What's the buzz around The Howl And The Hum, York's best new band?

Frontman Sam Griffiths has long been touted as the city's best songwriter awaiting discovery, in the wake of the resurgent, going-for-gold-again Shed Seven and the quietly wonderful Benjamin Francis Leftwich, who may now have a London postal address but still holds York so dearly in his heart.

Griffiths, a floppy haired, bespectacled former University of York English Literature and Philosophy student, was reading the thoughts of agent-provocateur artist Grayson Perry when The Press met him at Spring Espresso in Fossgate on the day that he and bass player Bradley Blackwell, drummer Jack Williams and electric guitarist Conor Hirons, the former Littlemores leader, were setting out on their first tour of 2018.

They played a free gig at The Sesh at the Polar Bear in Hull on Tuesday; Bristol awaits tonight, Coventry tomorrow, Newcastle on Saturday; and Valentine's Night will be spent romancing Leeds at Oporto, in Call Lane, for an irresistible £4 in a gig organised by Emily Pilbean, from BBC Radio Leeds and York.

Momentum is building. There have been Sam's solo gigs at The Habit, with Goodramgate pitched as York's little Greenwich Village; the busking skiffle sessions of diverse perky covers led by Sam beside the Parliament Street fountain, with Bear Necessities a particular favourite; and The Howl And The Hum's innovative Float Tank gigs, played in the dark in York buildings, with the next one planned for the summer.

"The 'Hum' comes from the sound Conor makes with his guitar," says The Howl And The Hum's Sam Griffiths

BBC 6Music has been giving The Howl And The Hum airplay; Carl Delahunty's London company Carry On Press is now handling their press, as they join the likes of First Aid Kit, Franz Ferdinand and Public Service Broadcasting on the roster; the double A-side single To Love Somebody and Portrait I is newly available on vinyl, and Godmanchester Chinese Bridge, from their debut EP, is making a pitch for being the most haunting song ever written in York.

Management is multi-headed, Dan Nicholson, from York and London, handling social media; Adrian Jolly managing in London, and live shows being run through the CODA agency.

All the while, The Howl And The Hum will remain decidedly independent. "We've tried to build a unit a unit in which we can get all the bases covered without signing to a record company, so we'll be self-sufficient," says Sam. "We self-release everything, through Spotify and on our website, so it's like starting your own business."

Forming the band had been a natural progression for Sam. "It was something that came from me playing on my own as a singer-songwriter, and I was given an ultimatum: do you want to be a singer-songwriter or in a band? I'd grown up listening to The Fall, The Cure, Talking Heads, Radiohead, who we get compared to quite a lot, so when I say it was a natural progression, when I was writing a song, I was building up this idea of who can I share it with, who can I do it with? Like Red Dwarf, with the expanding planets!"

Gradually The Howl And The Hum took shape, going through various line-ups with "people hopping on and off", and now settling on the present four and the format with Sam on rhythm guitar and Bradley on guitar effects as dark as a moonless night. "We're mainly going for a guitar sound using the guitar as a pad, because guitar pedals are so advanced now you can create 'synth keyboards' through them," says Sam.

"It's true that a song is never really finished," says The Howl And The Hum's Sam Griffiths (pictured right).

"Me and Brad were in the band first, then Conor joined, showing what those guitar pedals could do – and it's reminder that guitars can still be cool, when you think how they were so uncool in the Eighties with all that electronic music going on."

This in part explains the band name, The Howl And The Hum. "We went through some dreadful names before settling on something that sounded like a book and sounds mysterious too," says Sam. "The 'Howl' comes from the Allen Ginsberg poem [Howl, written in 1955]; the 'Hum' comes from the sound Conor makes with his guitar. I'm as much a fan of Conor not necessarily for the guitar part but for the atmosphere he creates."

Conversation turns inevitably to the remarkable Godmanchester Chinese Bridge, the epitome of The Howl And The Hum sound. "It's true that a song is never really finished, and that one started out in its barest form 18 months ago, when it had a different beat, and it must have gone through 15 different versions since then, and even now sometimes I'll change a lyric, depending on how I feel that night, like Bob Dylan does," says Sam.

The Howl And The Hum, not on Godmanchester Chinese Bridge

Godmanchester Chinese Bridge does genuinely exist. "It's a real bridge, near Peterborough, and the song was inspired by me seeing the sign on the road when my dad used to drive me between York and Colchester, where we lived," says Sam.

"It's such a beautiful name that if you don't write a song with that title, you're missing out on a big opportunity. The title of a song is important, the first line is important...though some of the best songs have rubbish titles!"

Sam and Brad have moved over to Leeds, living close to the ever wonderful gig paradise of the Brudenell Social Club, but The Howl And The Hum are a York band. "We still write in York, we still rehearse in York; we still record in York, at Isaac McInnes's Crooked Room in Strensall," says Sam.

Dates are in the diary for playing Live At Leeds on May 5 and Liverpool's Sound City Festival on May 6, and Stockton Calling and further festival appearances will follow, but what about a debut album? "Not this year," says Sam. "It will be a little while, as we're happy with releasing our work as singles for now, essentially coming out once a month, though we certainly have enough songs for an album, and I'm aware bands are remembered for their albums; they are the milestones; they're what we'll be judged on."