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Wasn't there more than one version of The Searchers floating around at one point?
Frank: What a pain in the arse that was. It happened in 1985, when Mike Pender planned to remove himself from the band, completely without our knowledge. We found out by accident, he had his plan well underway before we heard anything about it. It was such a shock! John and I were very worried about our careers, but dug our heels in and got a replacement straight away and Spencer James is still with us now. The whole thing worked out so brilliantly and we went into one of our best periods of good quality work after that. Of course though, Mike went off and wanted to use the name. Legally it was such a grey area as we had always been partners. We didn't want to go through an expensive court case, so we had a series of meetings to sort it out civilly and inexpensively. We agreed on certain restrictions and we thought it would work out ok. It turned into a bit of a mess, so we had no option other than to take it to court. Fortunately we won, but still had to go back to court again when he signed a contract as The Searchers. I think he's dumped the band now though. We still have to police it, but it's not such a pain now. I just thought it was unethical. If you choose to leave a band for a solo career, that's fine, but you can't still purport to be that band, while the rest of them are still out there performing. I can be controlled and calm about it now, but there was a lot of bitterness. It was extremely unpleasant for a while.

Obviously you're playing your own stuff everyday, but what other artists do you like to listen to?
Frank: God, my taste is pretty weird, but John and Spencer are reasonably up to date. I stopped really keeping up with music a long time ago. I still like listening to yuppie rock, like Brian Ferry and Van Morrison. I love theatre as well though. I mean Steven Sondheim is amazing, as are Gershwin and Porter too. One of my real heroes died not long ago in fact, Lonny Donegan was incredibly important to me. I saw one of his shows a couple of years ago and it was just one of the best evenings I've ever had in my life. He was such a great part of my youth, but he was even better than I remembered him in his early days.

Can you pinpoint any pivotal moments in your career with the band?
Frank: Yeah, there's two or three of them in fact. The main high point was when we played at Wembley Stadium with Cliff Richard in front of 80,000. We'll never get a chance like that again. There were other events too though, like the Royal Variety Show in 1981. There was an incredible atmosphere at that. I know people think of it as a bit naff and old establishment, but it was a big deal for me. I'm neither right nor left, but meeting the Queen is something that doesn't happen to most people. Another key moment was in the early days, in 1964, when we went to America for a week at The Brooklyn Fox. The bill was the best thing about it, we were alongside Dusty Springfield, Milly, Marvin Gaye, The Ronettes, The Contours, The Supremes, The Dovelles and The Shangri Las, just to name a few of them. All our hereos on one bill.