The Last Broadcast, the second album from Britain's Doves, is the sort of grand statement disc that perhaps might sound best being played from massive speakers situated on a mountaintop - a big record dealing in big emotions. But, enchantingly, it's also got an intimate side. Somehow, you get the feeling that the band - which is becoming much better known in America due to The Last Broadcast's allure - is speaking just to you. That's a cool trick that few groups' can pull off. To explain how they perceive their music, Doves singer-bassist Jimi Goodwin spoke with us. On the phone from England, he recalled how he first met his twin band-mates Andy and Jez Williams, how his home city and its infamous Hacienda nightclub made an impact on their music, and how the genius of Bob Dylan is something all pop participants have to accept.

VH1: Where are you?

Jimi Goodwin: I'm at home. I'm waiting for a new couch to be delivered. Very rock 'n' roll! The old one is like a family heirloom, man - it's given up the ghost. It's very old and ripped.

VH1: I guess you have to enjoy the fruits of your success.

Goodwin: Perhaps, but we're hardly millionaires. We ain't the Clampetts, you know what I mean?

VH1: Where did you first meet with the Williams twins?

Goodwin: At school. I used to jam with them. Then we lost touch for a few years and met up again when we were about 18, out clubbing at the Hacienda. I was like, "Long time no see." They were into the same music as me, so I went around the house for a smoke and a hangout. They had started making music together, and I joined in. We've known since we were seven or eight years old that we wanted to be musicians. I was lucky, my folks encouraged it. I saw the Clash and the Stranglers when I was seven with my dad. My old man's a bit of an old punk.

VH1: Do the twins ever gang up on you?

Goodwin: Sometimes subconsciously, yeah. They're very similar, but they're not identical. They instinctively agree on a lot of things. We have circular arguments about what a track's going to want. Everything gets worked out. It's been 12 years now, so it would have become apparent if it wasn't working!

VH1: You first started working together as a dance group - Sub Sub - before becoming a rock band …

Goodwin: Yeah. But that change doesn't happen overnight. It wasn't like, "Oh today we're going to turn the computer off and rock out." It was a natural development over four or five years.

VH1: Does Doves use any techniques that have been carried from making electronic music as Sub Sub?

Goodwin: Definitely. A good song can be dressed up any number of ways. "Cedar Room," from our first album Lost Souls, is like a seven-minute house track. It has a trance-like quality: Things build and build and surge. On The Last Broadcast, "Words" keeps building and building on one riff. "Where We're Calling From" sounds like it could be used in a film - it's like a David Lynch sound collage. We don't want to be a plug-in-and-play band. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are great if that's what you want to do, but we get into stranger production, epics and shit!

VH1: Speaking of your Manchester background, did you get a chance to see 24 Hour Party People, the recent film about Factory Records, Joy Division and the Happy Mondays? What did you think?

Goodwin: It's good. It's a very hard subject to make a film about. It's like six separate musical stories. I don't think you can go blind to the cinema and see it; you've got to know who it's about. But the director Michael Winterbottom did the best he could with it. The early part of the film is fascinating. The first Sex Pistols gig in Manchester was really like that: 20 people in a room with no light show. Morrissey and New Order were there. It kick-started a movement. It's a seminal moment.

VH1: How important was the Hacienda to the Manchester music scene?

Goodwin: Pivotal. When the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays weren't in the studio, they were listening to Detroit techno and Chicago house music. Those influences seep in. [Rock rhythm] didn't have to be overtly four on the floor. It's what you take on board. The Hacienda was incredibly important to this city.

VH1: Why does Manchester inspire such a streak of melancholy in its musicians?

Goodwin: I don't know. It's too easy to go, "It rains a lot and it's bleak and industrial." So is Baltimore! I don't think in terms of region. The Smiths were big heroes, but I look to Neil Young and Buffalo Springfield, too. People from the Northwest of England are very individual. There comes a point where they stop aping their heroes and try and mine something of their own.

VH1: Why do you start both of your albums with instrumentals?

Goodwin: It seems to fit. We've got a great love for film music like Lalo Schifrin, Ennio Morricone, and '80s soundtracks like Betty Blue. Our aim is to always make something that you can play from start to finish and hopefully not want to flip tracks. Last Broadcast is really complex, but it still doesn't push you away. You put it on and you're engaged for an hour. That's our brief. We want to make great albums.

VH1: For you, what's the perfectly structured album?

Goodwin: Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden. It's very mellow with odd bursts of aggression. There are only four tracks on it, but they're 16 or 17 minutes long. From the introduction onwards, you're hooked.

VH1: You've got a song called "New York" on The Last Broadcast. So did U2 and Richard Ashcroft on their recent records. What's the fascination?

Goodwin: U2 have written about 16 songs about New York, haven't they? Our song isn't actually about New York. It's about anywhere where people have had to emigrate and build a life for themselves. New York's got that spirit of setting up your shop, trying to raise your family, and getting a life. That chorus came to me in a minute and stuck. If "Tel Aviv" rhymed, I would have put that in, but it didn't.

VH1: You've said that Bob Dylan's "Isis" [from the Desire album] inspired your vocal on Broadcast's title track. Explain.

Goodwin: When we were doing the vocals, Jez said, "Close your eyes and do something now." I just got "Isis" in my head and mumbled this Dylan-esque stream-of-consciousness thing. Desire is a f*cking great record. There are real stories on it like "Hurricane" and "Joey." He's got one sound behind it, too: big drums, violins and backing vocals. Genius isn't a word you can bandy about too much, but Dylan is a 20th century literary genius.

VH1: Have you met up with any of your heroes since becoming stars?

Goodwin: He wasn't really a hero, but I met Dave Grohl at a festival in Japan a couple of weeks ago. He was playing with Queens of the Stone Age. A really warm, lovely guy. Queens of the Stone Age were awesome. They did this track where it went really quiet, and the two guitars started moaning against each other. In anybody else's hands, I'd think, "Get on with it, you noodly wankers!" But it was just brilliant. Then they built the track back up. It's like they can do anything they want. Proper acid rock! They were really nice guys. Mark Lanegan was like [puts on a gruff voice], "I'm a big fan of your work, man." It's kind of odd thinking that a guy like him gets what we do!

VH1: Jez recently played guitars for the dance group Mint Royale. Have you ever thought about doing another club record and putting it out on a white label?

Goodwin: No. We play "Space Face" from the Sub Sub days live and everybody's like, "What's that track?" It's odd that the first thing we ever did together still cuts it, but it's good. We've been there, why go back?