Not everyone was convinced by We Are Scientists the first time round. Declared the best thing ever by NME when their debut album ‘With Love and Squalor’ was released back in 2005, the initial excitement of their delightful, catchy, pop-punk singles 'The Great Escape' and 'Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt' failed to mask an album lacking substance and depth. Nobody can accuse the Brooklyn three-piece of that with ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’, released in March this year, which debuted in the UK album charts at number 11. Talking to Keith about the new album he is excited, passionate and almost defensive of the new record, which puts right everything ‘With Love and Squalor’ failed to produce.We Are Scientists - singer Keith Murray, bassist Chris Cain and drummer Michael Tapper, now replaced by Adam Aaronson, formed in 2000 and their debut was written and recorded before they’d even got a record deal. After their debut release in 2005 they enamoured the UK with their distinctive guitar pop singles and quirky on-stage banter. When they finally finished touring in late 2006, they’d sold over 160,000 copies of ‘With Love and Squalor’ and decided in was time to make another record. Keith and Chris’s comedy routines at their gig’s and on their website, which features reviews of random objects and humorous articles, suggest this is a band who can’t stop taking the piss. At their sell-out Sheffield show Keith decides he will give his shirt an extra role up the arm, just for the Sheffield fans- they deserve it apparently, because no one has brought them Yorkshire puddings yet. (Cue another call from Chris for his management to bring Sheffield their Yorkshire puds.) So sitting down with Keith just two hours before he is due on stage, I almost expected the comedy routine, some witty answers and a bit of banter, without any substance. But he is relaxed, funny, and answers questions seriously, talking with great pride about his band’s new album and another UK tour - they love it over here. Their new album is a fully, more mature sound, so can we finally start taking We Are Scientists seriously?

Sheffield is famous for The Crucible, Meadowhall and Steel. What do you like the most; snooker, shopping or screws?

Snooker. I’m a big snooker fan but terrible at it. A standard game of snooker can take us about 2 and a half hours and sometimes I can reach point totals of 40.

Can you tell us some interesting things about this months UK tour. How’s it going?

It is going exceedingly well thank you. Although just found out that Dev from Lightspeed Champion got really sick and can’t open our shows. Which is a shame. Not because I care about his health, because I don’t. But he is on the road to recovery. I think.

How well do you think ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’ has been received by you fans so far?

I think pretty darn well. Both the single and the album have charted higher in the UK than anything we have done before so that’s a good sign. And in our live shows we’ve had an awesome response to the new stuff. 'Chick Lit' will be the second single released off ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’ and it already feels like an old song.

Why did you call it ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’?

We liked that it sounds really grand and clever but it’s actually totally, totally, meaningless. It’s a good sounding phrase and it should have a really powerful meaning. But it doesn’t.

Do you prefer big gigs or smaller, more intimate venues?

I definitely prefer shows this size (The Octagon, Sheffield) to festival shows. But our first show in Galway in Ireland was only a 300 hundred capacity venue and it was amazing. I really miss shows like that we don’t do enough of them. The stage was really low with no barriers. People were jumping around, we jumped into the crowd and it was a lot of fun.

Which festivals are you playing at this year and which one are you looking forward to the most?

We’re doing Reading and Leeds and I swear I’m not leaning towards the Northern crowd, but Leeds is the better of the two and the crowd is definitely more up for it. We’ve done Reading and Leeds twice and both times Leeds has been the better show.

Glastonbury has struggled to sell out this year. Do you think smaller, niche festivals could be the way forward?

We’ve done our fair share of small festivals and they’re cool. There’s something very singular about gigantic festivals and it feels like a huge event. My feeling is by the second day of big festivals I want to go home. Why am I standing in the middle of a field with 80,000 other people? I haven’t taken a shower and now I’m getting sick! So I think there is something cool about smaller festivals, I don’t know if they will replace big ones but there’s definitely room for both.

Now that you are a huge band selling out venues such as Brixton Academy, is their anything you miss about being a small and relatively unknown band?

I don’t miss being unknown, it’s hard to get shows. We’ve done our fair share of shows where we have been supporting someone and just been watched by family and friends. I really miss playing house parties and friend’s gigs. I would love to still do them but we spend so much of the year touring, that when we are not on tour we don’t want to touch our guitars.

Was there a moment or a gig which made you realise you had made it?

There’ve been shows where you are stunned by how amazing they were. We toured with Arctic Monkeys on the NME tour in 2006 and I remember being blown away by how big the shows were and how crazy people went, and now we can sell-out these venues ourselves. The first time we came over here we were selling out Barfly’s all over the country and that felt pretty amazing.

‘With Love and Squalor’ was a very catchy blast of pop-punk music but your new album is a lot different - you have some slow songs to play now. Why the change and what are you most pleased with about Brain Thrust Mastery?

We had been touring our first album for four years and maybe got it out of our system. I think to write another 12 songs like our first album would have been pretty boring. ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’ has a lot of different stuff on which I really like.

With Love and Squalor has songs distinct from one another but it wasn’t very adventurous. This time we tried a few things that maybe some people would prefer we didn’t do, like slow 80’s keyboard jams. But we wanted to do some different things with it and see what might work for us.

What are your favourite songs from the new stuff?

