"As a marketing campaign, it's great..."

It's interesting you say that, as I had no idea that the album was recorded live. When you listen to some albums made on the cheap the first thing to suffer is the subtlety of the instruments and the vocals, but with "Suite(s)" it's very vocally driven, and each instrument gets a chance to speak for itself.

Ross: Well, all Amit's vocals were recorded on SM58. Most people would be looking at maybe a thousand pound mic, minimum, to do vocals.

Kieran: It was also recorded on to a £300 Dell pc.

Ross: It's kind of like a pinch yourself scenario.

Kieran: There's no £20,000 pro tools rig - we did use pro tools to record it, but it's on the cheapest computer we could buy.

Ross: Looking back now I do feel a bit guilty because I wish I'd had more confidence in the process. I always had niggles in the back of my head - is it going to be good enough? I'm absolutely astounded by the reviews.

How did it feel to have the album leaked?

Kieran: It felt good.

Ross: [smiling] It felt really good.

Amit: I mean, who gives a shit about us enough to put the album out before it was released?

Kieran: We read about things like that in the music press, and then suddenly "Ex Libras' "Suite(s)" released on 99cent Russian download site." It was weird.

Ross: I dunno, maybe a lot of things get leaked. The point was that it wasn't just leaked - it was downloaded. There were comments on Russian websites from people who enjoyed it and wanted to know where it was coming from.

That was the most surprising thing. The only reason we found out was because it was on 20 or 30 different download sites all over the world. Even now, on Last FM, there are so many listeners from Russia, Ukraine, all the Baltic states, who we wouldn't have reached otherwise.

Amit: Exactly. I think it's a blessing in disguise. We're not at the stage where we have to worry about money. We made it on a budget and the whole point was getting it out there to as many people as possible and somebody has done that for us for free.

Ross: As a marketing campaign, it's great.

Kieran: Now most of the people who've bought the album through the website are from outside the UK. Japan, Greece, Ukraine, Germany - everywhere. It's really nice because it's got that far.

Is that what made you decide to tour Europe?

Ross: I think we've always wanted to tour Europe, just to get out of the UK, especially London.

Amit: It's now a good reason to do a European tour, because we can justify going further into places where people have actually heard us. Whereas, before it was just "Get in a van, play here, sell CD's, come back next year", but half of that battle's already been won because people are actually listening to the album.

Kieran: I just want a road trip. [laughs]

Ross: There's very much a mentality over there where people go to gigs without necessarily knowing what bands are due to be playing. It's different from London. It's great being around really enthusiastic people and they're more on the music side than the image side. The crowds a bit older and there's a bit more passion. I do think there's a bit more respect for British music over there, which is easy to forget when you're in the middle of it.

So what are your plans for 2010?

Ross: We are playing a small European tour with our good friends Gin Panic in February and then a North England/Scotland tour in April. We're then planning on recording the next album later on in the year, so keep your eyes peeled.

Kieran: Who knows, it might get leaked!

Ex Libras' "Suite(s)" is available to download here