Twenty years and rising as InMe head to The Engine Rooms

The Brentwood boys InMe are celebrating the landmark with a nationwide tour.

‘It is quite a long time,’ says frontman Dave McPherson, sounding slightly bemused that they’ve made it this far.

‘We’ve never considered ending it, so it’s just one of those things because we started so young.

‘I was 13 and Si (Taylor, drummer) was 12 when we had our first rehearsal. We’ve had a much bigger hey day in terms of media coverage and the numbers we played to, but that’s obviously not the reason we’re doing it. We do it because we like making music together and playing on stage together.

‘But because we started so young, we’re not ancient. Twenty years is considerably longer than most bands last.’

The four-piece alt rockers have got six albums under their belts, including last year’s Dawn, which is the first part of a mooted trilogy.

‘I guess it’s testament to the fact we still feel we’ve got more to do, more music to make and we tolerate each other,’ says Dave. ‘We squabble and we’re four very different people, but once you get over that, you don’t let things get to you – we don’t tiptoe around each other.’

And how is work on the next album going?

‘It’s coming along slowly.

‘In the past I think we’ve been guilty of making our own deadlines for no reason other than wanting to get something done, so for this album there’s been a lot of scrapping material and starting again.

‘We just need to get 10 songs to match up to the first one. So far we all adore the three songs we’ve already made, and that’s the way it has to be – everyone has to be completely in love them. There were a couple on the last album that some members weren’t so keen on. You want everyone to be completely behind them.

‘I thought it would be a lot quicker and easier to be honest. We hadn’t even finished recording The Pride, the fifth album, when I said to the guys ‘‘I’ve got this concept and it’s gloriously pretentious and quite an undertaking.’’ But because we’d done album/tour, album/tour five times, I wanted to do something a bit different.

‘I haven’t even thought about the third one yet, but after that I don’t know what we’ll do but it will have to be something completely fresh.

‘It will be nice in a few years’ time, and I guess it will be a few years’ time, to say: “Wow, we’ve done a triple album”.’

Engine Rooms, Southampton

Thursday, October 27

engineroomssouthampton.com