ADAM NUTTER, lead guitarist of THE MUSIC, tells JODY MACGREGOR they’re the best there is at what they do.

Thanks to their excitable music press there’s a tradition of British musicians talking their abilities up about as much as your average rapper. The Music play that game, but they aren’t all mouth and no trousers – they’ve got two well-received albums and a recommendation from Steve Lamacq behind them. I know what to expect when I ask Adam Nutter what it’s like coming back from a four-year gap to find that you’re not the only band blending dance music and rock together a certain way.

“There are some people who say, ‘Hey, The Music have been doing this since 2002 and you guys are only just starting to do it and you don’t do it as well,’” he laughs. “That’s kind of how I feel really. When we first came out we were really unfashionable. No one was doing what we were doing. Now we’re coming back into an industry where people are trying to do what we were doing so successfully. That’s good for us because we can come back and show people that we really are the pinnacle of that kind of music, know what I mean? We really feel strongly about that. Deep down we think we are the best at what we do.”

He hasn’t always been so confident about their music, however. There was a period after their second album when Nutter says that they weren’t sure they could even write songs anymore and their concerts were disappointments.

“We did a couple of gigs two years ago that didn’t go very well, that made us feel like we were peddling nostalgia. After that we turned around and went, ‘Right, we need a change. We need to get our heads down and do some work.’ Me and Robert [Harvey] decided we wanted to go away and write. I’ve got a studio set-up in my spare bedroom so we spent basically the last year-and-a half locked in there.”

That year resulted in relatively complete demos, which Nutter credits with attracting producers Paul Hartnoll and Flood to produce the resulting album, Strength In Numbers.

“We wanted to get away from the last experience which were with Brendan O’Brien – which was good and we got a good record – but it’s very American and I think Brendan wasn’t interested in the dance element we wanted to bring out and wasn’t into the groove. Obviously Paul Hartnoll was in Orbital so we were quite excited about that. We thought we had someone on our wavelength, someone who knew what we were trying to achieve and that was the case. He helped a lot and same with Flood.”

The new material is something we’ll get to hear when they arrive for this year’s Splendour In The Grass, but what I want to know is whether we’ll be blessed with a sideshow. “We’re doing a Melbourne and a Sydney side show I believe,” he says. “Hopefully more, but I’m not sure what we can fit in in terms of the schedule ’cause then we’ve got to get on to do something in Korea and then something in Japan.”

“There are some people who say, ‘Hey, The Music have been doing this since 2002 and you guys are only just starting to do it and you don’t do it as well,’” he laughs. “That’s kind of how I feel really. When we first came out we were really unfashionable. No one was doing what we were doing. Now we’re coming back into an industry where people are trying to do what we were doing so successfully. That’s good for us because we can come back and show people that we really are the pinnacle of that kind of music, know what I mean? We really feel strongly about that. Deep down we think we are the best at what we do.”

He hasn’t always been so confident about their music, however. There was a period after their second album when Nutter says that they weren’t sure they could even write songs anymore and their concerts were disappointments.

“We did a couple of gigs two years ago that didn’t go very well, that made us feel like we were peddling nostalgia. After that we turned around and went, ‘Right, we need a change. We need to get our heads down and do some work.’ Me and Robert [Harvey] decided we wanted to go away and write. I’ve got a studio set-up in my spare bedroom so we spent basically the last year-and-a half locked in there.”

That year resulted in relatively complete demos, which Nutter credits with attracting producers Paul Hartnoll and Flood to produce the resulting album, Strength In Numbers.

“We wanted to get away from the last experience which were with Brendan O’Brien – which was good and we got a good record – but it’s very American and I think Brendan wasn’t interested in the dance element we wanted to bring out and wasn’t into the groove. Obviously Paul Hartnoll was in Orbital so we were quite excited about that. We thought we had someone on our wavelength, someone who knew what we were trying to achieve and that was the case. He helped a lot and same with Flood.”

The new material is something we’ll get to hear when they arrive for this year’s Splendour In The Grass, but what I want to know is whether we’ll be blessed with a sideshow. “We’re doing a Melbourne and a Sydney side show I believe,” he says. “Hopefully more, but I’m not sure what we can fit in in terms of the schedule ’cause then we’ve got to get on to do something in Korea and then something in Japan.”

Along with THE MUSIC, this year’s Splendour line-up includes Devo, Sigur Rós, The Polyphonic Spree, Tricky, Vampire Weekend, Wolfmother, Lyrics Born, and the list goes on... STRENGTH IN NUMBERS is out now through Universal.

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