The ones that are most different from ‘With Love and Squalor’ are my favourites, like the fourth song, 'Lethal Enforcer' and the last song 'That’s What Counts'. They seem very fresh and appetising to me.

Was there more pressure with the new album than with your debut or seeing as you are now guaranteed an audience, was it easier?

When we made our first record there was no guarantee of an audience so there was pressure because if it was no good no one would care about it. This time we knew people would buy it and were hoping for a good album so we had pressure there too and we have fans to let down now. But we love this record so have stopped caring about what people think about it. If people don’t like it that’s cool, I’m not bothered.

Fair enough. Which smaller, less known bands do you think could make it big soon?

They’re not really unknown but I hope Mystery Jets are going to blow up huge this year they’re so good. There’s also a band called Boss Valenti who opened our shows when we’re in Ireland last month and they were awesome and sound a bit like Queens Of The Stone Age. Both those bands should be making it pretty big soon.

Have you two ever thought about doing some Flight of the Conchords type gigs? I think they’d go down pretty well.

(Laughs) Not really I don’t like comedy music. I like Flight of the Conchords but I’m not a fan of joke songs. People always ask us why we always joke around on stage between songs, but you’ll find we sing about serious things. Everybody has different sides to their personality I don’t think a band needs to be 100 per cent serious or joking around all the time.

One ambition for the bands future?

Lots of bands are like, we need to play here, we must record this, but then you’ll be upset if you don’t manage it. We try to be happy with what we have and the essential thing is not to regress.

Simon Gresswell

Not everyone was convinced by We Are Scientists the first time round. Declared the best thing ever by NME when their debut album ‘With Love and Squalor’ was released back in 2005, the initial excitement of their delightful, catchy, pop-punk singles 'The Great Escape' and 'Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt' failed to mask an album lacking substance and depth. Nobody can accuse the Brooklyn three-piece of that with ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’, released in March this year, which debuted in the UK album charts at number 11. Talking to Keith about the new album he is excited, passionate and almost defensive of the new record, which puts right everything ‘With Love and Squalor’ failed to produce.We Are Scientists - singer Keith Murray, bassist Chris Cain and drummer Michael Tapper, now replaced by Adam Aaronson, formed in 2000 and their debut was written and recorded before they’d even got a record deal. After their debut release in 2005 they enamoured the UK with their distinctive guitar pop singles and quirky on-stage banter. When they finally finished touring in late 2006, they’d sold over 160,000 copies of ‘With Love and Squalor’ and decided in was time to make another record. Keith and Chris’s comedy routines at their gig’s and on their website, which features reviews of random objects and humorous articles, suggest this is a band who can’t stop taking the piss. At their sell-out Sheffield show Keith decides he will give his shirt an extra role up the arm, just for the Sheffield fans- they deserve it apparently, because no one has brought them Yorkshire puddings yet. (Cue another call from Chris for his management to bring Sheffield their Yorkshire puds.) So sitting down with Keith just two hours before he is due on stage, I almost expected the comedy routine, some witty answers and a bit of banter, without any substance. But he is relaxed, funny, and answers questions seriously, talking with great pride about his band’s new album and another UK tour - they love it over here. Their new album is a fully, more mature sound, so can we finally start taking We Are Scientists seriously?

Sheffield is famous for The Crucible, Meadowhall and Steel. What do you like the most; snooker, shopping or screws?

Snooker. I’m a big snooker fan but terrible at it. A standard game of snooker can take us about 2 and a half hours and sometimes I can reach point totals of 40.

Can you tell us some interesting things about this months UK tour. How’s it going?

It is going exceedingly well thank you. Although just found out that Dev from Lightspeed Champion got really sick and can’t open our shows. Which is a shame. Not because I care about his health, because I don’t. But he is on the road to recovery. I think.

How well do you think ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’ has been received by you fans so far?

I think pretty darn well. Both the single and the album have charted higher in the UK than anything we have done before so that’s a good sign. And in our live shows we’ve had an awesome response to the new stuff. 'Chick Lit' will be the second single released off ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’ and it already feels like an old song.

Why did you call it ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’?

We liked that it sounds really grand and clever but it’s actually totally, totally, meaningless. It’s a good sounding phrase and it should have a really powerful meaning. But it doesn’t.

Do you prefer big gigs or smaller, more intimate venues?

I definitely prefer shows this size (The Octagon, Sheffield) to festival shows. But our first show in Galway in Ireland was only a 300 hundred capacity venue and it was amazing. I really miss shows like that we don’t do enough of them. The stage was really low with no barriers. People were jumping around, we jumped into the crowd and it was a lot of fun.

Which festivals are you playing at this year and which one are you looking forward to the most?

We’re doing Reading and Leeds and I swear I’m not leaning towards the Northern crowd, but Leeds is the better of the two and the crowd is definitely more up for it. We’ve done Reading and Leeds twice and both times Leeds has been the better show.

Glastonbury has struggled to sell out this year. Do you think smaller, niche festivals could be the way forward?

We’ve done our fair share of small festivals and they’re cool. There’s something very singular about gigantic festivals and it feels like a huge event. My feeling is by the second day of big festivals I want to go home. Why am I standing in the middle of a field with 80,000 other people? I haven’t taken a shower and now I’m getting sick! So I think there is something cool about smaller festivals, I don’t know if they will replace big ones but there’s definitely room for both.