The beat goes on for Breaks Co-Op

Zane Lowe (L) says his record won't 'confuse what I do in my day job'.

The millions who listen to Zane Lowe on the radio in Britain will have no idea the New Zealand lad can sing, play guitar and make beats.

They know him as the guy who nabs exclusive interviews with artists as diverse as Eminem or the Cure's Robert Smith. Few would know he's in Breaks Co-Op.

You may remember that band - made up of Lowe and producer/MC Hamish Clark - from 1997, when their pioneering New Zealand electronica album Roofers came out. You may even recall them from before then as the real-Kiwi-sounding hip-hop crew Urban Disturbance.

It's been a while but Breaks Co-Op's second album, The Sound Inside, comes out on March 21 and it's quite different to Roofers.

We wait for Lowe - who's on a rare visit back home - at a Ponsonby pub. We're sure he'd never keep Eminem waiting for 15, going on 20 minutes. But when he arrives, you have to forgive him. There's no way Em would be as beaming or obliging as this.

We sit outside so he can smoke - he nips off later to buy another packet - and he's on the bourbon and cokes.

There's a natural and relaxing, yet spiritual, feel to The Sound Inside, similar to TrinityRoots, but more mainstream, like - dare we say it - Jack Johnson. Hey, the first single off the album, The Otherside, has already appeared on Lazy Sunday 5.

"It was never the intention to come out with something that would surprise people," says Lowe, who has lived in Britain since the late 90s and now, as well as hosting his radio show on the BBC, also hosts his daily TV show, Gonzo, on MTV2.

"To be honest, we never assumed an audience. Some people have Roofers, and certain musicians had appreciated Roofers for what it was - a breaks record. And we did start making a record very much along the same lines as Roofers. It was DJ Shadow's left testicle, you know what I mean? It was much easier for us to make angry breaks, fiery beats, heavy bass lines. Lots of grunts and big porn stabs.

"But as it went by, we realised it wasn't us, a lot of years had passed, and we decided we were just going to make music. But, above anything else, the most beautiful thing I've heard since getting back here is that people call it a New Zealand album."

He's not gushing when he says: "I love it here, the older I get, because I'm not so torn between what I have and what I left behind."

Lowe is a radio man. You know the sort? Gift of the gab, he'll pitch you an idea and you're sold. He'd be great in advertising. He almost raps at you.

His hip-hop contemporaries during the 90s were people such as Sani and Kas (now known as Dei Hamo and Tha Feelstyle).

"Sani always wanted to dress up, and be glamorous and a superstar rapper," he laughs, admiring Dei Hamo's high profile these days.

And he believes Tha Feelstyle's album, Break It To Pieces, is one of the most unique albums he's heard.

Lowe says he'd love to do hip-hop again but he's more than happy to leave it to Scribe, Dei Hamo and Tha Feelstyle.

"I'm a b-boy, I love my hip-hop, I wanted to represent that side of us still," he says. But he and Clark didn't.

Instead the pair got to work in the studio at Lowe's Kentish Town home. Lowe would shoot his MTV2 show in the morning, arrive back around midday, he and Clark would work in the studio, then he'd catch the tube to his radio show at the BBC later in the day.

The first track they finished was Twilight - an instrumental track that ends the album. "That was a nice, nice link to the last record, and we knew it was definitely a better song than anything on Roofers. So we were happy with that."

The pair had planned on enlisting guest vocalists for the album but when Lowe decided to sing some vocals for The Sound Inside, it changed things. Remember, he was a rapper, not a singer.

"So I had to cock my thinking and stop thinking of myself as a rapper," he says.

His solution? To treat his voice more like a "texture" and an instrument. That led to a bigger realisation that they actually had some songs rather than just beats.

"So we thought, 'Let's write some more songs'. And they just came. And eight months later we had 15, 16 songs. We thought, 'That sounds like us'. It's like any band, hopefully you have your own sound and even though it's not what people expect of this record, to me and Hamish, it still feels like a Breaks Co-Op record. It still has that same feeling that we hinted at with Roofers."

A new addition to Breaks Co-Op is Andy Lovegrove, from Brit band the Away Team.

"A diamond geezer," says Lowe of Lovegrove who, despite his chain smoking, sings blissfully on The Otherside.

"The ironic thing was Andy initially said to Hamish when he gave him the track, 'I think it might be a bit cheesy for what you guys want'. But then we heard it and we were like, 'Nah mate, that's [expletive] beautiful'."

It's a fine line, though, between beauty and cheese?

"It is," agrees Lowe. "It is a fine line between something that's considered fromage and soulful. But you talk to someone about Stevie Wonder and some people think it's cheesy and some people think it's incredible."

Strangely, when it comes to his own music he asks me more than once, "Honestly, how do you think it'll go?" or, "Honestly, what did you think of it?"

For one who listens to music more than most people, he's unsure about his own album. He says the feeling of making a New Zealand-sounding album is good for him because the record won't "confuse what I do in my day job".

The Sound Inside is probably not the sort of album the Brits would go for anyway. You know them? All Franz Ferdinand one minute, Baby Shambles the next.

Your profile must help though? "Yes and no. In the UK especially, I think it helps in terms of getting people to listen because they're curious. There's going to be a natural suspicion about me making an album. But I'm up for the challenge and I'm not afraid of what people think on that level.

"It's not a vanity project. It doesn't sound like a Franz Ferdinand record and it doesn't sound like something I could play on my radio show in the first place. But I'm a musician, have been all my life."

LOWDOWN

WHO: Breaks Co-Op, made up of Zane Lowe, Hamish Clark and Andy Lovegrove.

WHAT: Two New Zealanders and a Brit making one beautiful sound.

RELEASES: The Sound Inside (out March 21), Roofers (1997)

TRIVIA: British music industry delegates, who were in New Zealand recently for Resonate, said Zane Lowe was the likely heir to legendary radio DJ John Peel, who died last year.