‘Our producer was toasting sesame seeds in a pan. Coming from a working-class family, I’d never seen such a thing’

Ed and I had just come off a long tour of Europe and North America supporting Simple Minds and needed a break. I immersed myself in music-making with a synth, drum machine and a four-track Tascam Portastudio. I was very inspired by Brian Eno. I’d seen the words “found sounds” on his album credits. The notion that any sound could be included in a recording struck me as magical. I just held a mic out of my bedroom window. Black Man Ray started out as an ambient number with an intro featuring the sound of a boy I recorded singing in the street below. In the end, he actually featured in the opening bars of our song The Highest High.