In mid-1992, Jesse Peretz asked me to write the theme song for a short film he was finishing up called Six Hours From Cleveland. I’d replaced Jesse as bass player in the Lemonheads but I spent a lot of time with Jesse as he took most of the band photos, directed most of our film clips and, more importantly, took me boxer short shopping when I first stayed with him in New York. “You can’t wear those!” he said one day to me when I was getting changed and he saw my skimpy briefs all the way from down under. Jesse was my best mate during that time.

After seeing a rough cut of the film, which starred the Lemonheads soulmate Polly Noonan, I still had no idea what sort of song to write. But then geography hit home! Since the band were touring a lot around the States, I realised we’d be driving into Cleveland from whatever previous gig was the night before. I asked our van driver to let me know when we were “six hours from Cleveland”.