The Wombats are still going strong

The trio play the O2 Academy on Tuesday as part of a special tour celebrating the 10th anniversary of their debut album, A Guide To Love, Loss and Desperation.

Arguably their most impressive feat is that they’re still the same line-up that released early singles like Backfire At The Disco and Kill The Director – singer/guitarist Matthew ‘Murph’ Murphy, bassist Tord Øverland-Knudsen and drummer Dan Haggis.

“With so many bands the offstage side of things falls apart,” says Dan.

“You’ve got to work at it, like a good marriage, and stick with it. It’s a strange life in a band and it’s not for everyone I guess, but you’ve got to keep your feet on the floor and not get ideas above your station. Coming from Liverpool, and I guess Glasgow will be similar, but if you start to get arrogant your friends will bring you back down, and that really helped us.”

Since Love, Loss and Desperation the Wombats have managed to avoid falling by the wayside, a fate that struck plenty of their guitar band contemporaries. Instead they’ve released another two albums, with 2015’s Glitterball their poppiest offering yet.

They are currently working away in Oslo on material for a fourth album, but are also getting back to grips with their earliest songs.

“It’s nice to do that, although we probably won’t play them again for ages after this tour, as we’ll have new songs that we’ll want to play and the old ones will go back on the shelf,” says Dan.

“Playing Lost In The Post again is so much fun. It’s really high energy from start to finish and we all get loads to do on it. Murph’s changing from keyboards to guitar, Tord’s jumping around and it’s just fun.

“My First Wedding is another one – you’re knackered by the end of it but there’s a sense of satisfaction. It’s like having a great workout in the gym, you have a euphoria afterwards.”

A tour like this is bound to bring plenty of memories flooding back, returning to when the three-piece were just starting out, and working on their debut in one of music’s legendary studios.

“Recording at Rockfield in south Wales was such an experience,” adds the sticksman.

“There was just an excitement for us at working in a proper studio and having a producer and engineer to help us, and then we were getting to do things like play on the piano that Freddie Mercury used on Bohemian Rhapsody.

“The tour brings back a lot of memories. I don’t know how we survived back then on the sleep we had, because the amount of shows we were playing was just ridiculous. We were firing through them on adrenaline, really. Glasgow was always a fun one to play, although I really just remember lots of beer being thrown, and ending up in random nightclubs.”

Before any of that, however, was a very early trip to play King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, back when the band were all having to juggle day jobs.

“The first time we played Tut’s we drove up from Liverpool in my granny’s old car,” chuckles Dan.

“It took four hours or so to get there, but I had work the next morning, so Murph drove us right back after the show and there was tons of fog, so we were stuck doing 40mph on the way back. It took forever.”

As for the future, Dan is hopeful the band will start recording again in August.

“We’re hoping to change things up,” he says.

“We still get excited when something doesn’t necessarily sound like something we’ve done before. The word psychedelic has been banded around a bit, but until we start recording anything could happen.”

It’s not just the Wombats he’s been busy with though. Under his Dan The Man name he recently released his second solo album, Circadian Circus, a folk record.

“I’ve always made more alternative folk music, so it’s about getting a different side of you out,” he explains.

“My uncle died a couple of years ago and the process of getting through that grief there were a lot of different thoughts I wanted to get out (in the songs). When off tour it’s nice to make something completely different and clear your head, so you come back to other things fresher.”

The Wombats, Tuesday, O2 Academy, £27.50, 7pm

JONATHAN GEDDES