Q. Are all the tracks new? Were they all written specially for the album?
A.Four Tet, Rasputina, Franz Ferdinand, Half Man Half Biscuit, The Kooks, Jonathan Richman, Belle & Sebastian and Kathryn Williams all wrote and recorded new material especially for the album. The Snow Patrol and Divine Comedy songs are cover versions especially recorded for the album. The Barcelona Pavilion song has been released previously.
Q. Why was the album put together?
A."I woke up one day with a song in my head about monkeys breaking out of the zoo. I played it to the rest of Belle and Sebastian, and we recorded it, then started to decide what on earth we were going to do with it. Someone suggested putting together an album of lots of different bands playing their own songs for children, and releasing it for charity." Mick Cooke of Belle and Sebastian, who recorded "The Monkeys Are Breaking Out the Zoo"
Q.What does Save the Children do?
A. Save the Children fights for children in the UK and around the world who suffer from poverty, disease, injustice and violence, working with them to find lifelong answers to the problems they face.
Q. Why is the money going to Save the Children?
A."Save the Children was an obvious choice, being specifically for children, and well-known globally." Mick Cooke of Belle and Sebastian
"I had a safe and happy childhood, but not everyone is that lucky. Save The Children is a charity that quietly works hard at making life better for children around the world who suffer because of the situation around them." Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand
Q.What will the money be spent on?
A. Funds from the album will go to Save the Children's Rewrite the Future campaign to provide quality education for 8 million children in areas around the world affected by war and conflict.
Q.How much will the album cost?
A. £9.99 in shops available from all usual music retail outlets and major online retailer ssuch as iTunes.
Q.What was recording the songs like?
A."We wanted to make our version of the song sound as if it was made in space. There are two ways to do this. Either, you can make it in space. This is tricky as it involves actually becoming an astronaut. The training alone takes years and I've heard you need to be very good at mathematics for some reason and I'm not very good at maths at all. This only leaves one more option, that we give the song a spacey feel. So we sprinkled some space dust (that we bought at a special market) on top of the song and now it sounds like it was made far above the earth. Really it was made in a studio in Ireland but if you don't tell anyone I won't either."
Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, who recorded "I Am an Astronaut"
"We were very happy to record for the Colours are Brighter album since, like most people in bands, we tend to think like children anyway. When Iwas a kid I hated songs that were too nice. I didn't care about whether the wheels on the bus went round or if we were going to the zoo tomorrow.Me and my brother used to make up revolting words for pop songs instead. Iused to love stories that were gory, particularly Roald Dahl, Shock Headed Peter and Grimm Fairy Tales. Jackie Jackson is from that world - he's a horrible boy who meets a horrible end."
Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, who recorded "Jackie Jackson"
"It was very flattering to be asked to be involved in this project. One of the good things about being successful is to be able to do something positive with your music. When you are on the road for so long, it's easy to forget that you can. I wrote the song on the bus while in Europe, I wanted to make a song that was fun but had a message and had this idea of using an 'evil King' as a metaphor.
This king takes everything away from the children, he won't let them play or eat chocolate, but the children soon find out that there is more power in numbers than in the foolish king.
We had fun recording it as well, the other guys came up with a kind of 'grange hill' style groove. Anyway I hope it makes a difference. It was a real honour to be on the CD, love from all The Kooks."
Luke Pritchard of the Kooks, who recorded "The King & I"
"My daughter Hollis, who was 6 at the time, told a friend that she had just seen a skeleton banging his head on a tombstone in the cemetery. She swore that she truly did see it. It's pretty easy to make a song out of that. To elaborate, I just thought, hmm, why was he doing that? And it's so incongruous for him to be doing that in broad daylight, but that's how it supposedly went down."
Melora Creager of Rasputina, who recorded "A Skeleton Bang"
"We recorded the song at our own studio in Glasgow. This turned out to be a lot of fun, as I found myself chucking bricks into Glasgow's river Kelvin, minidisc recorder in hand, and screaming like a monkey with Chris and Richard."
Mick Cooke of Belle and Sebastian, who recorded "The Monkeys Are Breaking Out the Zoo"
"This song is from a long since shelved educational e.p. called 'Clip 'Round the Earhole' which we donated to Wirral Borough Council in 1984 for the benefit of both teachers and parents whom we felt were coming up short in RAMMIMG home the message of SENSIBLE FOOTWEAR.
"Have you not seen the Inn of the Sixth Happiness?" we implored, but our concerns were unfortunately greeted with a rather terse response alluding to egg sucking Grandmothers and 'the wholly more successful OMD'.
There are currently SEVENTEEN Chiropody clinics in Birkenhead alone. Now who needs the 'Clip 'Round the Earhole'....."
Nigel Blackwell of Half Man Half Biscuit, who recorded "David Wainwright's Feet"
"Ninja Dinosaur is on a heavy cosmic quest to bring the boogie for the 76th millennium. He has the guidance of his mega strobe 9000 lightning finger and the 539 giga magic drum machine. He pushed all the funk buttons in his spaceship and it created Princess Watermelon... a girl so beautiful and with a message of hope and luck for his quest. Using the mighty power of his nuclear dream processor a recording studio of ultimate style was made and the 15 inch chrome super tape switched to record. The beat kicked in and she sang and sang and sang the news to the children."
Four Tet, who recorded "Go Go Ninja Dinosaur"
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