"Most of our songs begin in a fetal position in the corner - it's always song before anything else, the song is the core"

Tim Rice-Oxley and Jesse Quin are perhaps better known, I think it is fair to say, for their works in the band Keane…but, since 2010 Mt. Desolation, an initially fun-time hoedown folk and country project has morphed into a windswept and Americana rich band of critical note. Here, in part one of our two-part conversation, we discuss what went in to making new LP Through Crooked Aim, how the need to step away from Keane-material is an ongoing process and that neither Tim nor Jesse would be caught dead putting the milk in first.