Neil Hannon has just eaten a bag of Hula Hoops. The popular UK snack, made of potatoes and corn, are shaped like rings—a fitting shape for Hannon, who celebrates 30 years of his baroque chamber pop outfit, The Divine Comedy.
“If anybody can work from home, it’s me,” Hannon says from his home in County Kildare (just outside of Dublin), in Ireland. “I never really stopped writing silly songs.”
Hannon, who turned 51 in November, has been releasing these “silly songs” under the name The Divine Comedy for the better part of his adult life. He hit Britpop stardom in the mid-’90s with the albums Promenade and Casanova, and was interviewed for Under the Radar’s second edition to promote his seventh album, Regeneration.
“I don’t remember them telling me that it was only their second issue,” he laughs.
Hannon is marking The Divine Comedy’s anniversary with , a double album of 24 greatest hits that traverse his career, and a bonus disc, which includes some unreleased tracks. He’s also working on the music to (starring Timothée Chalamet as a young Willy Wonka), which he can’t really talk about.
