In what might be the most unlikely musical comeback in recent times, THE VINES are back on the touring cicuit, and ANDREW P STREET is downright curious about how it's treating their mercurial frontman.

It's impossible to speak with the Vines' vocalist and guitarist Craig Nicholls without certain prejudices. After all, here is a man who underwent Australian music's most public meltdown in May 2004, his band disintegrating around him as he yelled at the audience in Sydney's Annandale Hotel, declaring that they were sheep while abusing the radio station that was holding the gig. Line-up reshuffles followed, as did the declaration that The Vines would never tour again, lest the pressure permanently unhinge its frontman. The subsequent album, 2004's Winning Days, was a surprisingly solid effort but sold a fraction of its predecessors and it seemed like it was all over for the band that at one point was being hailed as the future of Rock'n'Roll.

Then, mid-2006, the picture changed. The Vines played a few low-key shows around Sydney and Melbourne, often under assumed names, made a surpise appearance at Byron Bay's Splendour In The Grass Festival, then were added to the national touring line-up for the Big Day Out, where they played what were universally declared as among the best sets of their career. They've also been demo-ing tracks for album number four, and Nicholls is even doing press again.

The man on the other end of the phone sounds slightly otherworldly, his voice unexpectedly high. He speaks like a slightly nervous teenager, answering his questions carefully and courteously - especially when I mention that a great many people had counted The Vines as their BDO highlight. "Oh Thanks! We felt good about it. We thought it went really well. We were happy about it."

It's particularly impressive given that the nicest thing most people could say about Vines gigs in the past was that they were "energetic" or, more accurately, "shambolic". 

"Yeah, you could say that. I think maybe having time off was something to do with it. After we put our first album out we never toured that much before and then we toured a lot. And then the second one we toured a bit and we cut that down and it seems like we toured less and less with each album, 'cause we needed to take some time out and all of us were going though a lot of things," he pauses, laughing quietly, "And now that we're back playing live shows, it's just great and we really appreciate it and we really try to do the best performance we've ever done."

Of course, when Vision Valley came out there was a lot of talk that the band would never tour again. 

"Yeah, there was. We weren't so sure - we knew we wanted to do another album and like I said we didn't tour much, not playing for months after the record came out, because we weren't sure and then we decided we were ready and we rehearsed and now it's going great. I'm just glad that we're doing that part of it again, because such a big part of being in a band is doing the live shows. In the beginning I guess we were in America a lot, plus England, then we decided we wanted to do more and more here, which I'm glad about, because we're doing another [tour] soon and that will be great, just to let people know that we still exist."

Given Nicholls' health though, they're surely not planning on going down the After The Fall route of never-ending touring? 

"We're definitely not going to be on the road all of the time, so... we'll just see what we wanna do. We don't want to cut it out altogether, but it's not gonna be every night that we're gonna play. And we're okay about that at the moment because we're working on new songs and we're gonna do a new album, we're going to start recording that in a few months I think."

How are the songs shaping up? 

"Really well! I'm really excited about these new songs and we've demoed a bunch of them. We want to do an album every year from now on. It seems to be a good thing to have albums where you can get them sooner rather than having to wait two or three years. I don't know if I can keep it up," Nicholls laughs, "but we're going to try and do our best."

He's thrown when I ask who'll be releasing the album, given that Capitol (the EMI label who signed the band for the US) had slashed its roster. 

"Umm... I'm not really sure about what's happening as far as that goes. I know that it's changing; like we don't have a record deal somewhere but we do somewhere else. I guess we'll just wait and see what we wanna do. We just want to do our best and to make interesting albums and play for poeple."

And how is he feeling in himself? Does he feel like he's turned a corner over the last year or so? 

"Yeah, definitely. I mean, I'd like to think I gained something from what I went though," he sighs with a laugh, "I didn't know what was going to happen even when we did the album, everything was very surreal, but now I feel like I have learnt some stuff and I think I can handle things better now. Like I used to not be good in crowds and stuff like that and now I go out more than I used to."

Did the Aperger's diagnosis help? 

"Yeah, actually, it made a lot of sense. I still... It's real strange. But still, it doesn't make that big of a difference to the band. I might not be able to say that if we were playing every night, but we would like to get back to more touring."

Nicholls laughs, before continuing, "To put it short, I was mad before, but now I'm... less that way."

The Vines play the Prince of Wales on Friday 13th April.