"People are expecting more than just music now, when they're going to see bands," THE VINES guitarist RYAN GRIFFITHS informs BRYGET CHRISFIELD. Rest assured the live hijinks of their fearless bandleader CRAIG NICHOLLS always deliver.

Walking into the designated interview room of Sony HQ to greet one half of The Vines, two amiable chaps - frontman Craig Nicholls and guitarist Ryan Griffiths - stand up from their seats, their hands extended for enthusiastic handshakes. This is unexpected given that The Vines have so expertly mastered their requisite sullen onstage rockstar personas. Griffiths has a particularly welcoming manner, often presenting a warm smile framed by his long, shaggy, flaxen locks. Nicholls has just recently returned from a cigarette break and motions to a position next to him on a black leather sofa. His face is largely concealed by what appears to be a black scarf, fashioned as a beanie, and oversized, brown vintage shades. As the frontman sips from a can of coke, he clearly enjoys talking about music: that of The Vines and also those who inspire him. Both bandmates demonstrate extremely positive mindsets and seem chuffed to have this opportunity to spruik their latest album, Future Primitive. After just one listen you'll agree that The Vines have headed in a new direction', stretching their musical parameters to the point where the word 'experimental' could be used to describe a couple of the tracks. "That was our intention," Griffiths enthuses, "and Chris [Colonna] who produced the album helped us go in that direction and encouragedus to explore different sounds." Colonna urged the band to marry traditional, organic Vines' elements with less conventional, electronic ideas.

"He did bring along new synth sounds and pedals," Griffiths continues, "and he even used an iPhone - the apps on that - at one point, but he encouraged us to use percussion a lot as well. There was a lot of percussion that we used that we wouldn't maybe necessarily have chosen, but it sounded really good." Was it hard to know when to stop adding sounds when there were so many options available, given Colonna's extra creative input? "Well, I think if it just started sounding too cluttered, [you know you've gone] too far and Chris was really good at helping us to get it under control," Nicholls praises. "[He encouraged us] to be a bit crazy, but then to know when it might be better to be a bit more sparse... You can do unlimited tracks and everything on Pro Tools. In the '60s they did it on an eight-track like with Sgt Pepper's -how great that is and they only had eight tracks to do it on!"

Nicholls was especially impressed by Colonna's adaptable working style: "He was just really easy to work with and nothing was a problem. He'd say, 'Okay, we'll do that if you want, 'Oh, you don't wanna do it? Alright. Oh, you want me to do this? Oh, okay I'll do that, yeah... cool things were happening, but it just happened easily.

"He really knows a lot about music, different music to what we usually Iisten to. Like, more dance music. So it's good." Colonna's influence is expressed most vividly on a track called "Outro", which Nicholls describes as "eally abstract, far-out" and with "strange things going on". Think "M1A1" by Gorillaz. "That's one of my favourite Gorillaz songs," Griffiths shares before Nicholls adds, "Yeah, great, what a compliment! I think ("MTAI" uses) a sample from a movie - a zombie movie, Night Of The Living Dead. Yeah, I was reading [that] in the CD [insert]." Nicholls modelled a Gorillaz t-shirt for the band's recent Splendour in the Grass appearance and, having established the pair witnessed the Damon Albarn-led menagerie during their Australian tour last year, we launch into a discussion. How Justin Bieber can sell more tickets than Gorillaz is a topic that raises alarms. "When I first went to America, I spoke to a producer and I also said, 'What's going on? How come this band isn't big here?'" Nicholls contributes, "And he said, 'Good music isn't popular here. So that's not to put down anyone in particular, but yeah! Just saying that's what it's like." 

When The Vines first landed on the cover of Rolling Stone back in 2002, the coverline said it all: "Rock Is Back: Meet The Vines". Together with a handful of other bands who also adopted names utilising the definite article, The Vines' music and attitude shifted the listening public's attentions back to the real rock'n'roll deal. "It was good," Nicholls reflects, "there was good, real bands who were getting attention and getting people excited." On our current musical climate, the bandleader offers, "It is a strange time, I think, where music has become very visual and I think it maybe shouldn't be. I mean, it's always nice when a band has a good image, but..."Can we assume Nicholls isn't talking about an "image" such as that of the giant mouse head-wearing Deadmau5? Griffiths takes this one: "It seems like these days you've gotta draw a lot of attention to yourself to get attention for what you're doing - the music part. We did the Big Day Out tour recently and Die Antwoord were on that. Those guys, they stand out in a crowd, you know? They're quite funny. But it seemed like it was for real though, hey! They were living it. But, I mean, they went so far out to get their songs heard: they really had to make quite a stage show just to get everyone in to actually hear the music.. People are expecting more than just music now, when they're going to see bands." At the end of the day, however, a band's music still needs to sound good when you load their CD into your player of choice. "Well that's it," the guitarist concurs. 

Although thrilled with the finished product, Nicholls says he would've preferred to drop album number five in 2010: "The last album was 2008 and we really wanted to put it out last year, the album, but all the work that's gone into it - it's not a big deal, I just wanted to keep the album on even numbers: all my lucky numbers... We're gonna try and do another album next year. We've got a couple of songs already and we're gonna try and do that... In the '60s, a band would put out two albums a year sometimes - that was really great. I mean, I wasn't there, but it just seems like that's a cool thing. Just the music scene - that stuff has changed so much, with music videos being such a big thing and then all the other stuff. It's all the festivals; it's a big circus. It's a good time and the travel can be a bit of a drag sometimes, but it's usually worth [doing] for somewhere to play and have a good time." 

The Vines were booked to play Splendour In The Grass again this year and it seems as if they've played that specific festival more times than they haven't. "We've only done three," Nicholls corrects. "This was number four, yeah. So it was four years after the first album came out that we did our first one - so that was 2006 - then we missed '07, did '08, we missed '09, then we did '10 and we did it again this year. We're the first band in the history of Splendour In The Grass to do it two years running, so we're pretty happy about that - we weren't sure whether they were gonna ask us to play at this [latest] one." 

Just like Future Primitive's release date falling on a year that ends in an odd-number, this year marks the first Splendour In The Grass festival The Vines played in an odd-number year. Ending in an '11', this year may not be one of Nicholls' "lucky numbers", but the success of his band certainly seems to have a lot more to do with talent than luck. "Yeah, you have to believe in what you're doing. so that keeps it all together," Nicholls concludes modestly.

WHO: The Vines

WHAT: Future Primitive (Sony)

WHEN & WHERE: Saturday, Hi-Fi; Saturday 31 December, Homebake, Domain, Sydney