Looks like you're going to be a busy man this year with the amount of tour dates you've got lined up...

Yeah, it's pretty busy. We've got an new album coming out and we do do a lot of dates anyway, and try and keep the diary full up.But I think it'll be even busier this year, what with an album to promote.

We've been listening to that, it sounds fantastic, one of your best yet. Does it feel the same for you?

It sort of does, but it's having reactions like that they make me think yes! We've made some good albums, even the ones that weren't that successful, this one covers a lot of our past sound that people know, but also takes it on from that by writing songs which is really the direction we're going in, you can't keep re-making the same sort of sound all the time. So it's briiliant to get that kind of reaction, thank you.

It's really that transition, going from tunes that are very danceable to actual songwriting...

Absolutely, and that comes from having vocalists that have been with us 15 years, so we've gone so far away from just having dance music, and then putting a vocal on top to trying to perfect our songwriting. And of course we've been through a lot over the past few years, I lost my brother, and Spee lost his brother 10 years ago too, so there's a common bond there, my father died in 2008, and then there's been relationships, and so much going on, there's stuff to write about, and it feels natural to be able to express it through the medium of lyric and melody. I really wanted to explore the song aspect on this album. At the end of the day, the songs are there and it says it all; love,loss and redemption, and finding our way back through the music.

That's the ironic thing, the hardest times are often the most creative in a way...

Absolutely, in the midst of all that I was having a tempestuous relationship with a girl and I was writing about that, but then it sort of all fell apart, the pain I felt from that helped me articulate the other stuff as well. The second track on the album For a Reason is kind of like a love story but there's a bittersweet twist at the end of it.

And I guess the other guys in the band feel like family? You've been together such a long time...

Leo and I from Big Audio Dynamite, this is our 25th anniversary together, so that relationship goes back a long way, and then obviously with the band, we've got a couple of new members but yeah it is like a family, and we rely on each other for strength and taking the music forward...

Did this album take longer to put together than the previous ones? Or did it flow quite quickly?

Sometimes it felt like it was flowing quickly - it did formulate over a few years, I did start putting stuff together for a new album before my brother died so we had to pick up the pieces and move on and get new people, so it was over a period of 3 years maybe although the proper album making was about 2 years. Albums usually do take that sort of time, anything we've rushed before really hasn't been our best. With electronic music especially, when you're playing around with samples and textures and the right sort of soundscapes, it does tend to take longer. We have to work quicker in the future I hasten to add!

That's part of the problem with technology these days isn't it, you've got so much leeway and you can do so much tinkering, that ironically the fact you can get things done quickly is often lost because there's so much you can do...

We can't take another 3 years to make an album! If this one does quite well I want to be able to jump on the next one...it's just finding the right space and time to do it, but if we put our heads togther we can come up with the next one quite quickly.

You did some dates in Europe a few months ago didn't you?

Yes, we went to Europe at the end of September and this week we're doing some live shows with the band, both of them sold out which is good.

And you did a benefit gig for the Bearded Theory Festival recently?

Yes, we're playing there too in May as a live band.

Does it get easier touring? Do you have particular venues you like to play or particular festivals you like to go to? Or do you like discovering new ones?

I like doing new festivals, there seems to be such an abundance of festivals now and it's become part of the British culture. There's a kind of rule that you don't play 2 years in a row at the same festival but there are one or two festivals that want us coming back year after year! Obviously Glastonbury is always the one that you want to do, and there's a lot of great festivals in Europe too, which we'll hopefully go and explore...

You've got a very British sound, in a lot of ways you've sort of defined that sort of dub influenced dance sound over the years, it's great to see that it's carrying on and its still as popular as ever...

It's something that's very suitable for festivals, the reggae vibe and the energy of a rock and roll band, the danceability of it all, and we've luckily positioned ourselves to have that kind of sound...everybody goes for it and you see the whole crowd bouncing up and down and the energy comes across, its a very natural sound...

Despite releasing so many albums, is there trepidation about how the new album's going to be received?

Yes, I have to steel myself for that! With the internet now there's people willing to give their feedback straightaway, but there's been no real negative feedback so far. With this album there's a lot of people that wouldn't normally know about Dreadzone that are getting into it, there's something there for everybody, there's a whole variety of stuff on there. I think it's important that it holds together as an album, which I think this does, but it still has that individuality that means you can still pick specific tracks out.

It's almost like if you want to give someone an introduction to Dreadzone then you'd give them that album...it does sum up 25 years.

There are also more ambitious tracks, for example a track called Walk Tall, which is about losing my brother and about what happened at the time. There are people who've said the track's made them cry which is the ultimate compliment really...I would say with the album that you need to listen to it a couple of times, tracks need time, and once you've had the time there's something new to listen to on it. An album should be a concept.

I think the album as an artform and maintaining the integrity of it is an important thing and it's only artists like yourselves that can do that.

Yeah and I hope that there are people out there that can appreciate that. There are people that will download it from a fileshare thing, which is wrong, but the upside is that more and more people can know your music and join our group, and I think people still want to buy albums, it's just everybody buys music differently now...but there's nothing like buying the real thing.