This autumn, sees them get back on the road with a UK tour which stops off at Southampton Uni - BBC Southampton's Indy Almroth-Wright rang Carey up for a gossip....

Where are you and what can you see out the window?
At my house in Deptford. I can see a pub, a dental shop, a Chinese supermarket and a gallery.

Your debut year on the rock scene's certainly kept you on your toes - what have been the highlights for you?
Well it's been very hectic but there have been a few highlights - getting nominated for the Mercury Prize has been a real highlight, it's a real feeling that you've done well. We've done lots of things we've never done before like play Glastonbury, and at T in the Park and V2003 so many people turned up to see us play and knew all of the songs, so that was a real highlight.

The multitalented Carey playing at Portsmouth's Wedgewood Rooms

Also, selling out at places like The Astoria is a real 'Can't quite believe that's happened' - and for the next tour we've sold out two nights in a row at Shepherds Bush. So it's all going really well and it's been a year of firsts.

Can you remember your first gig?
We actually played at a place called The Little Back Yard and told no-one about it. The whole plan was to figure out if we could still play live coz we used to be in another band and just a few of our friends turned up.

But the first one we did after getting signed was very, very disturbing. We played for our record company's Christmas party with a band called Alfie. Oh my goodness, it was just really disturbing coz our record company hadn't seen us play live, our publishing company hadn't seen us play live and our manager hadn't seen us play live. They'd only ever seen us play at a rehearsal. So we were really ultra nervous and then the PA blew up halfway through our set, which was fun! But it all ended up being all right.

What did you do when you found out your album had gone gold?
Well none of us actually believed it because only about a week and a half earlier it had gone silver. We were all actually out that evening anyway having a few drinks with some friends so we were saying 'It can't have done...' It was only the next day when someone rang up and said 'yes it has' that we believed it was true.

Have you got any memorable tour shenanigans that you can report?
Well, we did a festival recently called Wakestock in Wales which was basically for wakeboarders which was cool and most of the people there were complete nutters. The band on before us were funny, they were from Japan and the drummer wore only a sock! It was interesting chatting to him afterwards trying to keep eye contact!

Tim making a minor adjustment.

In fact that whole day was really bizarre because we were doing One Big Sunday in Leicester with Radio 1. It was the sound check that day in Leicester but then the gig (Wakestock) was in Wales so we ended up getting a private jet from Leicester to Wales doing the gig and then going back to Leicester for One Big Sunday the next day.

The aeroplane was done out like something from a 1960's James Bond film with orange fur. It was the first time I've ever managed to stand up during take-off - coz no-one's there to stop you.

Who's the most famous person you've met?
I bumped into Tim Wheeler the other night when The Darkness had a bit of a knees up to celebrate being No. 1. And also Jools Holland who drinks in my local pub.

How are you feeling about being in the running for the Mercury Music Prize?
I'm excited, I'm really looking forward to going - it should be fun. We're playing live which is great - I'd much rather play live than sit there watching a video of us with everyone else, that would just be horrible as I don't really like watching myself.

When was the last time you took something home you shouldn't have and what was it?
The last time was in Germany where they had these really brilliant beer glasses - so I spent ages going to and from the bar stealing one at a time, but then I left them on the coach when we got back to London.

What are your plans once you've finished this tour?
We'll be straight back writing - we're doing the next album already. Whenever we're not playing away somewhere we're writing new material.