FOSSIL Collective, a Leeds band with York connections, will open their 21-date spring tour on April 10.

The multi-instrumentalist duo of Dave Fendick and Jonny Hooker will play The Duchess in York that night, two days after the release of their first album, Tell Where I Lie.

This ten-track debut will be issued by Dirty Hit Records, a label that is already home to York singer-songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich.

Newly returned from their first American gig at the South By South West festival in Austin, Texas, David and Jonny will be taking to the road for a tour that takes them to Fruit, in Hull, on April 13, Leeds Brudenell Social Club on April 26 and The Harley in Sheffield on April 29.

They first worked together in Leeds band Vib Gyor and have since honed their music into its present delicate, uplifting form with melodic harmonies reminiscent of Simon & Garfunkel and Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac.

Dave and Jonny’s paths first crossed on the Leeds music scene while in different bands.

“What separated Jonny from the other people I’d met was his total commitment to music,” said Dave. “Whereas other people we were around were in bands for somewhat clichéd reasons, our focus was the music and the songs and for that reason we gravitated towards each other.”

This led to the liberating decision to go back to basics and start again after Vib Gyor.

“We felt we had to fold our cards and be honest to ourselves,”

said Jonny, who lives in York. “We were listening to the kind of music we grew up with – Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor – and we decided there and then to try and capture the essence of that traditional songcraft, to strip everything back to the song, lyrics and melody.”

Armed with three roughly prepared demos, the duo found themselves looking for a recording studio.

“We had no money at all, but our friends had a modest little studio in a crypt just outside Leeds,” Dave said. “It was a totally surreal place to go to.

‘‘We had to stop recording at various points during the day as the main church was directly above the crypt.

‘‘Whenever there was a mass or a wedding, for example, we had to be quiet – like little church mice scurrying about downstairs.”

However, after a week of intense recording sessions, they resurfaced with three songs that would become their self-released Honey Slides EP.

Move forward to 2013, via last June’s Let It Go EP, October’s On & On EP and a winter locked away making Tell Where I Lie, and Fossil Collective are preparing for their album launch and UK dates, followed by an American tour in May and the European festival season.

“We look back to just over a year ago, when it was just the two of us sitting in Jonny’s house with a couple of acoustic guitars working on those first ideas,” said Dave.

“It’s incredible how much we’ve achieved in such a short amount of time, especially since we haven’t even released our debut album yet.”