Trashcan Sinatras, an indie-pop band hailing from Irvine, Scotland have been playing together for over two decades and still manage to keep their stuff alive. While the band has undergone a few face-lifts throughout the years, their core sound has pleasantly evolved without changing completely.

Original members Stephen Douglas (drums, vocals), Francis Reader (vocals, acoustic guitar), Paul Livingston (lead guitar), John Douglas (rhythm guitar, vocals), Stevie Mulhearn (keyboards), Frank Divanna (bass), as well as former members Davy Hughes and George McDaid and a smattering of session/touring members, Roddy Hart (keyboards, acoustic guitar), Jody Stoddard (guitar), Grant Wilson (bass) are responsible for Trashcan Sinatra's grown-up pop sound.

While the original outfit formed back in the eighties, it was their debut album Cake that proved to be a hit on college campuses across the nation and put them in the minds of the global grunge-pop audience.

After the initial success of Cake, they seemed to disappear from the purview of American audiences. Through trials and tribulations, label dropping, and clawing their way back to the surface, they never lost their appeal to their faithful following. Fans kept the spark alive, hoping to keep the band in the spotlight.

One fan in particular, Joe Dimario, whose passion for the Trashcan Sinatras fueled enough bootlegs, lyric transcriptions, and videos to ignite an online resurrection, gave the Trashcan Sinatras the buzz they needed to put them back on the map.

In 2004, the Trashcan Sinatras put out critically acclaimed album, "Weightlifting" and followed it with a world tour as well as an independently released acoustic album, "Fez." The next few years have the Trashcan Sinatras putting out various albums, EPs, and video recordings of their shows. The Trashcan Sinatras are back with a new studio album, In The Music, which is available for download and purchase now. They kick off their US tour in June..

The Trashcan Sinatra's have been pumping out albums and EP's with a host of notable guest musicians dropping by to lend their sound. Take for instance, Carly Simon, who graces the vocals on "Should I Pray."

antiMusic caught up with both founding fathers, Paul Livingston and Frank Leader, to get their perspective on where the band is, where its heading, and what its done for them along the way.

Lead guitarist, Paul Livingston

antiMusic: What songs do you like to play live?

Paul: I like to play Oranges and Apples, cos I really don't know what I'm going to do on it. It's all free flowing stuff. Recently I started playing some outta tune bits, inspired by Jeff Beck. Yeah!

antiMusic: What is different about this album and your past efforts?

Paul: I've noticed as the years go on, we have less sections in the songs. On this album most only have two bits! We like to hit a groove and stay there for a while now.

antiMusic: Talk about working with Carly Simon. How did her laying tracks come about?

Paul: Well we recorded the singing for the album in Martha's Vineyard and Carly Simon lives there. Being big fans of hers, we sent her some of the songs we were working on and asked if she wanted to do anything on them. She gets this sort of request all the time and always says no, so we were deeply honoured when she said she loved "Should I Pray" and wanted to sing on it! Unfortunately she was in New York at the time so we didn't actually get to meet her. Bummer, eh?

antiMusic: What are some stories from recording that stand out for you?

Paul: I was deeply stoned during the sessions for the album. It helped me to be totally immersed in the moment of making music, but it means that I was just walking around in a haze, not really paying attention. 'twas magic!

antiMusic: What struggles or obstacles did you have to overcome to get this album made?

Paul: Surprisingly, it was really quite easy to do this one! We wanted Andy Chase to do it, and he wanted to do it. Easy! We did have a slightly different idea of how we wanted to record it; we didn't rehearse the songs, instead just jammed the grooves; and we wanted to record all the music live. All of that could easily have led to a monumental disaster! You know, spending all the money and only having a buncha recordings of s*** jams to show for it! Well, it's happened before...

antiMusic: What's next? As far as touring and after?

Paul: After this U.S. tour I don't know to be honest. I'm getting older. We are writing songs...

antiMusic: Do you have ideas for the next album? Will it be different than this one?

Paul: I reckon our albums go through three different phases in a cycle. We haven't made enough albums to see if this really pans out yet or not though! The first phase is an obsessive need to capture all the ideas and everything that we have at that time (Cake and Weightlifting). That is followed by a confidently recorded album, buoyed by what we achieved with the previous record (I've Seen Everything and In the Music). Then I think there is a patchwork sorta album - made all over the place and with songs that sound different from each other (A Happy Pocket and, possibly, the next one!?!?)

antiMusic: What's the main difference between an American audience and a European audience?

