, a real rooooaaargh;"

Wayne growled and waved his hands to indicate the sheer enormity of his sound. I asked if he ever used a more conventional guitar:

"I've got a Johnstone six-string. I had a Telecaster that kept cutting out on me, just before we went off on a European tour, so I borrowed this Johnstone off of Flesh For Lulu. But I trashed it one night when I was completely out of it, so I couldn't give it back. In the end I told them to keep the Tele, and I kept the Johnstone. That's another guitar that's held together by gaffer tape, even after I spray-painted it.

"That's a good guitar, very easy to play, and it has a very dirty sound, even when you play it quietly. It's kinda like a Telecaster shape, but with a double cutaway. I don't have any other guitars. Gary, our other guitarist, used to have a Shergold six-string — that was nice — but he smashed it up on stage one night, so we had to buy him something else. He uses a Gibson L6-S now.

On stage, Wayne uses two amps to handle the stereo output from his pedal board, a Roland Jazz Chorus 120 and a Marshall top and 4x12 cabinet.

"I use them in the studio as well; I used to just use the Roland but I found it a bit too sweet at times. It's got brilliant chorus, but the reverb and distortion are a bit shitty. They're great amps, but I need to use the Marshall for the bollocks — that gritty kind of noise that makes your ears bleed."

Where does the stereo source come from?

"My Deluxe Memory Man echo: the direct signal goes to the Marshall and the echo goes to the Roland. The amps stand next to each other on stage. The other foot pedals I use are all Boss — distortion, a compressor, a flanger, and a phaser. Boss make very good pedals for the money."

Where did you record First And Last?

"All over the place. Most studios are much the same once you get inside them; it's the environment around them that makes the difference. Like we did the bulk of it at Strawberry in Stockport — a really dour town. Brilliant studio, brilliant people working there, which makes it ideal for working in as there's nothing else to do. But at Genetic, where they have swimming pools, tennis courts, and things, it's easy to get distracted."

The album, recorded over a nine month period with much time off for touring, was produced by Dave Allen, whose best known work to date is the Cure's The Top. He was also Martin Rushent's house engineer at Genetic, where he worked on the Human League's massively successful Dare LP.

"He's really good, a really funny guy. More of a mediator, sitting there saying 'let's get it together'. He was more of a drug casualty than the rest of us too — completely bonkers... like he set fire to the mixing desk while we were mixing! He poured lighter fuel all over the desk, put all the lights out, and threw a match onto it — whoof! Desk up in flames! Didn't do any damage, but it was a brilliant effect. We ended up calling him 'Trolley'..."

Because he was off it?

"Right. Seriously though, he was essential inasmuch as he had the expertise to help us realise our vision of the songs. Mixing's a big job for us, as we tend to record more things than we need, just to give us more options to play with. We all get heartily involved, as that's where you decide what the song's gonna sound like."

The Sisters of Mercy spend much of their time gigging, as the time taken to complete the LP indicates. I asked Wayne if they preferred being on the road to being in the studio:

"They both have different satisfactions. When you write a song, and you hear it being built up in the studio, it's the most brilliant self-gratifying feeling. Live, you get that instant response; in the studio you have to rely on instinct, but live you have the audience say 'yes'."

Do you listen to your own records? Wayne laughed:

"More than anyone else's. The way I see our music, we make records to fill in the gap in our record collections."

So who are you filed between?

"Er... the Doors, Iggy, Pink Floyd, Led Zep, Television, Jimi, Beethoven, soundtrack music — we fit in around those things."

But now you've made your first LP, hasn't that plugged some of those gaps? Where are the Sisters of Mercy going next?

"This LP is an exorcism in a way, as it encapsulates our method of working up to this point. It would be difficult to do another LP in the same way without repeating ourselves.

"I did get to the point where I thought 'this is it — all I've ever learned about playing guitar is there on that record'; that was exhilarating and depressing, as I felt I had nothing left. But we went away to New York, got pissed, took some drugs, came back and it was like 'heee — I've got an idea'.

"We've only recorded one song since the LP (BloodMoney, the B-side of Walk Away) but that was a really good exercise. It was the first time we'd ever arranged a song around the vocals, rather than laying them over the top of the track. What we normally do is write, using guitars, on a Portastudio. Generally someone comes up with the music as a very rough demo on the Portastudio, and Andrew puts words and melody... er...," (Wayne raised his eyebrows at his own use of the word "melody" to describe Andrew Eldritch's singing),"... vocal line over that."

While the Sisters Of Mercy can readily claim that their faithful fans are numerous enough to chart their debut LP, it's doubtful that even their following could put them into the Top 40, and thus onto TOTP. Wayne has strong views on the importance of Pop success:

"We come from the left-field of the music business, and it would be really good for us, or someone like us, to be really massive like Duran Duran or Wham!, as it would open doors for so many bands."

Aren't you a bit bleak for daytime Radio One?

"We're not bleak — we're realistic."