Always Almost There

British India had no ambition other than sounding good in their garage. It was 2004, the future was an afterthought; the main goal was to simply get that Oasis cover down or play the 18th birthday party happening next weekend. The quartet's career has been set up like hurdles on a running track, and it's these steps and jumps – small, gradual, constant – that have positioned the band as one of this country's most consistent of the past decade.

“It was always just beyond where we were, and it felt like that dream was so big and that mountain so high to climb that you didn't really think beyond that,” says frontman Declan Melia of the group's first aspirations. “British India has always been a thing of increments – [but] maybe the other guys plotted Wembley?”

Melia is talking while he walks the streets of Melbourne, returning to the studio in the early afternoon following a 3am session the previous night. But although British India have a run of headline dates over the next few months and have just snagged the rather large support slot for Fall Out Boy's October tour, they're not rehearsing. Instead, the four-piece are putting ideas down – plotting their next move. Because if British India aren't creating, reasons Melia, then what are they doing?

“It's just the nature of the four guys in the band. It's more of a personality thing than anything to do with ambition,” he shrugs. “We can't really have idle hands, we're not the kind of guys to sit around playing PlayStation day-in, day-out or something. We try to treat this like a job, really just to justify it to ourselves and our parents and to make it feel like what we're doing is legitimate.”

With this concession, you almost forget that Controller – the band's third straight top ten record – took three years to land. Released in March, the album is British India's first since 2010's Avalanche, and although Melia admits the stretch was “enforced upon us by outside factors”, the storm of delays turned out to be the breathing space the band needed to refocus themselves on the future once more.

“The thing was, as is often the case with these outside factors, you don't realise how much they come from within,” he admits. “There was certainly lots of outside factors, but [we needed to] reconnect with how much British India meant to us. The thing that I keep saying is that we started to treat British India like our personal playground rather than an altar at which we should worship – something like that. And it wasn't until we regained our faith in what we wanted to do and regained our dedication to British India that we were able to get it together. We certainly [don't want to get complacent], and it was a hair's breadth away from all falling apart there for a second. There was a period where we weren't even sure if there was going to be another British India record – we were definitely in the dark for a while.”

But through all this they've kept their house of cards balanced and strong, reflective of any long-term friends that have shared the parties and pitfalls that life can throw forwards.

“Our closeness is really the core of British India and why we've been here for six years,” says Melia. “But we're just lucky like that; we're friends firstly and then the band secondly. Honestly, we don't really have any other friends, it's just those three guys and I don't spend much time with any other males per se. It's an interesting dynamic and there's no crash course for it but it seems to work pretty well.”

Though it does fluctuate, the vocalist, guitarist and lyricist revealing that in the year following Avalanche, a few trips to the pub were needed to get on the same page once more.

“And it was always the same thing, it's always the same, 'Oh, you don't love me, you don't care anymore'. And then you're like, 'Well, you don't care anymore!'” he laughs. “As cliché as it sounds, doing that was really helpful. They'll never forgive me for saying that in an interview, but I can't deny it, it was true; we had to get together and remind ourselves that we still wanted to do this.

“You go through life with people and it's just not normal to say to someone, to stop and say, 'Hey, you're really great, you're really good at what you do and I'm really glad that you're around'. You just don't say that to people, and those closest [to you], it's easy to forget that's how people feel.”

Validation mightn't always be so forthcoming from bandmates; from fans though, it's long been there for British India, and with 25,000 units moved and a top 50 placing in this year's Hottest 100, I Can Make You Love Me was another victory for the quartet. A raw, somewhat slow burn single that opens with the arresting line, “If you're reading this then that means that I am dead”, it's proven to be the band's most successful track, and gave the group confidence with the path they were pursuing.

“Certainly not straight away, but it did set the benchmark for the album as far as writing goes,” informs Melia. “I think once we had I Can Make You Love Me it was kind of like, 'Right, that's the direction the album's going to take, that's the kind of music we want to be making'. That was the first song that really turned us on. But with the success of said song after it came out, I remember it being really tentative, like we were really cynical of our own success, like we didn't want to believe that it was working. We were really hesitant to say, 'Right, this single has worked and we've really got a chance of this album doing what it needs to do'. We didn't even want to admit it to ourselves for fear that it [wouldn't] materialise.”

It has done, though; like it has with every record for British India. And the band keep pushing forward, toward a horizon that forever hangs in the foreground.

“There is a sense with each album that we're getting closer but still, it's like trying to hold smoke really. And if that mentality remains – I mean it has so far – then I can't see a point logically where we'd hang it up.”