ROCK pop act Mansun come to a sellout East Lancashire gig this week, bringing their new hard-edged rock sound with them. Guitarist Dominic Chad tells PAUL BARRY how the band have changed direction musically and tried to shake off their reputation for bad behaviour.

THE bad-boy image which Mansun have been tagged with is not wholly deserved, according to guitarist Dominic Chad. Scouring the Internet for information on the band, I found one site which claimed the band's many antics included running from security guards after Chad drop-kicked a pint glass at an illegal drinking den in London, running up a £4,000 bill after a rampage at a Newcastle hotel which ended when the building was evacuated.

Another of the 101 band facts listed was that the group are banned from all Hard Rock Cafes worldwide.

So, I asked Chad, who prefers to be called by his second name, is it all true?

"I'm not sure I remember some of those things. I think a lot of it got blown out of all proportion.

"We all knew each other before we became a band, so when we formed the group we just used to enjoy ourselves like we did before. We were just carrying on as we always did, but in the end we found it was affecting us as a band. We were getting onstage having arguments and not playing well.

"We decided that as people wanted to come and see us we should make a bit more of an effort to put on a show."

The band have also moved ground musically, and their new, harder sound has seen them easing their way onto all the right radio playlists. Chad said: "We have changed our sound quite a lot and I think people are quite surprised by just how much. We want to move forwards as a band - we don't want to make the same records over and over again.

"We are more comfortable playing live than we are in the studio. That's part of why the new record sounds different and more raw, because we've tried to make it sound more like the way we play live. So we set up live in the studio and that's when we came up with the ideas."

On their last visit to Blackburn, Mansun supported Suede, with whom they are now good friends. Mansun return to King George's Hall, Blackburn, where they play the smaller play Windsor Suite on Friday.

With the live music situation at King George's Hall likely to be choked for some time by structural problems inside the main hall, this may prove a rare chance to catch a top young rock act at the venue.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.