Sunshine Trip

"Because every day is sunny and nice [in LA] you can get a little too happy,” admits Benjamin Plant. “Obviously for your life that's great, but you've got to be careful about how happy you get – if you think that everything you're doing is good there's no critical side to it. You come back to Melbourne and go, 'Oh, we've got to toughen this up, make this a little darker'.”

The Miami Horror founder is enjoying being back home in the Victorian capital, but is well aware that the group circa-now would be a different beast had they not decamped to California in 2011. After bursting into our lives with a string of glittery synth pop jams late last decade (yes, that long ago), Miami Horror – operating as a quartet these days – were quickly everywhere, taking full advantage of a burgeoning festival culture driven by dancefloor-hungry youths. But although they found themselves in a scene, they were never interested in being limited by such a thing. Moving to LA gave them their own voice. It gave them freedom.

“This big thing about 'triple j' sound – to be honest that does exist, and I know a lot of bands that do wonder if they need to fit in,” admits Plant. “A lot of us guys who try and do our own thing could just go and make what we know would suit, but the whole idea is to not fall in that trap. That's another good thing about being in LA, you disassociate with that and you end up discovering what you really want to make.”

The band are set to release their sophomore full-length in a few months, four years on from their 2010 debut Illumination. And although first single Real Slow could have you believing otherwise, Plant isn't afraid to admit that the record will be less party.

“Somewhere between maybe Phoenix, M83 and Tame Impala. Maybe. But that's if you want to put big names [there]. It's realistically influenced by a lot of smaller, dreamier bands,” he says of descriptors. “Then there's this other side that's more Talking Heads, Paul Simon; then there's a '70s [lean]: Fleetwood Mac, 10CC, west coast LA vibes. So there's this in and out thing that happens on there, and Real Slow doesn't fit into any of those categories, and even Colours In The Sky, the next single that we're going to push, it doesn't really fit into those categories either.”

Still, you can expect these new songs – no matter what their ilk – to slot seamlessly into their updated stage show. Plant says the band became tight a long time ago; now, they want to take it a step further and make a statement “That's basically what it is,” he agrees. “We've got to add a lot of new songs – which we're doing – and take some of the dated stuff out of the set that we've played for so long. This is probably the biggest step we've taken live in four years.”