The Sydney band burst on to the planet's rock stage, then faded. Now, as a three-man outfit, they're back, writes Iain Shedden

THE offices of management company Winterman and Goldstein are like a shrine to one of their most successful charges, Sydney rock band The Vines. As one climbs the stairs of the outwardly innocuous suburban house in Sydney's inner west, gold and platinum records share wall space with blown-up magazine covers, most bearing the faces of four fresh-faced musos who, four years ago, found themselves to be the hottest rock'n'roll property on the planet.

In 2001 the Vines emerged from their garage in the Sydney suburb of Hurstville with a bunch of demo tapes and signed to Capitol Records in the US. They released a debut album, Highly Evolved (2002), that went on to sell 1.5 million copies and inspired praise of them as the new Beatles and Nirvana for the noughties.

They looked - and sounded - like contenders for world domination.

It's difficult to reconcile these statistics and emblems of the Vines' rock stardom with the three figures huddled around the conference room table in front of me. The remaining members of the band - singer and guitarist Craig Nicholls, drummer Hamish Rosser and guitarist Ryan Griffiths - look as if they would be best placed in a hospital waiting room. Rosser has a brace on his left knee following a tumble in the surf last weekend. Griffiths is walking with a stick after dislocating his knee while wrestling a dog called Jet, the name, ironically, of the Melbourne band that has replaced the Vines as our most promising rock export (and also in the Winterman and Goldstein camp). Then there's Nicholls, the songwriter, frontman and focal point of all that has been good and bad about the Vines during their short career. He doesn't appear to have any physical scars but he is looking pale and distant.

This is hardly the kind of shape you'd want to be in when you're about to release your third album, one on which your collective future may depend. Still, it will come as a surprise to many that The Vines even exist after the events of the past 18 months.

It was in 2004, during a world tour to promote their ill-fated second album Winning Days, that the wheels began to fall off the Vines' juggernaut. Nicholls, notorious for his difficult personality, stage tantrums and run-ins with fellow band members, was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism that affects the sufferer's ability to function in social situations.

The diagnosis, while explaining - and to a degree admonishing - Nicholls's volatile behaviour, did not bode well for the band's future. Playing in front of thousands of people every night is hardly the ideal environment for someone with his condition.

An incident at a show in Sydney's Annandale Hotel in November 2004 in which Nicholls damaged a photographer's camera and disgruntled bass player Patrick Matthews left the stage early, never to return, brought matters to a head.

The show's sponsors, radio network Triple M, banned them from the airwaves and suggested that Nicholls and Matthews would soon be back where they had met, flipping burgers in McDonald's.

Afterwards, the band announced that they were taking an indefinite break, which in music-biz terms can often read as a euphemism for breaking up.

Yet here we are in March 2006 and The Vines, despite their physical and mental trials - and without a permanent bass player - are about to release a new album, one they hope will put their detractors in a spin and repair much of the damage that was done when Winning Days failed to impress the critics and Nicholls's behaviour put them and fans offside.

The signs are good. The new album, Vision Valley, boasts 13 short, incisive pop songs that bear all the hallmarks of Highly Evolved, combining Nicholls's gift for great pop hooks with the power and urgency of a dynamic and inventive rock band. If radio programmers can get their head around the title, the first single from it, the instantly gratifying Don't Listen to the Radio, should be enough to re-establish their commercial credentials.

"That song had quite a different arrangement initially," Nicholls says in a rare moment of enthusiasm. "But for the most part we didn't change the songs that much. They were all pretty simple ideas and they came together pretty easily this time."

The problem is whether The Vines will be able to build on any success that song or the album brings, whether Nicholls's condition will allow them to claw their way back to the top, no matter how good their album may be. In conversation, he doesn't strike you as someone capable of coping with the demands of world touring. He doesn't look well.

When Nicholls was first diagnosed, the band's manager, Andy Kelly, said The Vines would have to seriously curtail the kind of touring that is required of an internationally successful act.

Their promotional campaign this time is being restricted as well. Interviews are conducted only as a band and any other commitments, such as photo shoots and making film clips, are designed not to put too much pressure on the singer.

So far so good. His interview technique remains brief and his attention tends to wander. (He frequently exchanges knowing, giggly glances with the other two, but it's not clear about what.) He won't talk directly about his health other than to say he is "definitely feeling good", before diverting the conversation back to his album.

Nicholls is, however, much more positive than when he was fending flak on the back of the last album, although he says he wasn't really feeling the pressure on him at the time. "I remember that tour being OK," he says. "It wasn't until after that tour, after a few months, that it [the pressure] started to build up." After his diagnosis and when the media frenzy had died down, Nicholls settled to doing what he does best, which is write and record songs. He says there was a freedom to work at his own pace for Vision Valley that was similar to the formative period of the band five years ago.

"Just having the time to do it was good," he says. "We could just focus on that. I could write as much as I wanted and record as much as I wanted. All the songs came together pretty quickly around the same time. We rehearsed and did a bunch of demos, and that seemed to work pretty well."

Unlike the previous two albums, which were recorded in Los Angeles and New York respectively, Vision Valley was recorded in a handful of Sydney studios, again to make life easier for its creator. Andy Kent, bassist in Melbourne rock band You Am I, was drafted in to play on the album and he may also be involved in any live performances this year. The group hasn't been actively looking for a permanent replacement for Matthews.

Although Rosser says "the future was uncertain for a while", Nicholls asserts that there was never any intention for the band to split. "I don't think so. We just needed a break" is how he puts it, while Griffiths describes post-touring as a period where "we just needed time to eat and sleep and do normal things".

Rosser expects the band to play shows again, "although we have to get ourselves fit first. It's lucky we didn't have a massive tour booked. We don't have a bass player either, but I think we'll overcome these obstacles and do a few shows."

Nicholls, too, is looking forward to playing live again, albeit in reduced circumstances. His volatile nature was part of the band's attraction live, especially when the band burst through, first in Britain and then in the US.

When Nicholls went slightly berserk on the set of the David Letterman show, as the band performed their first hit, Get Free, punters across the world took notice.

It will be interesting to see how much of the awkward, guitar-smashing, foul-mouthed banshee of old remains if, or when, that return to the stage takes place. The plan so far is to test the water with a few Australian shows this year before committing to anything overseas, particularly in the US, where Capitol will be looking for the band to capitalise on its investment. It was the US label that brought forward the release date of the album from June to April 1.

In the meantime the threesome will content themselves with making a few videos and conducting interviews with select media across the globe.

"I'm coping," Nicholls says. "I'm looking forward to doing the shows and we're not going to do as much promotion this time."

Rosser, who has been filling in with other bands during The Vines' down time, is philosophical about their chances.

He says there has been little pressure on them to bounce back because "most people thought we had broken up anyway. It's good to come back with an album like this when most people had already written us off. Just getting back together has exceeded most people's expectations. So we've proved them wrong. Take that."

The Vines' Vision Valley is released by EMI on April 1.