IT HAS been only four months since Camden guitar heroes Tribes released their first record.
But the group are already plotting a follow-up – and are hoping it will be their version of the Rolling Stones' classic Exile On Main Street.
Debut album Baby may have brought comparisons to grunge and American acts such as The Pixies, but singer Johnny Lloyd is eager to move on.
"We are doing our next record in America because we are not afraid of going over there and we know what we are as a band, so we will still have a quite British sound," he says.
"We want to be on the ladder of great London bands with The Clash and Blur. There is obviously American influences there (in Tribes music), which is great, but on a British line I am thinking about what is relevant to me and my world.
"You think of an album like Exile On Main Street, that's almost a country record. There will be a lot of that going on. We held one back from the first album that was very stripped back and there will be much more of a carnival feel to the next record, with more instruments going on and some of it being bluesy, some country and some really heavy songs."
Having already played the NME Tour earlier this year, the quartet are heading out on their biggest headline tour yet, including a date at Oran Mor on Monday.
With Baby having cracked the Top 20 in January and earned plenty of praise, all is going well for the group.
But the band's journey to this point has not been easy, with Johnny nearly giving up entirely when a friend of his died.
"It had been a pretty miserable year," he says, remembering the period before the band were signed to Island Record.
"One of my mates killed himself and we were so broke, then at the end of the year we were signed. It was a very up and down year, but it made the band what we are now.
"The whole thing around the death was just too much and we needed to stop and get things back on track. Then, when we started again, everyone got behind us, and Island signed us soon after."
Although they are signed to a major label, Tribes were determined to go about things in a fairly low key way, rejecting any big name producers to try and make a raw record. And don't ever suggest the possibility of a more glossy production to Johnny -
"We wanted to prove to the X Factor generation that music is not just Simon Cowell and all his stupid karaoke, which has taken the soul out of everybody," he says.
"It just kills your brain. I think it's a load of rubbish, and you meet acts from those shows at festivals and it's all nonsense."
Despite the success TV's The X Factor, Johnny is still confident there will always be a place for guitar groups, and that will be no danger of traditional bands fading away.
"Some of the biggest bands in the world are guitar bands – Coldplay, The Black Keys and Jack White, The Vaccines, did well in the charts," he explains.
"It has just been something to talk about now because real music is getting ostracised with all this rubbish – you can't tell the difference between a DFS advert and something that is in the charts now."
Furniture chains might not have come calling for the band, but they have had plenty of support from elsewhere, with NME picking them for its annual tour earlier this year.
That seems to have been a positive experience for the band, even though they did not quite click with all their touring companions.
"It was quite closed off between the acts, because they had done a lot of touring, but it was wicked fun playing to new people each night and it has a bit of history to it," he says.
"We had a really great time, although we're all quite different bands. We got on well with Two Door Cinema Club but bands like Metronomy, who have toured a lot, were not up for getting smashed each night, they were just getting on with it.
"It could have been more of a party, but we still had a great time, and Azealia (Banks, the tour's opening act) is one in a million."
l Tribes, Oran Mor, Monday, £10, 7pm.
