Using Flood to produce the album - how did he come on board?

It’s funny, actually. One Friday afternoon our A&R man came in telling us to have a think about producers for the next record. I’d been listening to (Depeche Mode’s) Violator non-stop, so I said I wanted Flood to produce – “he’s the guy to do the record”. Everyone else went away, checked him out and agreed – his credits speak for themselves. Monday morning, our A&R man rings us up saying there’s one person who wants to do the record – Flood. It was quite strange, he was already interested so it was a match made in heaven.

It didn’t take long to record it then?

Well, we’d already written and demoed all of the album so, in the end, most of those demos ended up being the finished tracks on the album. Sometimes when you try to re-record something it’s a hard thing to re-create what’s there already. We had Flood asking us “why are you trying to re-record that, when what you’ve got here (demoed) is good enough?” That’s one of the things I loved about working with Flood, it didn’t matter to him if something cost ten pence or £10,000, if it’s good enough it’ll go on the record.

There was also a bit of a twist of fate in (new drummer) Jonna Löfgren joining the band…

Well, we were looking for a drummer (after Caroline McKay left the band) and we’d met some people but they didn’t feel right ‘cause we’re more about a vibe rather than ability. Then I went to our management and said, “I want a Swedish drummer, I want it to be a girl” and two days later Jonna turned up. She is probably one of the best things that’s ever happened to us. To be honest, she’s the best drummer I’ve ever seen live, she’s a lovely girl, beautiful, fun and brought us a new lease of life.

Was it an awkward transition bringing her into the band? Was the album already recorded when she joined?

James had already done the drums on the record. She’d never been in a band before; so this whole thing is new to her, which is quite sweet as well. People have been shouting her name at gigs and she doesn’t know what’s going on – she was asking me “why do people know who I am?”

You mentioned earlier there not being much of a change lyrically on the next record, but on your debut album there’s a lot of songs dealing with specific Glaswegian social issues – knife crime, sectarianism… are those issues a focus anymore?

I guess the lyrics come from things that are playing on James’ mind. I mean, there’s a song on the new album about domestic violence, a couple of songs about someone being gay and ashamed of it, songs about someone close to you dying and not being able to deal with it. You know, I think James is quite a sensitive guy, though he might not like me saying it.

The final track on the album, ‘Change’, features James’ mother doing a spoken word piece, what was the motivation for that?

James had written this song about a kid who’s coming out of jail but when he actually gets out he wants to go back – it’s just about the idea of someone being institutionalised. It’s a conversation between a mother and a son and he just thought, ‘why don’t I get my Mum in on it’. To be honest, it’s one of the most beautiful things we’ve ever written. I’ve played it to a couple of people and both of them cried – one of them was a grown man, so it’s pretty powerful.

The way you’re talking, even the way this album is titled EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\, is it meant to be like a journey between those themes?

Well I’d like to think so. With the first record - and with this new one - we never wanted them to be just an album; we wanted them to be like a movie, where you watch from the start and listen through different scenes. We always try to see an album as one piece of work, not just a few singles but an overall thing.

EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ is out on April 1st. Lead single ‘The World Is Yours’ can be downloaded for free from www.glasvegas.net. The band play the Academy in Dublin on April 28th and we have two pairs of tickets for State readers to win. To enter send your full contact details to giveaway@state.ie by 6pm on April 26th.