'I was almost a cricketer.'

"When I listen to the first album,” recalls Slow Club singer/drummer/guitarist Rebecca Taylor, speaking of her band’s 2009 debut, Yeah So, “I can map every boyfriend through each song.

"Which is horrible! Horrifying! But, I suppose, beautiful, in its own way. Because I’m definitely going to be an old woman who can’t remember a fucking thing one day, and I’ll be lying, unable to move, and we can put our albums on and jog my memory. For better of worse, they chronicle my life. I’ve grown up on record. Even though, in other ways, I haven’t actually grown up at all! I’d love it if people were like ‘Oh my God, she’s changed!’ But, sadly, we haven’t had enough success to change. I’m not rich enough for that.”

Taylor is feeling particularly reflective because she’s staying at her parents’ house in Sheffield for the holidays. “I quite like to just come home and get looked after when we’ve been touring a lot. My parents wash my clothes and I don’t have to worry about food; it makes me feel like quite a weird baby again. Touring renders you a little bit useless as a human. Every time I come home, five more friends are engaged or pregnant and I’m like ‘Shit!’ I don’t know if this band really is stunting me socially, but sometimes I suspect it.

“I was almost a cricketer, you know,” she admits, “and at the last minute I decided to be a professional show-off.” She formed Slow Club with co-singer/guitarist Charles Watson when they were 19, and, since the release of their debut EP, 2008’s Let’s Fall Back In Love, the band’s been “all-consuming”. Taylor’s trying to diversify her creative portfolio, acting in sketch comedy troupe Seldom Differ (she’s pretty hilarious in interview mode, it must be said), as well as making comic short films (“I’m having to tell people that I’m an artist, and that I make video art”). But each time Slow Club release an LP, it’s back to the touring grind.

“I got really into country like Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, strong women who are in charge of what they’re doing."

Their latest album, 2014’s Complete Surrender, marked a change from their stripped-down, sing-song beginnings, working with compositions darker and grander. “I got really into country like Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, strong women who are in charge of what they’re doing, singing about their hearts being broken. I was drawn to that idea of being simple and honest, and just saying what you mean. Also, I’m so bad at metaphor, because I’m just so lazy. I wanted to work more with orchestration, because that’s just what I like to listen to. Old ’60s soul and pop records, there’s loads of strings; and on disco records, the strings are often really dramatic. There’s nothing better than a brass section or a string section, really. We can’t afford an orchestra, but we can afford four string players for a morning, and so we can write knowing we can do that, that we can have a bit more expense, a bit more class about things. I wanted to sound champagney, because that’s just how I am with my life right now.”