I thought, Oh shit, that's the sound of the band gone, this space-cream over everything. And I did enjoy his brain power, the verbal and mental fencing." XTC proceeded to run through a "silly half-hearted" process of auditioning another keyboardist. Although Thomas Dolby was rumoured as a replacement, Partridge said that Dolby was never actually considered, but did write many letters asking to join the band. Rather than hiring a replacement keyboardist, Dave Gregory of the Swindon covers band Dean Gabber and His Gaberdines was invited to join as a second guitarist. Partridge remembered holding a "pretend audition" where Gregory was asked to play the band's "This Is Pop", only for Gregory to inquire whether they wanted the album version or the single version: "We thought, 'Bloody oh, a real musician.' But he was in the band before he even knew." Gregory was anxious of whether the fans would accept him as a member, characterising himself as "the archetypal pub-rocker in jeans and long hair. But the fans weren't bothered. Nobody was fashionable in XTC, ever." He grew more comfortable with the group after playing a few shows, he said, "and things got better and better". Production and style Impressed by the work of Steve Lillywhite, XTC contacted him to produce their third album with a drum sound that would "knock your head off". In the 1998 XTC biography Song Stories, Partridge states that the band hired Lillywhite based on his work for Siouxsie and the Banshees' The Scream (1978). Partridge explained in a 1999 interview: "Lillywhite mainly contributed to the drums' sound, very Siouxsie, more voodoo". In 2019, he retracted his claim, saying that the Lillywhite record the band were impressed by was actually Ultravox's 1977 debut. With Virgin staff engineer Hugh Padgham, they embarked to the newly built Townhouse Studios, "with its now world-famous stone room", as described by Gregory, who recalled that Padgham had "yet to develop his trade-mark 'gated ambience' sound". Gregory stated that, ultimately, "most of the ideas were Andy's but we were all contributing and Lillywhite was there as some sort of mediator more than anything. He's credited with producing it but really I think it was about 50/50. Most of the ideas were there in the first place before we got into the studio." Nick Lowe was also considered to produce Drums and Wires. He was contacted but declined the offer, citing scheduling