大象传媒

They're also playing Club Velocity on Friday 28 September at the Rising Sun Arts Centre, Silver Street, Reading.

So they're definitely back, but what have they been up to these past months? Guitarist and vocalist Jess Del Rio reveals all.

So Jess, what have you been up to for the last six months?

"Well we played our last gigs at the Great Escape Festival in Brighton and the Outbreak Festival in London for XFM - that was in May. Before those we had started to write new songs and managed to get a couple in the set for those gigs.

"But basically we just wanted to write new material. We've had lots of ideas and wanted to have some time to let those ideas properly develop.

"And really since we started as a band three years ago we've never not done gigs, we've always gigged our butts off.

"I think we did 250 gigs in two-and-a-half years, so there was quite a lot of evenings out and always being a bit tired.

"So it's been really nice for us to catch up on relationships and make new friends and see our cats and relatives and things!

"But now we're gigging again and we're busting to go."

So did you not gig at all on your time off?

"We did do a little bit, we went over to the Czech Republic to play the Trutnov Open Air festival which was lots of fun. It's the oldest festival in the Czech Republic and the ex-president came which is very nice. There were about 20,000 people there and we were on the main stage just as the sun was setting.

"There's a story about that on our MySpace and Dan made a little video of it as well.

So what have you got in store now that you're back on the gig circuit?

"We're doing this gig at the Oakford as a kind of a warm-up to try out new songs before heading to Popkomm in Germany, which is like a music conference festival.

Do the new songs sound any different to the old stuff?

"It's quite hard to tell when you're actually in the band, I can really feel we've advanced, and Dan feels when he's writing the lyrics that he's moving on to a newer area.

"And I'm singing a lot more, and I think we fill the songs as much as possible, it's really exciting."

"There's four new songs up on the MySpace this week - The One, Rude Boy, Moorwood, and one called See You Sunday.

Will we be able to download or buy them on CD at any point?

"These are just demos we've recorded ourselves in the practice rooms, they're still a bit rough round the edges. There are three more new tracks we're trying to get ready for the Oakford gig.

"It'll be a while, like around Christmas, before they're properly recorded, at the moment we're thinking about producers.

"I'm thinking it would be really nice to use someone who usually does quite a different genre, something quite beatsy or drum 'n' bassy."

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