BBC Southampton's Indy Almroth-Wright headed backstage on Saturday afternoon to chat to the lads before their gig at Portsmouth's Wedgewood Rooms...

You've been touring with the album pretty much non-stop for the last year and a half... are you still enjoying life on the road?
Marc: No, not really, I don't like touring, I like playing, but I don't like touring.
Tom: You've got us on a bad day!
Sym: We've just woken up...
Tom: Other bands have three days on and then they have a day off and they do a little bit of touring and have months off and they don't seem to do anything. With us we only have a few days off a month.

Marc

What was it like supporting the Placebo lads??
Tom: Very good.
Sym: I can't remember any of them.
Tom: We had to learn to play on a big stage...
Marc: And work the audience.

How did you all meet?
Marc: I knew Guy for quite a long time, we grew up in the same street and I used to play in a band with Andy and we met Sym in a pub and Tom was already a friend.

How would you describe your sound?
Tom: Retro garage rock n' roll.
Marc: Psychosis rock.

When you come on stage what do you think people's first impressions are of you?
Tom: That we're mad, but it's not true. If we came on stage and I was watching I'd be really into it - I'd think it was good. All our reviews tend to say that we're insane. I don't understand that because we're just a rock n' roll band, like hopefully a new rock n' roll band, but everybody seems to think it's psychobilly, jugger-pop.

The tub master

Maybe that's because you put on a performance and interact with the crowd more than other bands...
Andy: Yeah, that's the most important thing about a gig, interacting with the audience and putting on a performance. Otherwise you might as well just put the record on at home.
Tom: It's just putting everything into your music.

What's been the band's greatest achievement to date?
Marc: Managing to get signed and put a record out.
Sym: Becoming coherent.

Have you still got your mad car?
Tom: Yeah it's in the garage.
Marc: It's quite unreliable so we can't really take it on tour. It's a late 40's English Limousine the inside of it's only as big as a black cab.
Andy: I think we'll have to destroy it.

Havin' it

What band's T-shirt would you not be seen dead in?
All: The Vines.
Tom: All pub-rock bands.
Andy: That means The Vines and The Datsuns.

What if anything do you get chucked at you on stage?
Tom: People...
Marc: A bloke threw himself at me last night and hurt my leg.
Tom: It's the same bloke that was hanging from the ceiling last time.

When was the last time you woke up in a strange place?
All: Everyday...

What's the best thing about Britain?
Sym: Nothing, the weathers ****, the food's **** and all the people are miserable. I think it stinks.
Tom: The music, all the best psychedelic bands have come from Britain.

What are your plans for the summer?
Tom: We're playing Glastonbury, T in the Park, Leeds and Reading and Donnington and we're doing three or four festivals in France.
Andy: After this tour we're going to get back in the studio, we've already got about 23 songs for a new album which we're hoping to release next year. It's more diverse, it's going to be a amazing.