WHEN Shed Seven first announced their Shedcember shows for 2017, the York band had envisaged another round of greatest hits glory-glory nights for the Britpop survivors.

However, in his regular conversations with The Press since the Sheds regrouped for tours in 2007, frontman Rick Witter has often talked of a wish to make a new album.

“We’ve only gone and done it,” he says, settling down over coffee in the newly-opened Forty Five, York’s first vinyl café, in Micklegate. And so, 16 years after Truth Be Told, the Sheds return to the record-store racks with Instant Pleasures, a record produced by the legendary Youth and released through the major label BMG next Friday.

Now, Witter, guitarists Paul Banks and Joe Johnson, bassist Tom Gladwin and drummer Alan Leach have the perfect avenue for promoting their fifth studio album.

“This year is our tenth anniversary of regrouping to play in the lead-up to Christmas, and this year is the fifth time we’ve done it; it’s the biggest one yet with the most shows put on sale, and all that was before this album was announced, so it just shows the strength of our back catalogue,” says Rick, as he reflects on more than 50,000 ticket sales. “So if you’re a fan, it’s a bonus that there’ll now be new material too.

“All this snowballed because over the past few years, as quite rightly people who come to see us, in this age of social media, can ask questions and it’s always been the big question: when will we hear something new from you? There was never enough time in the day to do that [because of other commitments, whether family or work], but then three years years ago, when we were rehearsing, we just started jamming and a new riff would emerge for me to put a melody on, and it was at the point where we had three or four songs that we all thought had legs, we said: ‘How far can we take this?’.”

First the Sheds contemplated making a four-track EP or “just putting it out on iTunes for something new to hear”. “But we kept on writing and soon we had 14-15 songs, all good enough for an album,” says Rick, recalling the hours spent at the White Rooms recording studio in York.

“Suddenly people in the band felt able to free up enough time to do it, so we started putting out feelers in the music industry, sending them rough demos, and the reaction was really positive, which led to us getting new management, VAM (Various Artists Management), who manage The Libertines, Charli XCX and Reverend And The Makers, so they have the contacts, and before we knew it we were working with Youth,” says Rick.

“He was suggested to us and we weren’t going to complain about that; he’s obviously got history and because you’re working with a top producer, out in Spain, you look a whole lot more serious.

York Press:

The album cover for Shed Seven's fifth studio album, released on November 10

“We’d also become a lot less precious, which might be because we’re getting older (Rick turns 45 on November 23). In the past, we’d write a song, and that was that; we’d think, ‘why do you want to change it?’, but this time we opened our ears and eyes and it was such a positive experience, with the songs changing as we recorded them. It was almost as if a new song was being written before our eyes. Listening to them now, it really sounds like we want it again and are really alive.”

The band loved their Youthful experience in Spain. “We were right up in the mountains, and it was a bit like an all-male Big Brother trip, with only one vehicle: a hire car that only Youth could drive! There was no-one around for miles; we were there for three weeks and each Saturday we’d go out into Granada, which felt a bit like being let out of prison!” recalls Rick.

“But I think it really helped being trapped there, because the only thing to do was to work, so we did a song a day, whereas in London you’d always be going out with your mates.”

Funding for the album initially had come through the Pledge Music scheme of crowd-funding by fans. “At first I thought it was a bit cap in hand, a begging mechanism, but I’ve since turned round on that because it’s been available to order from Pledge in various formats since March, and in that time, if you ‘Pledged’ early on, you’ve got exclusive early content like video clips from Spain,” says Rick. “Within a few weeks of going on sale, I was told it was one of the three most successful Pledge campaigns of all time.”

The Sheds were conscious that “what we came up with had to be right up there” with their past peaks – 15 hit singles, no less, between 1994 and 2003. “Shedcember has been such a big thing for us and we didn’t want to dampen it, but I think what we’ve done is a classic album, deciding on the track order like a proper old album, with every song warranting its place on there.”

Instant Pleasures’ track listing will be Room In My House; Nothing To Live Down; It’s Not Easy; Said I’m Sorry; Victoria; Better Days; Enemies & Friends; Star Crossed Lovers; Hang On To Yourself; Butterfly On A Wheel; People Will Talk and Invincible.

In next Thursday’s What’s On, Rick will talk about the album in detail and his encounter with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant in a BBC Radio 2 studio.

Shed Seven play Pocklington Arts Centre, November 11; sold out; Fibbers, York, November 17 and 18, sold out; Sheffield O2 Academy, December 9, sold out; Leeds O2 Academy, December 18 and 19, sold out; Hull City Hall, December 21, yes, sold out.. Instant Pleasures will be out on November 10 on BMG.