There's more to them than an ever pulsating brain at the centre of Somerset. The wiry lads from planet Static, fresh (well, slightly stale, smelly and very sweaty) from the dance tent at Glastonbury gave Anna ten minutes away from the communal Bong to discuss life (but not necessarily as we think we know it), y' know?

Merv is sighing at me wearily. "They don't know anything because we don't tell them anything" he says. Record labels eh? Where would they be without them? Frome, Somerset probably, making dance music. "Every time you tell them anything, it gets twisted and comes out wrong." The same with journalists. "Yeah, Press agencies you know? If the press agent doesn't understand what you're about, then you haven't got a chance." They are veritably misunderstood. "We're gonna try and start, sort of, trying to sort it out ourselves now, y' know? I mean they don't understand what we're trying to put across at all, do you understand, do you know what I mean?" Er, no. Although I suspect it concerns aliens. "Yeah. We want people to go out and find out more about it and stuff, y' know."

Have you ever met any? "No. I've seen some strange lights and stuff, near Bath. Near Glastonbury. That whole area's got a sort of mystical vibe about it anyway. It's always been known for its UFO connections. We were driving back late from a gig - really late - about five or six o'clock in the morning, we'd just driven 150 miles with no problems at all, we were about twenty minutes from home and the car completely conked out. Just totally stopped. We got out, and this massive thing came across over the army camp, and down the side of it. I know what all the aeroplanes round there look like, when I was a kid I was really into aeroplanes, but this - it was just, like totally silent with lights all around it. I don't know what the hell that was." Are the spirits manifesting perchance because you believe in them? "I think it was something to do with the army camp. There are all military bases around there, round Salisbury Plain. Most of us have seen something quite strange."

Like, the Ozric Tentacles for example? I jest. What happened to them? "Joie still does stuff with them. We don't really see them that often, I mean, that was the problem, they were just so busy. It was so mad going out, touring with them, coming home, having to go out and tour with Eat Static, having to come back, record an Ozric album, then record an Eat Static album - I mean, we've been separate now for about 10 months. I don't know how we coped. 10 months with Eat Static - I'm kind of relieved now, but it was sad for a while."

Why did you have such a stupid name? "Dunno." What did it mean? "Nothing. We used to wind pretentious journalists up about it. They used to write columns of stuff about Ozric being something from Tibet or somewhere, y'know? We just made it up for a laugh. You've got to be called something, it was just Ozric Tentacles, y'know? That'll do."

Will you end up working with anyone else? "Um, probably a couple of remixy things." Are you turning into The Aphex Twin? "We like his stuff." We've got a lot of respect for him. I like the stuff The Orb are releasing now. I thought the earlier stuff was more commercial spacey stuff really. A lot of it, I'd already heard - stuff from the 70s and 60s. A lot of it sounded like it had been regurgitated. In actual fact, I've really liked the last couple of albums. The ones everybody have been slagging off and saying are just crap or too weird, I've actually thought have been their best stuff.

What about earlier influences? "I didn't know what music was until I heard punk." Nothing sad lurking in your collections then? "Nah." Are you anarchic? "I think we still are as Eat Static." You don't knit your way to anarchy like Chumbawumba, do you? "Nah. They've been kicking around a long time." They cook stews instead. There is a big communal cauldron in the corner of the room. They like to indulge freely in the pot, ho ho. "Yeah, extremely pro-cannabis".

How would you describe the Static vibe? "I wouldn't really. It's too difficult to describe." Okay. So bouncy crusties doesn't spring to mind then? Merv's nostrils flare slightly. Melody Maker described our music like that. I wanted to set my dog on a string on to him. Dogs on strings! We are pretty mellow, y'know? Crusty techno. I've never had a dog on a string in my life. "We played Coventry years ago. We played there once, and it was totally insane. The security guards had knives all over them. The guy who put us on at the gig had half his hand shot off. It was mad."

They all go quiet for a while. Merv has stopped talking. They start a game of bang the Bong on your head. Then Merv starts again. "Actually, the record label's been really good. They've helped us loads in the past two years. It's just really nice knowing you're on a label that aren't actually ripping you off." Were the Ozrics being ripped off? "Yeah." Are they still being ripped off? "Yeah!" And they don't mind?! "Um, well, I don't know what's going to happen now, really. You need people that are in it for the love of it, so that no-one's ripping anyone off. that's the way to do it, really. And if anyone makes any money at the end of the day, they're even happier y'know."

The top of one of Merv's fingers is missing. "I crushed it in a machine. I got a bit tranced out, got out of rhythm and lost it. I was still at school. I missed loads of exams because of that... Had to go back and sit them on me own. I just got out of school as soon as I could really. It's funny. I've recently seen a load of people that were in my class who all went off to uni, and none of them have got a job.

"If people slag the singles, I'd like them to see the live show. That's what we're about really. We're not going to start making music to sell well. If we make good music that sounds good, that's not commercial if it sells well. Radio 1 rang us up not long ago to do a club thing. I said we'd have to think about it. I said, do we want Radio 1 type listeners, y'know what I mean? Nothing against them. Maybe its good for the music, but I don't know." I left them after that. I didn't want to miss Mark Goodier.

Eat Static were talking to Anna, in May 1995.