WE Were Promised Jetpacks have been an innovative, high energy presence on Scottish music scene for more than ten years.

After a period out of the spotlight working on their third album, the indie rock band are back this month with three gigs including a return to PJ Molloys.

They made the latest in a long list of American tours earlier this year and will be on the road again to promote their new album in the autumn.

Singer Adam Thompson broke off from a game of bowls on the Commonwealth Games greens in the Kelvingrove Park sunshine to update us about the band’s new member - Stuart McGachan.

Adam said, “He’s from Dunfermline and he’s a big Pars fan. It will be nice for him to play a gig in Dunfermline. When he was a kid he lived in Edinburgh and we’ve known each other since primary school.

“It freshens everything up and I think everybody ups their game because there’s a new guy around.

“It’s changed things because we’ve had ten years when there’s just been the four of us.

"We were still having a really good time. It was great but when we came to this album we just thought let’s try something else.” The band finished recording their third studio album in April and there is a change of direction from their 2011 release ‘In the Pit of the Stomach’.

Adam said, “The second one was really heavy. It was long on guitar and drums for the whole thing. This one has got some laid back and relaxed bits and we’ve tried a couple of different sounds.

“We’ve got a new member so we have another guitar and keyboards. Stuart wrote the album with us and that’s given us another aspect.

“I think the good thing about our second album being so heavy is that it’s allowed us to bring this one back a little bit.

“Once we decided we were going to start writing this album we decided just to go for that and not do any gigs. Between our first and second album we were always away touring or going to festivals at weekends and it did disrupt the writing.

“Everyone knew we were going to have a wee break and we didn’t play many shows last year. Now everybody’s ready and raring to go. We’re all really looking forward to going out again.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ZhBAylbN4 Their month-long tour of the USA earlier this year ended with their fourth visit to the South By Southwest festival in Texas.

“It was great to be back as it had been such a long time since we toured the States,” said Adam.

“When we first went over we were with Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad so all the folk at the gigs were into Scottish rock music which helped us starting off. We went back loads the first few years.

“We’re still playing venues that aren’t much bigger than when we started but they are going up gradually. I think it’s just a case of hard work. You just keep going back over there and you eventually get somewhere.” India is not a place that figures prominently on the tour schedule of many rock bands but WWPJ were there in November.

“It was a thing where each country in the UK was sending out a band. We did a couple of festivals so that was interesting.

“We were away for ten days and we just had three shows so we had people driving us about doing tourist stuff. It was great to see that country.

“There’s not been much of a music scene there up to the last five years but with the internet they’re catching on. Not many people there had even heard of us but hopefully we’ve started something.” The band are looking forward to seeing their home fans for the first time in a while. “We realised that we hadn’t put a lot of our efforts into Scotland or the rest of the UK. Whenever we’ve released an album we’ve gone to the States for a month or two.

“We’re trying to make more of an effort now to play places at home. We had a break in our schedule and thought let’s do some shows and play some new songs.” The band will play some festivals in Europe this summer ahead of their tour to promote the album.

“We’re happy with it but you have absolutely no idea how folk are going to react to it or whether it’s going to do anything for us.

“I just hope that folk like it and we get to keep playing shows and there’s enough interest to do another album.” * We Were Promised Jetpacks play PJ Molloys on Saturday.