Despite being part of the largely ineffective Live 8 concerts (the Pet Shop Boys played at the Moscow franchise) Tennant, who is on a conveyor belt of press phone interviews after the band's soundcheck in Brighton, still has great reservations about such concepts.

"Right the way through our career, we've always been nervous about pop stars lecturing the public. I don't believe celebrities have any great source of information about what's going on. We elect politicians for that, and I don't like being cynical about politicians because that's dangerous for democracy. I don't see what the role of a celebrity in this should be.

Musicians should inspire people through music. When the Beatles inspired people in the 1960s, they did it by singing a song called 'All You Need Is Love'." What about John Lennon's actions? "Lennon was a totally failed political activist. The most powerful thing he did was sing 'Give Peace A Chance'. I don't think anyone has written or attempted to write a similar sort of message into a song since then. And actually, Lennon recanted his political beliefs.

"If you feel that you need a celebrity to tell you about what's happening in the world, then you need to look inside your soul and think hard about that.

"I think you can blame the public for this as well, because it's shrugging off responsibility. . . We place too much value on celebrities. Does anyone really not have access to information about climate change?"

And then he wants to move on.

For the Pet Shop Boys . . . a band who at the height of their fame refused to tour . . . they're on the road quite a lot these days. Last summer, on the back of their album Fundamental, they played 27 festivals around the world, including the Electric Picnic in Laois. Their performance at Stradbally was hailed as the highlight of the festival. And next week, they're back, playing the Garden Party in Athboy, which kicks off an Irish summer that is packed with more outdoor gigs than ever before.

"Since the Electric Picnic show last year, we've added different songs, actually it's a substantially different show. We were very flattered at Electric Picnic. Someone from Electric Picnic thought it was the best gig ever that had been there. It was an amazing audience too. . . So thank you Electric Picnic, we passed the audition."

Tennant is endlessly articulate and vocal, perhaps something that comes from his editorial and writing days at Smash Hits, a period he looks back on fondly. "At the start, I regarded the whole thing as a hindrance, you know, 'journalist becomes pop star'. But I had just been at Smash Hits for three years and then in publishing for 10 years.

But it was a very fun time; Smash Hits was a new thing, a different thing." He adds that he's looking forward to the collection of a 'best of ' Smash Hits journalism coming soon.

More recently, Tennant is earning more kudos as a producer in his own right, taking on projects as varied as Madonna, Robbie Williams and of course, producing Mr Rufus Wainright's last record.

"He asked me to be the executive producer. I wanted to be a consultant producer, but he wanted someone to play demos too and mixing and that's what I did. I went to Berlin when he was recording it and said what I thought about it. It was a fascinating experience. He works in such a different way than to how we do.

He operates as a composer, with the ambition to be that Tchaikovsky or something. We had a lot of laughs during the whole process. We've always wanted to produce a young artist or band and that hasn't really happened yet, apart from working with Mr Robbie Williams on 'She's Madonna'."

And with that, he's gone, with a drinks party invitation and a sigh about the beginning of the interview, "Please don't put too much of that Bono stuff in, I do think he's a lovely guy."

Pet Shop Boys play the Garden Party festival on 9 June in Bellinlough Castle, Athboy, Co Westmeath