1) You've been touring with Thursday - how's that been?
It's been very good; all the shows were awesome, for our first time over here to land a tour like that was amazing. We're friends with those guys and for them to ask us to come out was awesome. We sort of begged to get on the tour (laughs) but it worked out it was really good. All the kids at the shows gave us a good reaction so it was cool.

2) Despite your line-up changes you appear to have come out stronger than ever - what do you think is the secret to your continued strength as a band?
I think it's the special kind of water that we drink, that we buy at this special store, it's a magical store with fairies and unicorns and when we drink that water it brings an essence to the band that was never there before so…no! No I have no idea it just sort of worked that way. I don't think there's any secret to it, it just fell into place.

3) Where do you want your music to take you?
Where do you see yourselves in five years time? When they rebuild Wembley stadium, somewhere around there! There's never been a finish line per se. I guess wherever it goes it goes. If it brought us to Wembley stadium that would be sick! It would be amazing but then if we play here (Camden Underworld) forever that would be awesome too. Same in the States.

4) How have you progressed musically since 'The Moon Is Down'?
I think it's developed a lot. It's very different but much the same as well. I think there's a lot more dynamic to the band, a lot more highs and lows. We're experimenting with new stuff. On the next record, we're doing another one in December, its a little heavier and darker. Falling more in the vein of the slower songs. I'm not saying all of the stuff is slow it's just less poppy than the last record. But we just write the music that we like and hope that everyone else likes it as well. We've never had a formula for how to write songs, it's pretty much what comes to us. We're just one of those bands that do our thing and hope it works!

5) What's your opinion of people downloading and copying music?
Is it something you would advocate? Yes and no, I don't think it's a black and white discussion, It's very helpful in some aspects and not so much in others. I suppose for bands like Metallica it's not a big deal, those guys have so much money it's unbelievable. It should be bands like us that complain but then again its bands like us that it helps because it starts to establish our fan base, so we can do our things to get to the next level. If people can listen to our music before buying it or just listen to it and not buy it, it's a good thing. We played a CD release show three or four days before our CD came out and everyone at the club knew the words. That's awesome the fact that kids are hungry and want to download our music and figure out what we're all about. But I would encourage people to buy the record because our contract sucks and we don't make squat! It is hard to survive in this music industry, and record sales used to be where bands made all their money but now the money is made through touring and when you're not high profile it can be hard to pay the bills. I personally don't download any music, Sometimes I'll listen to a track but then I'll buy the record.

6) Which bands do you rate at the moment?
There's this band called Muse (Yeah coz we don't know who they are - ED) and they're the greatest band of all time! I got 'Showbiz' when it came out in the States and I've been listening to it up until last week because we can't get 'Origin Of Symmetry' or 'Absolution' yet, it's like $45 import so it sucks! Pretty much all the music I listen to is Briti sh anyway, American music sucks. I listen to Coldplay, Radiohead, Muse, Travis, Starsailor, I love that stuff. That's my favorite music and then I like some American stuff like Sunny Day Real Estate, Glassjaw and Thursday, Muse though is like MY band at the moment. I got over here and I knew their new record was out so I just got my stuff into the hotel and went straight out to a music store and bought everything I didn't have which ended up costing me a lot of money, but you gotta do what you gotta do!

7) What band/album has had the most impact/influence on your style?
I would say Sunny Day Real Estate, 'How It Feels To Be Something On' or Jeff Buckley, 'Grace' he's my favorite singer of all time. That's me personally but if you go to the band side maybe it would be something like Led Zeppelin or U2 or something more like everyone listens to. Radiohead, 'The Bends' had a huge influence on me personally. I'm a music nerd I've got something like 2,000 CDs. If I don't like it I sell it, so everything I have, I love.

