These were hand-to-mouth times for Orbital and Phil spent most the 80s living in squats. "I had this ideology — they're empty houses, why can't we use them?" he explains. The first squat Phil opened up was a boarded-up semi in the North London suburb of Wood Green, complete with time-warp 50s decor. A crowbar stashed under his coat, Phil forced his way in and changed the locks. But the neighbours called the police, and next thing he knew he was crushed in behind the door: "Fuck off! Fucking lowlife!" They turfed him out, but 20 minutes later he was back. By way of escapism, he'd slave away with his saxophone, fantasising about joining a jazz band. Thankfully, he soon traded the sax for a drum machine. Squatting with him at the time was photographer Mark Hakansson. "I remember we were living in a tower block," says Mark. "Phil came home with his first drum machine. I was like, 'Oh Phil, why are you wasting your money, man?' I really had to eat my words!"

Bored, Hakansson and Phil ended up travelling to New York in the mid-80s. The two friends hung out there for a few months, staying at the Chelsea Hotel (where Sid Vicious murdered Nancy Spungen) and seeing rappers like Run DMC in the emerging hip hop clubs. "We were working illegally," remembers Mark. "At one stage Phil was working in a really crappy supermarket in Penn Station. You know the ones in Taxi Driver, those weird all-night places run by Italians." Back in London, Phil and Paul started making New Order-type pop with a guitar, a sequencer and a drum machine. All the same, it was hardly serious. But then came another life-changing event for Phil. He was on his way to a rave with his mates, some of them tripping on acid. They were bombing along the motorway in a battered old car and, before long, one joker decided he needed to take a leak. They stopped in a lay-by, he peed, and the rave-bound crew set off again. As they pulled onto the motorway, Phil realised the driver hadn't picked up enough speed, but it was too late... a car slammed into the back of them. Phil felt like he was seeing the whole crash in slow motion.

They went flying across the road. The second car flipped over once. Then again, and again — until it smashed into the barrier and came to a halt. Petrol was pissing everywhere. "Cars came whizzing past, catching the debris of the other cars, and they were crashing too. The nightmare didn't stop," he says. On a childhood holiday in Florida, Phil had been in a boating accident. The boat's engine had exploded, shooting huge flames over the passengers. Years later, trapped in that car, Phil remembered the boat — just as a bloke with a cigarette in his mouth came over to help. "I was going, 'Put the cigarette out! Put the cigarette out!'" says Phil. "I just didn't want to be burned again. I thought it was going to end in an explosion like you see in the films." Phil and his friends escaped unhurt, but could not get home until morning. He and one other guy found themselves sitting in a breaker's yard in their crunched car. "We were sitting there all night thinking how lucky we were," says Phil. "It makes you think, What the hell? — you've got to try for things in life. You never know what's going to happen. Nothing could be as bad as that. What could go wrong with a band, apart from it failing?"