IN a studio in the West End, one of Glasgow's best kept secrets is preparing for the next big step in their career.

Folk rock band Washington Irving was originally formed by Joseph Black and Chris McGarry, who first met when they were students at high school in their home town of Oban.

They would later be joined by fellow Oban musicians Martin Anfield, Kieran Heather and Aberdeen's Rory MacDonald after the duo moved to Glasgow in 2009.

Since then the band has developed a massive cult following in the city and last year released their two-part debut album Palomides.

Work on their second album has already begun and, in November, the band plans to travel to America to work with New York producer Kevin McMahon on their next record.

But before they can jet off to the Big Apple, Washington Irving will play their first headline show in Glasgow for over a year at the Centre of Contemporary Arts tomorrow.

"We have not been playing any shows because we had a really busy year last year," said Joseph. "CCA is one of our favourite venues and we're just so excited because we will be playing all of the new songs before we go over to America, so we feel that it's going to be some kind of a send off to us."

Over the years, Washington Irving have performed sell-out gigs all over Glasgow, but revealed that the band's first ever gig in the city was held in the basement of Joseph's flat.

"We were 17 or 18 at the time and we got all of our pals over for this first gig and the police came pretty quickly and kicked us all out, it was a good start," he recalls.

Despite all the members of the band being from outside Glasgow, Joseph says after six years living here the city has become home.

"I never really had any real experience of the city and when I moved to Glasgow when I was 17 and because I had been doing music all my life, I felt just adopted by the city as soon as I got here, I think we all did.

"When we started playing music in Glasgow, we just connected with all these great people and it felt like we were allowed to be part of this amazing community of musicians who have done so many exciting things over the years and were very inspiration to what we are doing now.

"Because I've gigged so much in the city over the years, every street has a memory and my relationship with the city changes all of the time."

Joseph insists that without the following the band developed from Glasgow, he believes they would have not been able to achieve the same amount of success in the same time period.

He added: "Glasgow crowds gave us the encouragement to go further afield, which led to us doing tours in England and being more ambitious, but I think without the original support from the Glasgow crowds, we would have struggled to do everything we have done in the last couple of years."

Next month, the band will fly off to America to start recording their second album with producer Kevin McMahon.

Joseph says the new album will be their most personal record to date and will be themed around disastrous events throughout history.

"There is a load of First World War stuff in the record, there is a load of Russian Revolution stuff, and I read a lot of Russian novels when writing this record.

"So I think we've tried to express more personal events throughout the course of this record and I think it will be really as a result."

Joseph revealed that Washington Irving first got in touch with McMahon through their original producer Marcus MacKay.

McMahon, who engineered Frightened Rabbit's incredible second album The Midnight Organ Fight, was the band's first choice to work with and Joseph believes he will be able to take the band's ideas and songs and make them even better.

"More than anything with this record, we had all the ideas before we started writing it, so as a whole kind of piece, we had the creative ideas, the musical and the non musical ideas, we had that before we ever put pen to paper.

"We've been chatting to Kevin about what we want the record to be and I think he is going to be able to get the songs we have and let us express ourselves as best we can and give the records of life."

Joseph said the band wanted to record the album in America to give the record a "universal tone."

He said the band inspires to sound like American indie groups Titus Andronius and Real Estate, who McMahon has produced for in the past, but says he doesn't think the record will have an American sound.

"I think that album is very kind of European sounding record because there is lots of place names in the record, in the lyrics which are all in Europe and I think I wanted to have this universal tone, so it's just not a new Scottish album, but a new album."

The new album is expected to come out at some point next year, but Joseph says at this stage the band are will be working hard to make sure the album is done right.

"As artists, at this stage it is important on getting the thing right and the rest of it will fall into place."

n Washington Irving (Support - Three Blind Wolves/The Great Albatross) CCA tomorrow, £8