Music Features

They've put bowler hats back on heads, terrorised festival audiences throughout the summer and proven that you don't need the word 'the' at the beginning of your name to make it big.

September should be a wind down month for Maximo Park at the moment, with each band member taking 'me' time in their northern homes, resting up for the long tour ahead. It's a tour that takes in most of the UK, a good lump of Europe and goes coast to coast across Canada and the States.

However Tom English - Maximo's drummer - and the rest of the band are sitting patiently by their telephones to take the allotted interviews that have been scheduled for them - just another cog on the media machine it would seem.

Maxïmo Park

But Tom doesn't answer the phone as if he's ticking me off the list, he answers like a laid back drummer for a reasonably successful rock five-piece from the north east of England; in short, there's no pretension.

He's keen to talk about songs, gigs and fans and humours me whenever I ask daft questions about whether they're famous enough to get visas for America and why there's no photos in the press of them falling out of overpriced Soho clubs.

Fans of the band will have noticed a pacier yet more heart felt follow up to A Certain Trigger. Our Earthly Pleasures is the break-up album that most of the broken hearted wish they could write, spilling out memories and stories all over the floor for everyone to slip over and then mopping it all up just to show that significant other what they're missing.

Lyrically it's frontman Paul Smith's work, so logic leads us to believe it's him who's had the tough time with the ladies. "It would be a bit weird if we all were in synch with our love lives. Lyrically it's all from Paul, I guess his life has been complicated in the past," says Tom.

At this point a true professional journo would have followed this up by investigating the deep torment that obviously lurks in the past of the band. However I felt that this would actually be a better time to inquire about hats: "Is it like kiss and the make-up?" I ask.

"He's never not worn hats. When we first started out he didn't wear hats because he thought it might be more honest to have his hair flapping around. But he did have a lot of spray on it so it couldn't flap around."

It turns out that the history of the top half of Paul Smith's head can be mused over for many a minute, and we lasted at least 180 seconds on the subject.

But back to the real stuff, which includes the tale of how the band became best buds with Travis ("we don't write to each other or anything") and the tour Maximo will share with them in North America.

Tom also touches upon his memories of their last visit to the Corn Exchange. "I think it was a Sunday last time so maybe a few people had apprehensions about going completely wild in case they couldn't get into work the next day."

Get in line!

Tom might be saddened to know that it's a Sunday again for Cambridge, so if you've been lucky enough to get hold of a ticket, it would probably make him very happy if you booked the Monday off.

Almost every show on the UK leg of the tour is sold out, an extra show has been added in Brixton, taking their capital total to three gigs and there's even an arena date back in their Geordie homeland.

As it comes to the end of my allowed time with Tom I try and pry some juicier tidbits from him, but he plays it with a firmly straight bat.

"We're good at keeping secrets and there's all kinds of things that no-one will ever know about...We don't have any celebrity friends so that immediately brings your gossip potential right down. We're enthusiasts rather than mentalists."

Sage words Tom, as I'd rather be an enthusiast than a mentalist any day of the week.

You can hear the full interview with Tom English by clicking the audio below. In part 1 Tom looks at the new album and how he adapted his drumming for it, while telling us tales about Paul's hats and what he expects from Cambridge.

Part 2 sees Tom a little taken aback by my claim that certain famous UK acts have encountered visa problems for American tours, explains exactly what kind of love the boys share with Travis and proves that you don't need to act rock 'n' roll to be rock 'n' roll.

Maximo Park begin their tour at Glasgow Barrowlands on October 1st before hitting Europe and North America. Check www.maximopark.com for more details.