A SCOTTISH band in exile will return north of the border next month as part of a month-long tour of the UK in support of their latest EP.

Fresh from a tour supporting You Me At Six, Aberdeen group The Xcerts will play Glasgow’s SWG3 as part of what will be the final tour in support of their much-praised 2018 album Hold On to Your Heart.

Following the LP’s success, the band have released a four-track EP ahead of the nine-date UK tour and are set to return to the studio this year to record not one, but two albums.

However, before work can begin on their next releases, there is the small matter of shows in some of the hottest venues across the country, with less than 100 tickets remaining for their show in Glasgow on March 30.

Singer and guitarist Murray Macleod said: “We have a new EP out so we’ll be playing from that, and this is the last tour of the album.

“We’re looking at it as a celebration marking everything, a last hurrah I suppose.

We’re hoping to go out in style before we go to work on the new albums, and we will play as much old stuff as we can. We can’t please everyone but we will do our dambdest.”

The show at SWG3 will be the first time any of the members have ever been in the popular venue, and the group are excited to see it first hand.

Two sold out nights at the Barras were part of the You Me At Six tour which The Xcerts played as main support, something which Murray said was “incredible” for the band to experience.

However, they are still recovering, like much of Glasgow, from the loss of

the O2 ABC, the site of the

boys’ last headline show in the city.

Murray said: “None of us have ever been to SWG3 so that is very exciting.

“But we have heard great things about the place so we are all excited. It’s close to a sell-out too so it should be good.

“Glasgow is like our third home really. We are from Aberdeen and Glasgow reminds us of home. Our love for the city knows no bounds.

“It is a real travesty with the O2 ABC. The last time we headlined in Glasgow it was there.

“I mean it feels so bizarre, it is such a staple of the music scene.

“We have all seen so many shows and its such a great venue. It’s hard to think about but life goes on.

“It’s absolutely heartbreaking – an enormous hub of creativity taken from everyone in the city.”

Murray is already thinking beyond the tour, with the previously mentioned albums planned.

But the writing process has been slower than expected, with material written towards the end of last year now scrapped.

Back to the drawing board it may be, but Murray remains upbeat about the band’s new material.

He added: “We toured until Christmas and have had a couple of months now to write the new record,with our heads in the writing world.

“We had basically demoed seven songs before the tour but we got back and scrapped them all, so we are starting from scratch.

“We have another support tour first which is pretty wild, and we are all psyched about that. But we can’t say too much at the moment. We’re out for nearly a month and then it’ll be back to writing. We have some sessions to knuckle down working between Brighton and London.

“They just felt stale repetitive, and it didn’t feel new or exciting for us. That’s not something we’re interesting in producing.

“One will be louder, and we are trying to figure that out at the moment. Try to make bombastic pop with a little less distortion. The other will have a lot more piano and guitar.

“I have been begging Gary Clark (frontman of 80s pop band Danny Wilson) to produce the next album, he’s like Yoda to me. But he’s busy so I am hoping to send him stuff instead.

“If it ever felt we had stalled we would stop.

“It is always going in a forward trajectory for us, just very slowly. That’s what we want to do, and we want to be a full-time band.

“Everything is going great and belief is high among us ahead of the tour and album.”

The Xcerts play SWG3 on March 30 in support of their new EP Wildheart Dreaming, with tickets starting from £14.30.