It's 10am on a Thursday morning in Poble Espanyol, Barcelona. With a Primavera Sound Festival appearance in just over twelve hours, Derek Fudesco sound checks his bass on the Rockdelux by Lois stage. He toys the notes to the Pixies' Gigantic. As he and his band mates head off stage, they are promptly mobbed. "We love the Pixies!" cries one. "Oh my God!" another.

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Wrong day kids.

Fudesco and singer Andrea Zollo are in stitches as they recall this bizarre tale of mistaken identity. "We were like wow! People know who we are! We were so boned, but we thought it was actually really hilarious!" exclaims Zollo.

Three months later, the pair are huddled at the bottom of the stairs at Manchester's Roadhouse. It's approaching the anniversary of the release of their quite brilliant second album The New Romance, capping an extraordinary 12 months that has seen them tour to their wits' and bodies' end (Zollo was struck down with a bout a fever on their last two UK tours).

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Fidgeting with a plectrum, Fudesco muses on the year that has been: "We had a lot of great stuff happen, but I don't know, it's been a tough year. We got our van with all of our equipment stolen (as in pillaged and stripped bare). Nathan (Thelen, guitarist) left the band."

The quartet (completed by guitarist Jay Clark and drummer Nick Dewitt) shot to notoriety from the relative confines of Seattle's indie punk scene through a combination of heavy touring, the undeniable genius of The New Romance, praise from the music press, confident backing from their label Matador, and some good old-fashioned word of mouth. The band, who take their name from a Smiths song, finally had the stage to really bring their infectious blend of effects-laden melodic punk to the masses.

This all nearly never happened though. The time around their debut album Good Health, released in 2002, was fraught with arguments. And in 2003 things reached boiling point with the band almost splitting before The New Romance was written.

"Part of the split had to do with Nathan quitting, because he quit previous to this" says Zollo. "It was a time after we'd had been touring and touring like mad. We'd been fighting a lot. We were really, really burning ourselves out."

But luckily their busy life-style on the road led to a positive development within the band. Explains Zollo: "When you tour like that and make music, you become this family - you really have to live with each other. When you don't really know each other it puts a really weird twist on things."

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Indeed if the shift from the economic Good Health to the lusher grandeur of The New Romance was big, these next steps are set to take things to a totally different level. Of the fifteen 'ideas' mustered when they enter the studio this September (once again with Phil Ek, producer of Modest Mouse) fans can expect greater instrumentation, with electronic songs, tracks with no live instruments, along with some acoustics and trumpets added to the keyboards and samples.

"It'll make sense from The New Romance," explains Fudesco. "If someone got Good Health and then listened to the stuff we're doing now - that wouldn't make any sense. It's kind of a natural progression. But I'm really excited about it. I think the songs are definitely the best songs we have so far."

"I'm really excited about it. I think the songs are definitely the best songs we have so far." - Derek Fudesco enthuses about their new album that they've already written.

While a promising thought, especially on the evidence of the songs aired at the show later, what about the pressures of an album number three and the fans' expectations? "I don't feel any pressure at all," he says shaking his head. "It depends on what point you've heard our band. People that hear The New Romance don't necessarily like Good Health. People who like the EPs don't like anything else that we've done. That's helped us not feel any pressure at all. We just make our songs and whoever likes it, likes it."

"It could be totally new people that like the next album," says Zollo. "We kind of wonder what's going to happen - if people will like it or not. But I mean we have to always keep it challenging and interesting for us. So it'll be interesting to see what the reaction will be."

With an album to record and three tours before Christmas, the band have a long road ahead of them. After a Christmas break, touring resumes in January before the album hits stores in March, where they get back on the treadmill at full pace once again.

You can sense the excitement brewing in the pair. Their creative drive and glowing enthusiasm for their new material makes PGMG an even more exciting prospect for 2005. The capability is evident in the must-own The New Romance. Can they better it? Who knows. One thing is for certain: this is a band who are moving on to something much bigger, and much brighter.

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