about six months. We shared a room in every hotel. I've know him since I was six but if someone wants to disappear, they can. It's not very hard at all. It really isn't". JS: Will there be any of Richey's songs on the new record? NW: "Some of the songs were written while he was still around. Three or four songs are Richey's lyrics: two of them are co-written, we did them old style, and two of them are completely his. They're pretty heavy going. There's one track called "Small Black Flowers That Grown In The Sky", which he wrote about getting borne in zoos and just going mad with boredom, but if you read it, you'd just think it was about him". "We were thinking it might be better to put them out on an EP later but somehow I think if he's out there, he'd like to hear his songs. We've done the things like set up a trust fund forhim so all his publishing goes to him, which is horrible because legally you can't say he's dead anyway. It takes seven years. I speak to his parents and his sister every week and they really want us to put this record out, because they think it might flush him out". JS: Obvious question, why did you keep the name? NW: " We did consider changing the name and starting over again, and we probably would have done if we knew he was dead. It would be