Amidst a whirlwind summer of dropping their new number one album 'Marks To Prove It' and an extremely busy festival season, we caught up with Orlando Weeks and Felix White from south London five piece, The Maccabees.

With the news that a feature length film titled 'Elephant Days', created by band during the making of the album, will be aired at the 59th BFI London Film Festival, I asked the band how they feel the album has been received after such a close-to-home production process.

“I had to listen to it a couple of times to approve the vinyl acetate andI thought it was great to be honest!” Felix laughed, adding: “the thing about new records is that you don’t know if they’re great until a few years later, it’s so crowded in opinion and the rush of it all that you only get a sense of what islater. But it’s so far so good…”

As well as this, The Maccabees will be embarking on a UK tour later this year, announcing a return to venues they frequented with the 'Given To The Wild' tour back in 2012. We quizzed the band on what fanscan expect and why they’ve chosen to head back to certain venues…

Orlando began: “We’ll be adding to the line up because there’s a lot of percussion on the record and some brass, etc. We’ll be seeing whether we can make it work in those kinds of venues.”

Felix added: “It’s not towns, it’s normally the actual venues that we like playing. Like the [Southampton] Guildhall, I think that will suit the new record, and the Brighton Dome, they seem to atmospherically fit what the new record’s about.”

As festival season draws to a close, front man Orlando reflects on what has been one of their busiest summers to date. “I’m glad it’s over!” he admitted to us backstage at Reading Festival.

He continued: “When you’re in those moments it feels really good but with the record coming out in amongst it, and the amount of work we put into that release, I think it will be really nice to have a week where there isn’t this very disorientating end of week scenario.”

Despite this being a “long summer”, the band reflected on some of the highlights, including 'that' moment at Glastonbury where Jamie T joined them on stage to perform the album’s lead single, ‘Marks To Prove It’.

With the fellow south Londoner following their set on the Main Stage at Reading, we asked the band how the Glasto collaboration came about, to which Orlando casually revealed: “Well, I just gave him a ring and said ‘you’re gonna be there, do you wanna come and do this song?'He text me saying he liked it, and he was up for it!”

The story of how the band met Jamie T is even more endearing, Felix took us back to the first time they met: “We were playing a place called Ocean Rooms in Brighton, and Jamie was doing one of his DJ nights in the basement.”

“There were only about 20 people there and we played, probably really badly, to no-one, and then this kid in a cap afterwards came up to me saying “I’m putting on a night downstairs and I thought that was really good etc. etc.” I didn’t see that kid for another year and had since listened to this guy’s music, and it turns out this kid was Jamie T! So we’d known him since then, at that coincidental meeting more than ten years ago.”

It’s not that long ago that The Maccabees performed in a tiny venue, compared to the size of their Reading crowd on Sunday (August 31), their surprise gig at Corsica Studios in July seems miniscule.

Having been at the show, we asked Orlando and Felix how it went for them. “It was good fun! We’ve probably done more of those gigs than we have big ones. We’ve been doing years and years of that so it’s not too disorientating.” Felix begins. “I think we just wanted to do it in the right spirit, and somehow that translated.” Orlando added.

The Maccabees have been around for a very long time, so naturally I asked the band if they could give their younger selves any advice, what would they say? “This isn't a cop-out, but…” began Orlando, “I really think with all those things, you have to have done all the stuff that you’ve done to have any of the stuff that you’ve got now. I feel like I wouldn’t change that.”

“That is a total cop-out and I think we’ve all seen 'Back To The Future' enough times to know that if you meddle with the past… shit happens! That’s where I get all of my philosophies from, what would Marty do…” We think that’s a pretty sound motto, cheers Orlando!

Marks To Prove It' is out now and UK tour pre-sale tickets go on sale today (September 2), with general sale on opening Friday (September 4).'

'-'By Megan Downing