A life in music was written in the sky for Spencer as a child who, rather than harbour ambitions to be an astronaut or a binman, instead was drawn "to certain things emotionally and visually. My grandmother had a toy record player which I was entranced by as a toddler. Later, when I started to buy records, I became mesmerized by the small print on the labels of 45's, 'who were those people, Holland, Dozier, Holland'?" And if he'd never taken up the drums, maybe we'd know Spencer by his grand exhibitions in the Tate Modern. "I found artwork very intriguing, there was relief abstract work hanging on the walls of my parent's house, which I found absorbing."

But no paintbrushes for Spencer. His brother had conveniently abandoned a drum kit in the garage, so, aged 17, Spencer started to drum. Earlier, he'd been a fan of The Who, though Keith Moon wasn't his inspiration to take up drumming. "He was such a larger than life character, he really lived, over the top, obviously to his detriment, but what a guy; flamboyant, eccentric in his lifestyle and his playing, he hung with Oliver Reed, what a pair!" As yet, Spencer hasn't got a lifetime ban from the Holiday Inn or ever parked a limousine in a swimming pool.

Moving on from The Who, Spencer's favourite record label is Ace because "they encompass an enormous amount of rare labels, which comprise of unheralded as well as heralded black and white American artists from many styles ranging from country to blues to soul and there many sub styles. They're the 'British Library' of American popular music. Blue Note and Verve were also faves, even just for the cover art."

A band of sorts was started with a friend who had a bass and "we then put the rest of the band together. We all became good friends; we played psychobilly music and performed at clubs like the Klub Foot in Hammersmith and the Marquee when it was on Wardour Street." Spencer was in his element. "Performing became my refuge, it was all I wanted to do at the time, and the theatre of it and the enormous amount of emotional release and excitement I got from it blinded me to anything else. I took rehearsals very seriously; my energy for playing and rehearsing was relentless."

Onto serious matters. Playing in rockabilly bands, Spencer had to make his hair look nice. He didn't use Brylcreem, instead, "I used another brand, way thicker on account of not having thick enough hair for that 'real quiff look'. I started to use it playing in rockabilly bands, but it never looked as good as the rest of the guys." Don't say that, Mr Cobrin! Though to be honest, even Morrissey's quiff looks a bit lame compared to the perfect coiffure of Alain Whyte. Speaking of whom....

Before joining Morrissey's ranks, Spencer was in two bands with Alain Whyte. The Memphis Sinners "formed through an amalgamation of friends that would play in different though similar bands, namely, rockabilly. It was a word of mouth thing and short lived." Only two tracks were ever recorded, both "at Boz's studio in Kilburn, one under Memphis Sinners, the other under Born Bad."

But then, in 1991, Spencer, Alain and Gary Day found himself in Morrissey's band. He loved the touring. "The Kill Uncle and Your Arsenal tours were simply the best for me, Morrissey being in his absolute element, whipping the mic lead, really throwing himself into the shows with abandon and working the crowd around his pinky, the band was all over the stage, the audiences were great, the chaos, adrenaline and excitement was totally thrilling." Spencer's favourite venue was "CBGB's, for obvious historical reasons and the fact that it's steeped in so much debauched behaviour!" And he looks so sweet and innocent.... His favourite song to play live was, surprisingly, the song that Morrissey got a bit of bovver for: 'The National Front Disco.' Spencer "would get so fuelled up before we played the intro to that number, it was the perfect energy boost and release for me, there's this constant tension being built within the song, it just made me want to smash shit out of those cymbals, and put my fist through the snare. I'd get so high from playing that number."

The trouble with loving the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd is that you can't be on stage twenty-four hours a day. "Back on the tour bus after playing shows from the early tours, I'd feel very low and have mixed emotions as I had gotten so high from the performances, as well as being totally exhausted and completely soaked in sweat." He lived for the excitement of performance, "but sadly it's a moment-to-moment existence living for those highs and experiences, so when I wasn't touring it became torture. I was very, very depressed during those periods of downtime, I just couldn't think straight or function normally." Poor lamb. So the next time you moan about how miserable you feel because your favourite band aren't on tour, spare a thought for the band themselves!

Ever since Spencer left Morrissey's band, there's been rumours popping up occasionally which haven't been particularly savoury (or sweet, for that matter). I won't air them here, as you'll have read them before elsewhere. But I had to ask... what does he make of the rumour that last year's B-side 'It's Hard To Walk Tall When You're Small' is about him? "Well, if so, there's nothing quite like being kept alive in the writings of a master wordsmith." Don't you just want to give Spencer a great big hug?

So, onto New York. What does Spencer do there? Roller-blading in Central Park in a tasteful lycra outfit, or gazing in Tiffany's window while eating a Danish pastry? Maybe even crochet? "NYC has a great way of making you behave incredibly busy even when you're not. I still love it here but am finding myself being drawn more and more back to Europe, I think mainly for it's aesthetic, ny's such a tough town, at least for me it is. But it's also a very entrancing place with the most urban-romantic-street-sleepwalking-stupor of any city I know. Every 'hood has the odour of struggle, survival, failure, success and stench of carving out an existence here. The people are fascinating, understated yet beautiful, very driven and there is a tangibility to their ambition and creativeness in the air here that keeps one sticking around. The density of so many diverse backgrounds mingling together in such close proximity makes it an exciting place to be despite its hard urban environment. New York is a hard place to leave; you literally have to drag yourself away." It's no surprise that this is the man who co-wrote a song called 'Pavement Kisses'.

