Arcane Roots play Brighton as they build on album success

Singer/guitarist Andrew Groves is delighted at the way it has been received.

“I remember listening to other people’s debut albums and thinking about the calibre and the effect that they had and how important they were, but for me, it was a really weird phrase, the idea of trying to do the best you can do. How can you judge it? What is your metre stick? It is not like there is a status bar or a qualification or something. There is no stick to measure it against.

“We locked ourselves away to work on the album and then we went away for a month to write the songs together, nine to five, every single day. We had an incredible time. It really took on a life of its own.

“The band is three of us together; we are best friends; and that’s what it’s about. We just keep going. We did the first song and then we all listened to it, but that idea of doing the best we can was a difficult one to overcome. But it is great: it has been received incredibly well. I don’t think anyone has ever said a bad thing about it.”

And it has opened up the surreal prospect of the band’s heroes lavishing it with praise: “It was an incredible situation. It would be like someone from the Simpsons coming up to us and saying ‘We really like that cartoon you’ve been doing!’ Simon from Biffy was talking about us on Radio 1, and the drummer from Muse was tweeting about us.”

The band is completed by drummer Daryl Atkins (also the creative force behind the band, designing/creating all artwork and directing all music videos) and bassist Adam Burton.

“I met Daryl at college. We were studying music and music technology. That was in Reigate. At the time, it was just the best place to be with the best facilities in the area. It was an amazing course. I could play guitar and sing, and he played amazing drums. We came together and ended up working on a lot of other people’s records as well as our own. Adam joined in 2009 when we advertised for a new bass player.”

It was a while then before they launched the debut album: “We had a couple of EPs before. One was them was very smally released, if you know what I mean.”

But now they’ve made their impact... and they are hoping to build on it.