Paul: Uh...the shouts for "Obscurity Knocks" are in a different accent.

antiMusic: If you could play anywhere in the world, where would you play and why?

Paul: Mmmm...maybe Alaska. I like snow. And log cabins. I wanna be a mountain man, like Jeremiah Johnson.

Front man Frank Reader

antiMusic: Talk about the songwriting process for you?

Frank: After tinkering alone on guitars or pianos, John or Paul or I will come up with a good, chunky idea and send it to the others for approval or refinement, or dismissal. It's a pretty simple, ineffable process. Getting the good, chunky idea is the key, of course.

With this album, we had a vague idea to keep the nascent songs from forming themselves too completely while we were rehearsing them in Glasgow, so that they would be fresher, or more interesting to record when the time came, but it's hard to stop the process of polishing and perfecting songs once you've started to hear their potential. So we had to kind of self-sabotage - for me, that meant switching off the taskiness and taking more of a "that's fine for now" attitude. The songwriting process became more incremental than with previous albums - shaping words into the sounds we were making, and vice versa. We were enjoying being in the fog of sound that we were making, and by the time we got to the recording studio in NYC, we knew we wanted to record the songs together live, which put us at the mercy of the moment. The producer did an awful lot of painstaking work editing and combining performances, too.

antiMusic: You've been recording for over twenty years, what keeps it fresh for you?

Frank: I suppose we keep trying to come up with different approaches to the songwriting, or the recording. We've had times when it's a drag, but speaking for myself, I love John and Paul's work so much that I've always been determined at those times to find a way to get us going again. There will always be fallow periods, you can't help that, but if there ever comes a time when there's no urge to improve the situation, that's when you ought to stop. Also, I think after being together this long, we've had to learn to see only the advantages. There's no point in looking for trouble - if anybody's unhappy, they can walk.

antiMusic: Do you still keep in touch with the original members?

Frank: I see Mr Livingston and the Douglas Brothers every now and then. Our old bass player Davy Hughes will continue to involve himself in the writing, I hope.

antiMusic: What did you hope to accomplish with this album? What are the major themes threaded throughout ? Do you think you reached your goal?

Frank: We wanted to communicate - hopefully with supreme melodicism - a parcel of songs written around and about our lives and the people who inspire us, and to do right by the chances we're given to make this music together.

Love is the main theme. There are songs about opening yourself up to love; songs about the beauty and harmony in love; love between meals, between the sheets, between you and me, and between me and me. There are also a couple of tribute songs. One is "i hung my harp upon the willows" about the encouragement given to the poet Robert Burns by his friend Richard Brown, at a time when he was living in Irvine, Ayrshire (our home town) and feeling discouraged about his work...rings a few bells. And "oranges and apples" was written by John about Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd. It's a beautiful sentiment, crediting Syd for the good that he brought to the world.

I'm proud of the album, proud of the fact that we made it. I spent so many years of my life worrying about every aspect of the band, be it the quality of the songs themselves, or our relationship with each other, or our meagre living, and for what, really? I'm glad we've created such a joyous record, and it's a forward step for the band.

antiMusic: What personal limitations did you confront and then overcome?

Frank: I'm not sure I've overcome any. It's the struggle that counts, right? Mostly, I've been determined to stress less about music and life, and to treat everyone a bit better. And to be less cowardly.

antiMusic: This quote was taken from your press release, "Reader's angelic vocals and the band's optimistic lyrical themes, enveloped in sparkling guitars, create a refreshingly original sound that awakens passion and promotes love, hope, and forgiveness. These themes are what the world�America especially�is in need of as we push beyond the trying times that have affected everyone." Talk a little bit more about the what your album means to the times we live in presently?

Frank: I think that absolutely everything starts with the personal, with how you deal with yourself and those you choose to spend your time around. Sometimes the world seems really fast, fragmented and confusing, but taking responsibility for the love, hope and forgiveness that you can give to and receive from those you meet can be powerful, and we try to make our music in that spirit.

antiMusic: If you could work with any producer who would it be?

Frank: Barry Gibb. Can you help? I gotta get a message to him...