"THERE'S a thirst there," declares The Music's Rob Harvey as he looks to sum-up the spirit fuelling his band's third album, Strength In Numbers.
"There's a hunger there again," he continues, defiantly. "It's all about bringing people together and making them feel good."
This isn't the usual noise from a band with a new album – it's a hard won confidence.
Despite only just reaching their
mid-20s, Harvey (vocals), Adam Nutter (guitar), Stuart Coleman (bass) and Phil Jordan (drums) have had to fight to get this far.
It's four years since the release of second album Welcome To The North and The Music are more determined and inspired than ever. And they earned this state of mind by escaping the depths, investing their souls into the creation of Strength In Numbers.
"The album was born out of darkness," says Harvey, for whom drug addiction blighted his teenage years. "It's got an underlying element of urgency."
The singer, who brings his band to The Picture House on Monday, continues, "It's been a long time and we've been through a lot in that period which made us realise we had to do something special. Every song had to be worth something."
The Music came out of nowhere in 2001 – a bunch of lads who had all grown up within three miles of each other in Leeds, a tightly knit gang of mates, some of whom had known each other all their lives.
Just out of school they signed to Hut Records and with a massive amount of self-belief were quickly heralded the most exciting new musical force of 2002. Their northern swagger seemed justified after the eponymous debut album shot to number four in the charts, and two years later they repeated the trick on their sophomore effort, which also reached the top ten.
Nevertheless, they admit that Welcome To The North followed its predecessor too quickly, and the young band, who after all were still not 20, found it hard to take it all in, having crammed a whole career into a couple of post-school years.
Of the bad places The Music found themselves in, Harvey says, "One of the main problems is that you grow a lot mentally between the ages of 18 and 24, even if you're in an office job. That's a strain, but for us we did it touring."
The situation wasn't helped by a realisation they were unhappy with the second record. "The American thing was most difficult," admits Harvey.
"To be able to mean something to that many people is obviously enticing. You think of U2 and Coldplay, bands that have made that step, and it's a dream to a lot of groups so we went for it, but at the time we didn't know that the songs weren't good enough or how tired we were."
But after wrong moves, false starts and genuinely scratching the bottom, The Music have made another record they can be proud of.
"It's about bringing people together and making them feel good," declares Harvey. "We know we can't save the world but we can do our bit to make people feel part of it and bring them out of the unconscious.
"I want people to feel like I do when I'm singing these songs – I want them to feel in the moment not disconnected."
With a huge grin, he adds, "Yeah, the swagger is back."
• The Music, The Picture House, Lothian Road, Monday, 7pm, £13, 0844 847 1740