Spencer turned to writing film music. He felt it was a natural progression from what he'd been up to before. "I always loved taking drama in school and going to see theatre around town, it's so exciting, and who can say they actually do not like going to see films? Also the feeling of collaboration really appealed to me." But how do you go from drumming to film-scoring? "I made a phone call to a friend asking if she knew of any directors that I could talk with, and as it happened she did. That landed me my first scoring job and the film was screened at various festivals. It's great mixing with filmmakers and seeing life through their eyes, it's very different to the music world, not something I was prepared for initially, but I was very hungry to experience working in this art form." He also spoke to the head of the Film Music Department at NYU "and he was nice enough to listen to my demo and give me some advice. I audited the ASCAP film-scoring workshop to gain more insight into the working/technical method."

"But the real learning curve for me has been finding the work and just doing it. I love being thrown in the deep end; I thrive from the adrenaline of working that way, working with Morrissey in that sense was no different. I recently scored an independent feature comedy [Send in the Clown] and licensed two tracks from the Elva Snow album to two feature films, so I feel I'm on the right track artistically and intuitively." So far, Spencer works at the stage of the final cut. "It's a very malleable process and you have to be willing to accept the fact that there will be changes, additions or cuts right up to the last minute. It can be a very demanding and meticulous discipline."

His favourite film scorers are composers like Lalo Schiffrin, John Barry, Bernard Herrmann and Angelo Badalamenti. He thinks that "John Williams' score for Close Encounters is stunning; it's like a symphony with movements. The early chase cue with Dreyfus in the car going through the tunnel is amazing." Then there's also the music for Psycho, Touch of Evil, Cape Fear, Twin Peaks and Vertigo. And of course The Third Man, "with the use of a balalaika, it's post-war Vienna and we're hearing Greek music, but it totally works." Lest we forget that film music isn't just about writing background music. Many films are built around songs. "Saturday Night Fever, West Side Story, Times Square, Dancer In the Dark, all contain great songs, I couldn't say I like one way of assembly more than the other and I don't think it matters, what matters is doing something great, choose whatever working method you like. West Side Story is the bollocks; Bernstein was a brilliant and humane man."

Ideally, Spencer would like to work with Orson Wells. That not being possible, he'd rough it and chose Scorsese, Lynch or the Coen Bros. "As for actors, Willem Dafoe, or Rod Steiger, obviously that wont happen but he was fantastic. So many of my heroes have passed on, not many these days carry that sort of substance unfortunately; it's the sign of the times."

How do you go about writing a piece of music? "With film, you have parameters; narrative, drama and deadlines, so it definitely gets you moving when you have a mountain of music to write. Elva Snow was my tragic-romantic nature coming to the fore. As for the music I wrote for Morrissey it was the same direction but I didn't need a motivation, I was writing for a pop maestro." Spencer wrote 'Lost', the B-side of 'Roy's Keen', with Morrissey. José Maldonado of the Sweet & Tender Hooligans loves 'Lost' so much, he translated into Spanish as part of their set.

Ah yes, Elva Snow. Spencer was introduced to Australian singer and lyricist Scotty Matthew by a mutual friend. "I gave him a tape of music, a few days later he came back with the lyrics that he'd recorded over it. It worked so well and I felt really at home writing with him, it just melted together so easily." Then they decided to release some work and tour. The album is available through cdbaby.com, but the band haven't played live lately, as Spencer's "been busy writing a film score so the band has taken a bit of a sabbatical, and as we've all been struggling to survive while doing our art so it's slowed things right down, so no gigs for quite a while now unfortunately. We've played all sorts of places and the crowd is usually a great mix of people, very genuine and heartfelt." Spencer will keep to musicianship for now (on the Elva Snow album he plays drums, guitars and piano) and doesn't plan to do any singing, though it "would be heaven, to harmonize and belt it out would be just fantastic, but don't tempt me, cause you'll be sorry, very." And before you ask, Elva Snow isn't a cheeky way of saying "Elvis No".

So what does Mr Cobrin think of the many British bands which have surfaced lately? "I think they are all fantastic. The Editors are my current favourite. Brit guitar music has gone through such an amazing resurgence. The Tears/Suede, they still write great tunes." Before you don your new Franz Ferdinand T-shirt, however, bear Spencer's words in mind. "As for a bands name, it's very different now, completely so, rallying behind a bands name is not what it used to be. It used to identify you much more so than in any way these days, such is corporate culture."

And so we come to Mr Cobrin's chagrin. The man should have his own newspaper column and march at the front of a crowd of dissenters. He says we should listen to "ourselves, and the environment which we are a part of, instead of all the junk we're told we should buy, eat and believe through the bullshit media. The planet is falling apart between our legs and it's becoming a hopeless situation, the Bush false administration is the main roadblock, greed, greed and greed, he can't even stitch a sentence together. Get real, get in touch with your self because that's all you have left, don't believe their lies, they are politicians. i.e. professional liars, fuck them. Name one administration or rather 'distraction' that has done well for the people of this country and environment? Where is national health care when people are dying of AIDS and cancer? The government can afford to spend more and more on military armament, how much do they need? To keep the rest of the world in check that's why. We are living in dark times, we feel it all around us, at some point hopefully it will break or the environment will break us first, it's getting very close. Because right now we are not its friend and we ought to be, it's crying out. Look at the change in weather, it's drastic and we choose not to acknowledge outwardly, but we feel it on the inside, that small voice is the voice we have to listen too. It will punch us right in the face when we least expect it and it will be too late."

So, Spencer Cobrin: drummer, pavement poet, a man of fierce emotion, deep respect and, though he probably won't agree, nice hair. This won't be the last you'll hear from him.