Glasvegas have fond memories of their York gigs, even their debut.

“The first time we played, there were two people, in a really small, old pub, and the promoter offered us £30 for the petrol. That was when no one knew us,” says Rab Allan, the Glasgow band’s guitarist.

“But we came back a month or two later and played The Junction. In fact we played there a couple of time, and we’ve always loved playing in York. There are certain places we like going back to that we have good memories of and I remember that the gigs we did in York just before we were signed were crazy.”

Rab, vocalist cousin James Allan, bassist Paul Donoghue and drummer Jonna Lofgren return to York on Monday to play The Duchess on the sixth night of their seven-date tour. Yet they might never have made it this far after the wheels came off in the wake of their success.

“The problems started to come across in our live performances, and maybe we were at a point when it did go wrong and just managed to save it,” says Rab.

“It was just James being a pain in the arse; I can be a pain in the arse as well and there are times when you can accept people’s faults and just go with it, but we had never been that kind of band. We’d always been strong, we’d been a gang, and suddenly we weren’t and we panicked.

“And that was the point when we sat down and talked about it, thinking, ‘Do we want to continue doing this?’, and to be honest, we all felt there was no option: we didn’t want to stop. That’s when we realised we all loved each other still.”

The band are now “the best we’ve ever been and the happiest we’ve ever been”, after facing up to problems both personal and within the band. “In some ways it’s like a relationship,” says Rab. “But we seem to have re-grouped now.”

Having started the year with a tour of remote pockets of Scotland, they released second album Euphoric Heartbreak in the spring and already they have new material worked into shape for the autumn tour.

“We’re going to be playing some of the new songs that James has written, like If Not For Loneliness,” says Rab. “And that’s the thing: sometimes you can be the loneliest person in the world without people realising it.”

James has written half the songs for the next album already. “The great thing is that when we’re on it, when it’s going really well, it feels so exciting. When your back is pushed against the wall, some people shy away but we’re fighters,” says Rab.

Before they start recording the new songs, Glasvegas are contemplating releasing an EP or mini-album built around Euphoric Heartbreak album tracks I Feel Wrong (Homosexuality Part 1) and Stronger Than Dirt (Homosexuality Part 2).

“James always wanted it to be a mini-album with three or four other songs,” says Rab.

• Glasvegas play The Duchess, York, on Sunday, supported by We Are Augustines; doors open at 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 477 1000