8) How would you describe the mood of 'How To Start A Fire'? What were you trying to convey to people through this album?
The title, the lyrics and the insert of the album was meant to look like a 'How to…' guide. All the lyrics had to do with inspiration basically. How I'm inspired, how to inspire people that was the topic of the record. It wasn't really a concept record per se. The mood of the music though is sort of poppy and catchy but then it's sort of dark and moody at the same time, it covers a big spectrum, I love it. When most bands go into the studio they end up never wanting to hear it again. During recording and the mix-down and everything else I probably listened to the song 'The Sound' 3 or 400 times and that's with every song but then as soon as we got out of the studio I listened to it for months. I think that's a testament to our music that we all love it. I'm a little biased but I think it's good!

9) "On Legendary" is my favorite track off the album, where did the inspiration come from when you were writing that song?
It's really a love song about my fiancé. It's a pretty typical love song but with my own little flare added in. I like that song too, we're playing it tonight, we haven't been before but we're playing longer so we'll have that tonight. I really like 'A Blank Page Empire' and 'The Deep' they're probably my two favorite songs off the record, I like 'How To Start A Fire' a lot as well.

10) What can we expect from your set?
We're going to start with the last song off the record ('Aurora Borealis') which is the really Radiohead/Pink Floyd sort of thing, and then we'll go right into 'How To Start A Fire'. There will be some rockers and some ballads. We're playing 'New Year's', 'On Legendary', 'Blank Page Empire', so there's like three real rock out songs. 'Pride War', 'The Sound', 'Bradley', and we're playing a cover song by Bjork called 'Pagan Poetry'. We recorded it in the States, it'll be out sometime on Geffen, a load of bands did a bunch of Bjork songs so that's really cool. Actually it's like us, New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, Thursday, Glassjaw, Finch, Alkaline Trio, Hot Water Music. It's like come out and we're all moody, then we rock out for a little while then we slow back down and then we rock out really hard at the end! Loud guitars, jump kicks and hopefully kids go off, it's gonna be a good time!

11) What have your experiences of the music industry taught you?
For me, music is my calling in life, it's pretty much the only thing I'm really good at. But the music industry had taught me that it's really shady, a really weird, messed up political thing where it's all driven by money, it's all about who you know. Bottom line, if there's no money you won't get big, you won't get famous. There's never been a band in the history of bands except for really in the hardcore but that's not the same anymore. If you want to be a big hardcore band then you have to sign to a big hardcore label and have lots of money behind you. Fugazi is the only band ever who has been able to put records out on their own terms. You are a slave to the music industry if you want to do what you want to do and it sucks but you have to play the game, I'd love to be a band like Radiohead and make whatever record I want to make. They're a band to me who are very punk rock; they don't give a crap and write what they want. That's the philosophy of the band but it's not easy when you have some guy who dumped all this money into you telling you that you have to do pop songs and then there's the fans who want to here this stuff and then there's us and we want to write this stuff so there are so many different things going on. The music industry sort of sucks but it's the industry I've chosen to be in so I have to deal with it, everyone gripes about their job so I can gripe about mine. At the end of the day playing music is the most fulfilling thing I've ever done.

12) You were on the Take Action Tour in America recently - tell us a little bit about that and why you got involved.
It was for a benefit which is called the Hope Line in the States. It's 1-800-SUICIDE and it's a free number that people who suffer from depression or are feeling suicidal can ring to get help and if you're ever feeling down you can just pick it up and call them, which I thought was a very important thing for us to be a part of. I felt very fulfilled by doing that, even though the crowd wasn't so good because it was us and a bunch of metal bands! There was us, Dillinger Escape Plan, Poison The Well, Shai Halud, Avenged Sevenfold, Eighteen Visions. It was for a very good cause and I'm more than happy that we did it and I would do it in the future no matter what the line-up was. We met a lot of really great people, some who worked for the charity and some who worked on the tour and I felt good afterwards. The shows were very interesting because there was our fans, then you got the metal kids and then the mall metal kids who listen to Slipknot and then you've got the hardcore kids and no one really got along but somehow everyone sort of managed to watch all the bands so it was very good!