David McAlmont remembers the first time he met Bernard Butler. Well, vaguely.

There was that time, he says, when one of the guys from Suede came into the studio where he was working in the early 1990s – but it could well have been one of the other band members. There was definitely the time he played London’s Jazz Cafe in 1994. “My guitarist was really nervous,” he says, shaking his head. “I said ‘What’s wrong with you?’ and he said, ‘Bernard Butler’s in the audience.’ ”

Butler's reputation as an outstanding musician preceded him even then. He was the prodigious axeman who co-founded Suede with Brett Anderson, left the band after their second album Dog Man Star and went on to work with numerous other musicians before eventually becoming a pop producer of note (notably, he co-produced and co-wrote Duffy's globally successfully debut album, Rockferry).

He and McAlmont are in Dublin today to talk about their debut album The Sound of McAlmont & Butler, which has been reissued for its 20th anniversary.

The whole project was only ever meant to be about one song: but my, what a song. Yes – with music by Butler, and lyrics and vocal melody by McAlmont – is regularly hailed as one of the most uplifting pieces of music ever recorded. It was adapted by the Yes campaigners for the marriage referendum earlier this year and was shared on social media more than a few times in the aftermath of the vote.

“It did better in Ireland than it did for the Scottish referendum,” deadpans McAlmont.

“It’s cool that people were using it in that way,” adds Butler, smiling. “I didn’t know quite the effect it had. And I bet most of the people who were using it probably have no idea who we are.”

Unlikely match

The pair have always seemed an unlikely match. Before working with Butler, McAlmont was best known as a remarkable singer who had been half of soul-pop London duo Thieves, but his ear was caught by Butler’s references to girl groups and Dusty Springfield.

“That was good enough for me,” McAlmont says, smiling. “I was like, ‘Yeah, okay. I’d love to hear what you’re doing’.’’

The song, says Butler, was shopped around to other artists before he approached McAlmont to sing on it. “One in particular was much older and a much more established artist,” he says, steadfastly refusing to name names. “They came back and just wanted to change everything in the song; they key, the structure, everything about it. I freaked out and I just had to say to them, ‘You know what, you’re not doing it, I want my song back’, and that caused a massive load of trouble,” he says, laughing.

“I got into so much shit for a few days with this person, who was literally phoning me up and screaming at me. But I took a deep breath and thought: I’m probably right about this one.”

His hunch paid off. It’s impossible to imagine anyone except McAlmont doing the song justice. Straight away, the pair fell into a working groove and produced a plethora of songs that were very different from what either of them had done previously.

In 1995 the Britpop party was raging, but neither McAlmont nor Butler was particularly interested in pulling up a seat at the table. “When we were making this record, there was a lot of that stuff going on: Oasis and Blur,” says Butler. “It was very macho, vulgar, in-your-face, aggressive, egotistical and male. None of that appealed to me: sitting around talking about what geniuses we were while doing coke. Of all the stupid things I did when I was young, I avoided that. I found it excruciating. When it came to making pop records, it was always a case of, ‘Whatever they’re talking about over there, I want to talk about something different’. I wanted to be interesting, even if that meant I was facing the wall. I was prepared to take that gamble.”

An eclectic record

From the soaring, anthemic You Do to the acoustic strum of Don't Call It Soul and the ruminative gospel organ of You'll Lose a Good Thing, The Sound of McAlmont & Butler is an exceedingly eclectic record.

“I have many memories of being in the studio with Bernard, and he’d say ‘What do you think of this?’ and half an hour later we’d have a song,” says McAlmont. “At that point I was a fan of Stevie Wonder, Prince, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, The Bee Gees, all of these different eclectic sounds, so there wasn’t really anything that Bernard could throw at me that I couldn’t respond to.”

After the album was released, the pair went their separate ways amid rumours of an acrimonious split. But they are at pains to point out that the project always had a finite lifespan and that there were no hard feelings.“We had two sets of management and labels and all sorts of people saying, ‘No, do this, do this, prolong, go on tour, blah blah blah’,” says McAlmont, shrugging. “There was all sorts of stuff being said, and it all got a bit more involved than it was supposed to. So I think that’s why we called it a day.”

Miscommunication

Nevertheless, in a recent interview McAlmont has spoken about the sense of miscommunication that he felt was happening at the time, when he brought personal lyrics to Butler and got no feedback on them. “I definitely found it strange that Bernard didn’t say anything, because as far as I was concerned, I was doing something to his music. His take was completely different; he thought, You were doing what you were supposed to do,” he says with a laugh. “But sometimes, I thought: I’m being really intimate and honest, here; I’m telling my life story here . . . is that . . . all right? That was my concern, but it need not have been.

“It was more a case when we were in the studio that David would just sing,” says Butler. “He’d do it in one take and it’d be like, ‘Great! That’s done, it sounds good. I’ll do something else now; I’ll play the piano.’ We did everything very quickly, and I wasn’t really the type of person to sit down and talk about what geniuses we were.”

In any case, their friendship and working partnership has long since been repaired. In 2002 they crafted a successful studio album, Bring It Back, and their much-vaunted third album – which was mostly recorded and left on the shelf several years ago after an entanglement with a record company – will see the light of day sooner rather than later, perhaps even as early as next year.

They have both changed in the ensuing two decades, of course. “Well, Bernard’s a father of three now, and my hair is on my face,” McAlmont jokes.

His songwriting partner is a little more philosophical. “When I go to play now, I find that I’m much more comfortable,” says Butler. “I hated my 20s; hated it. I remember just being on edge all the time, just waiting to make a record and never being satisfied. I’m just quite happy now. I’m really lucky I’m here. I love Dublin, I get to play for people who really like our record, and it’s a lovely thing, isn’t it? I mean, what can be better?”

• McAlmont & Butler play Vicar Street on November 1st. The 20th anniversary re-issue of The Sound of McAlmont & Butler is out now