They're back out on a mini tour next week, having their own headline shows in Newcastle, Norwich, Southampton and lastly in Cardiff on June 3, as well as an appearance at Slam Dunk Festival and an exciting headline slot at 2000 Trees.

GLA shot to number one in the UK Rock charts when it was released in September 2016, giving them their second number one in that chart after Great Divide's success two years earlier. Their whole back catalogue of four albums includes slices of rock genius, such as 'No Sleep', 'Heart and Soul', 'Free' and so many more.

In the early(ish) morning of Friday, May 18, we called up bassist, keyboardist, backing vocalist, and all-round lovely chap Ross McNae, to chat about how the hours in the studio are going, what's coming up soon for Twin Atlantic, and the new Arctic Monkeys album.

There was also talk about the weather, obviously.

Hey Ross, how are you?

I’m good mate, how are you?

I’m good thanks, just in my room at the moment!

D’you wanna know something? So am I.

Are you going to be in the studio today?

No, these last few days have been a bit of time off for us, which has been nice because we’ve been kind of hammering it in the studio and haven't done anything that anyone would know about apart from us. We’ve been working really hard and we’ve got shows starting next week, so we thought we’d give ourselves a few days off just to recover a bit.

Are you exploring some touristy sights or just relaxing in bed with some TV before heading out on tour again?

You’ll be surprised to hear this from someone from Scotland, but there’s actually some good weather at the beach here! It's coincided with us being off, which is pretty lucky!

It’s sunny here in Bristol too, it’s actually turning into quite a nice summer! As you said, you’ve got shows coming up soon, it’s the first time you’re touring since September?

Yeah, on our last album we didn’t tour as much as we have on previous albums. We just wanted to do the main shows for it, you know just do one show in each place, whereas previously we’ve gone around and played somewhere two or three times all over Europe and then further afield.

That was over about a year, but that seems to be what’s going on at the moment. Album cycles tend to be a bit shorter. We decided we weren’t going to head out too much and just focus on our new record. We used to write an awful lot on the road, but we haven’t this time, we’ve just been writing up in the studio we’ve got here.

But a couple of months ago we thought it would be interesting to see what the difference in what we make would be if we were on the road, so we decided to get a few shows together, and then we got a few festival offers in for around the same time. That’s kind of why this little run has been built, because there’s not really much going on apart from that!

So would you say GLA was a more on-the-road album in the mindset of travelling and seeing the world, whereas this is a lot more of a set time in the studio with a different approach?

Well actually, Free and Great Divide, the records before GLA, were probably more of the on-the-road record, and the last record was actually the first one that was ever written in Glasgow. That was between two different studios and then we came to together and recorded it all with our producer Jacknife [Garret ‘Jacknife’ Lee] in America.

It was kind of a hybrid album, where it was the first thing that we had ever written both separate from each other and also all in one place, so I think we’re wondering this time what would happen if we did that more. We’ve been starting everything basically from scratch and just going into a room and seeing what happens. It’s going really well, and we thought, ‘imagine if we could bring back elements of Free and Great Divide’, those records that were the road trip type records, just for a few days, just a song or two, to have something new.

I read in some recent interviews that it’s still more in the experimental stage. Have you got more of an idea of what the new album will sound like now?

We do, that’s only just in the last maybe two or three weeks.

That’s exciting!

Yeah it is really exciting! We actually hadn’t had anything concrete until then, so yeah without giving too much away, it’s still early days but it’s starting to take a sort of final form, which I’m sure we’ll get in to later.

Was there a moment where you finished recording or playing something and there was a split second where you thought “oh, this sounds good actually, let’s go with this!”

There wasn’t really a eureka moment, it was more a period of two or three weeks where a couple of different ideas came together that had been in various stages for a little while, and it just became apparent that we stumbled upon the right thing. It’s such a funny thing, the whole process of making music! There are some things that you can’t quite put your finger on, but it’s when everyone in the room seems to look at each other and think “yeah, this is exciting!”

It brings a big smile on your face!

Yeah totally! It’s not like a eureka moment of, “this is what the people want!”, it’s more just “this is going to be fun.” I think what we’ve started to try and focus more and more on, as we’ve got through the records and grown up a wee bit, is just having fun, and if we’re having fun with it then that’s what matters.

So you don’t want to give much away about it… I don’t know how much you can say but can we expect similar crunching guitar riffs or a bit of a different vibe?

Errmm… there are elements of that, but it’s explored in a completely different way. That’s all I’ll tell you for now! We’ve tried to do something quite different, which we’ve tried to do every time, but we’ve always explored it in quite a similar area of rock music, but this time we’ve kind of cast the net a little bit wider. It’s fun! You’ll hear something in due course and it’s still our band, but we’re just trying to push ourselves a bit.

The four cities on the little tour are Newcastle, Norwich, Southampton and Cardiff. Why those four cities in particular?

Well these are the places that on our last album we visited the least, or maybe didn’t even visit at all, so when we were getting things up and running we were looking at places that we hadn’t been, and also places where we usually have a good time. Like I was saying, this is more about going away and just having a little minute away from what we’ve been doing, to refresh the mind in a sense, so you have to do that in places you know you’re going to have a good time.

Can we expect to hear any snippets of new music on these tours or anything a bit different?

I think it’s a bit early for new music to be totally honest with you, but we’re going to try and maybe play a few things that aren’t as expected, just to keep things interesting for us as much as anything else.

And then headlining 2000 Trees is exciting! In the past you’ve said it’s where you found yourselves on the festival scene

Yeah, you’ve probably read this as well, but this really is the truth of it, it’s the first real place that gave us a chance outside of Scotland when we were starting out. We’ve always tried to go back whenever we can.

When you look back and see how it’s gone forward over the years, looking at both the amount of people there and the scope of the festival, it’s gone from, with all due respect to it, being a bit further afield to becoming something that’s a proper real festival, so it’s always been close to us for all those reasons. Every time they call about it we’re like, “yeah, we’ll definitely do it!” It’s a pretty cool thing to be doing with all the other headliners as well, to be considered by the festival alongside them is pretty humbling.

Afterwards is a pretty quiet summer for you?

Yeah, so the plan was to have a month or so of stuff going on and then we’ll go back into the studio. It’s kind of designed to be a little break away from what we’ve been doing, and then we’ll get back into it and explore the album further and try get most of it finished over the summer as much as we can.

One final question, I was intrigued to hear the opinions of someone else making music, what do you think of the new Arctic Monkeys album?

Haha right, so I’ve only listened to the whole thing once. My favourite song is the last song, and when I thought that the record was maybe drawing to a close, ‘The Ultracheese’ came on and I was just so happy that they finished with that song. I love it, it’s amazing. There’s a couple of moments on it that are really good and really interesting.

Do you know what, overall, the whole thing is so interesting and brave, it’s hard to tell whether or not it’s completely serious.

Yeah that’s what I was thinking, I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a couple of weeks’ time, they said “actually, we’ve got this coming up soon as well.”

Totally, like “here’s the actual album!” Who knows, but yeah, it’s brave and bold… it’s just brave isn’t it? I’ll tell you right now, it’s the album that nobody wanted, so that’s kinda cool in a sense that they’re just like, “well, we’re just going to do whatever we want to do.”

And I suppose it’s good to show that you don’t necessarily have to follow trends.

Sure… but it definitely is weird!