Below is the phone interview Digital Spy had with Jay!
How's your week going so far?
"It's been awesome so far, thanks! We're at a writers' camp at the moment so it's long, very full, creative days."
A 'writers' camp' sounds tough.
"It's actually very nice! We're at a big country house with a studio, and we all go in and write our heads off."
You've recently come off your first headline tour with a number of injuries; have you all recovered yet?
"We knew that was going to be part of it - we actually expected to have far more! We wished it was a bit longer, but it has allowed us the longest period of time off that we've had for a year and a half. To think that we've got a headline tour under our belt - which is something we always wanted to do - feels unbelievable."
How's work on the new album coming along?
"We've had some short stints in the studio already, but it's nice to set some time aside now and be creative and discuss what we want to write about. People say the second album is the most difficult, but to be honest this one feels a lot easier - before we were discovering what our strengths were, which took up a lot of the time."
What's your strength in the studio?
"I'm a lyrics guy - if I try to come up with a melody I end up following the chords on the piano and it sounds crap. That's Siva's strength, as his vocabulary isn't really up to scratch! He's good at putting feeling into a song."
What producers are you working with?
"There's four producers at this camp, and we spend a day with each of them. There's a couple here who worked on our last album with us, and they seem to be completely gobsmacked by how much we've improved as songwriters - we've grown!"
We hear you're going to work with some US producers too...
"It's not happened yet but we have some days confirmed now. The label have brought a lot of our studio time forward and we're going to be spending a fair amount of time out there soon. We don't know who we're working with yet, but we're being cautious about working with big name producers. We've heard of lesser-known writers getting frustrated because their work isn't being given a chance at the moment, and artists are paying loads for big names but not getting their best work in return. We're being careful to avoid that."
Is that why you're writing a lot of your own material?
"Partly, because famous producers and songwriters will save their best work for the Katy Perry's of the world, whereas you get the best out of ones who don't."
How has your sound progressed from your debut?
"It's more ballsy this time - not literally of course! There's real attitude to it this time, and the writing is more intelligent. Being a lyrics guy, I've become obsessed with making the words as smart as possible. That said, we've gone a bit wild on some of the songs and we're not quite sure how the label are going to react to them. We have to remember that as well as the horny mums who like us, we're writing to girls too, so we don't want to go too overboard."
You performed a very good Taio Cruz medley on tour; would you consider making music of a similar sound?
"Thanks very much! Now you mention it, some of our new songs could be compared to that sort of music. We like having a band sound, but we've incorporated more pop elements into this album. That said, we're definitely not trying to go R&B!"
Were you disappointed that your Comic Relief single 'Gold Forever' missed out on the number one spot?
"It's all about promoting the charity, and getting to number three in the charts obviously helped the charity, but we wish we could have done more for them by getting to number one. We were disappointed that we didn't do better for them, but this year's Comic Relief ended up doing very well anyway - it seems they didn't really need us to get a number one!"
Are there plans to release this album across Europe?
"We're revisiting Germany soon as we haven't had a decent amount of time over there to promote ourselves. We're trying to keep everything in sync for this campaign, whereas before we would be promoting different singles all over the place. It's a bit like chess, you've got to own the area you're in before you move forward."
"It's been awesome so far, thanks! We're at a writers' camp at the moment so it's long, very full, creative days."
A 'writers' camp' sounds tough.
"It's actually very nice! We're at a big country house with a studio, and we all go in and write our heads off."
You've recently come off your first headline tour with a number of injuries; have you all recovered yet?
"We knew that was going to be part of it - we actually expected to have far more! We wished it was a bit longer, but it has allowed us the longest period of time off that we've had for a year and a half. To think that we've got a headline tour under our belt - which is something we always wanted to do - feels unbelievable."
How's work on the new album coming along?
"We've had some short stints in the studio already, but it's nice to set some time aside now and be creative and discuss what we want to write about. People say the second album is the most difficult, but to be honest this one feels a lot easier - before we were discovering what our strengths were, which took up a lot of the time."
What's your strength in the studio?
"I'm a lyrics guy - if I try to come up with a melody I end up following the chords on the piano and it sounds crap. That's Siva's strength, as his vocabulary isn't really up to scratch! He's good at putting feeling into a song."
What producers are you working with?
"There's four producers at this camp, and we spend a day with each of them. There's a couple here who worked on our last album with us, and they seem to be completely gobsmacked by how much we've improved as songwriters - we've grown!"
We hear you're going to work with some US producers too...
"It's not happened yet but we have some days confirmed now. The label have brought a lot of our studio time forward and we're going to be spending a fair amount of time out there soon. We don't know who we're working with yet, but we're being cautious about working with big name producers. We've heard of lesser-known writers getting frustrated because their work isn't being given a chance at the moment, and artists are paying loads for big names but not getting their best work in return. We're being careful to avoid that."
Is that why you're writing a lot of your own material?
"Partly, because famous producers and songwriters will save their best work for the Katy Perry's of the world, whereas you get the best out of ones who don't."
How has your sound progressed from your debut?
"It's more ballsy this time - not literally of course! There's real attitude to it this time, and the writing is more intelligent. Being a lyrics guy, I've become obsessed with making the words as smart as possible. That said, we've gone a bit wild on some of the songs and we're not quite sure how the label are going to react to them. We have to remember that as well as the horny mums who like us, we're writing to girls too, so we don't want to go too overboard."
You performed a very good Taio Cruz medley on tour; would you consider making music of a similar sound?
"Thanks very much! Now you mention it, some of our new songs could be compared to that sort of music. We like having a band sound, but we've incorporated more pop elements into this album. That said, we're definitely not trying to go R&B!"
Were you disappointed that your Comic Relief single 'Gold Forever' missed out on the number one spot?
"It's all about promoting the charity, and getting to number three in the charts obviously helped the charity, but we wish we could have done more for them by getting to number one. We were disappointed that we didn't do better for them, but this year's Comic Relief ended up doing very well anyway - it seems they didn't really need us to get a number one!"
Are there plans to release this album across Europe?
"We're revisiting Germany soon as we haven't had a decent amount of time over there to promote ourselves. We're trying to keep everything in sync for this campaign, whereas before we would be promoting different singles all over the place. It's a bit like chess, you've got to own the area you're in before you move forward."
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