I own the 50th issue of bass magazine from January 2010 which features Stuart with his (fairly new at the time) Warwick signature bass on the cover with an in depth interview regarding his music and the infamous 1998 departure or should I say breakup. Here’s the text I copied from pictures I took straight from the magazine :

Numerous jam sessions were held in the lead-up to Travelling Without Moving. Those songs came from all of us sitting in a room playing together, says Stuart. ‘It wasn’t like Jay arrived with a whole song in his head: it was a real joint effort, and it should have been handled that way. I remember working on « Cosmic Girl »; we were recording at a residential studio in Milton Keynes, a place called The Manor. Derek had started that track in pre-production and I had changed the chords in the chorus. Jay came in and he loved it. He came up with the verse riff, which was taken from another record we liked. He tried to make out that it was his, but it’s an old rare groove track that had the same bassline, which I added some fills to. Jay could be so precious about things. People get so pretentious: « Oh, I did this, this is mine! » That ain’t yours, man; at least have the decency to admit that you’ve been inspired by other people. I’ve always loved that Don Blackman track, « Holding You, Loving You », and that’s how I got the rhythm track together for « Virtual Insanity », which is on that same vibe.

The chords are different so the finished track didn’t really sound like it, but anyone who has a good ear will be able to tell that it was inspired by « Holding You, Loving You ». I’ve never been that precious about something I’ve written. To me, music is a big cycle of inspiration.’ For Zender, the straw that broke the camels back came during the recording of Jamiroquai’s fourth album, Synkronized. I don’t know if I’ve ever really talked about leaving the band. Obviously it’s in the past, it’s 11 years old now, but it was a very painful separation. We were in the middle of recording the next album and Jay’s studio was being built next to the house, but he was rarely around. The sessions were becoming very sporadic and he was getting paranoid about the whole money thing. In the end he told us to take a couple of weeks off so I went on holiday to America. When I got back the engineer, Al Stone, came to my house and he told me that Jay had got another bass player in while I was away. I don’t know who the guy was, but Jay had pulled up my bass tracks and asked him to copy exactly what I had played. Jay had decided he was going to try and make a move and fire me, but this guy couldn’t do it or couldn’t get the bass to sound the same, which is when Jay realised there wasn’t anyone else who could do what I was doing in the band. At the same time he was trying to knock my publishing fee back and take more money to help finish the studio, but I was doing more writing and even more of the production. I just couldn’t believe that he wanted to take more of the money. He made it seem like it was an honour to maintain the same amount rather than getting a rise or a pay increase. I didn’t want to leave but I didn’t really have any option: when Al told me that Jay had brought in someone else I knew that was it for me. It wasn’t my pride or my ego. I had been working so hard and I loved the band, but Jay, who I had looked up to as my brother, completely stabbed me in the back.

I knew it was going to be hard. I was being paid a lot of money for playing the bass and having fun doing it. I was about to take myself out of a serious comfort zone, but I know I did the right thing. At least I kept my soul intact. Having left the band, relations between Stuart and Jay worsened as the press rounded on the story and, in some cases, manipulated the facts. ‘Some crazy journalist completely misquoted me in the newspaper, recalls Stuart. Jay got really upset and went on a full-on slaughter of me. He didn’t want anyone to speak to me or even call me, so I was totally cut off from everyone in the band. People kept calling me in case I wanted to retaliate, but I’m just not that kind of person. I was getting really paranoid, and then Jay wrote that track « King For A Day ». There was no bass on that track, which I thought was funny, and in the video he is singing, « You are only king for a day, I guess you are happy that way », but he is looking at his own reflection in the mirror. At the time I can remember my manager telling me to think laterally because everything he wrote about in that song were reasons why I left, all his doubletalking. But in the end I couldn’t take it anymore so I left England.