They’re named after an anti-Nazi World War Two thingy (how very Joy Division). They also do that mid noughties post punk/electro thing to an absolute tee and as an added bonus, they’ve got bloody cool hair.

After a spurt in 2006 – when their first album, Kick, was released to an explosion of hype – WRM are back. There’s a UK tour coming up, a second album on the way and the new stuff’s sounding pretty darn good too. tourdates got the skinny with White Rose main man, Finn Vine.

Word! How goes it? What you been up to lately?
Making an album, making a video, spraying five hundred copies of vinyl, touring Europe and Russia, preparing for a UK tour...quite a lot actually. 

Nice! You must be looking forward to the UK tour. Three bands sharing a bus…How d’you think that’ll work out?
Yeah, we’re looking forward to playing in the UK. It’s been a while and I think we’re a different band since the last time, plus we’ll be playing mostly new tracks from the upcoming album.

And the other bands?
We all share similarities but essentially we’re three very different bands. We all get on and have a laugh but spending nights and days in a tour bus together for two weeks is sure to change things. That’s a lot of leather and noise contained in such a small area.

We really like the new tracks. Who made ‘em sound like that?
We’ve had many attempts at finding the right producer and after much searching we found Robert Harder. He just seemed to get our sound and knew how to bring out the best from the new tracks. He’s worked with an eclectic mix of musicians (like Whitey and Acoustic Ladyland) and has worked in every aspect of the music industry so he was just very capable. 

Is there an album on the way?
The new album is done. It’s taken a while to compile, I think we recorded almost thirty songs and went through various stages of liking some tracks and then abandoning them for others. It’s been a longer process than anticipated but we’re happy with how it is now. It was done in Archway in Rob’s studio haven. We practically lived there last summer, it’s nice, but it’s got a massive TV that only plays Top Gear.

Oh God! Too much Clarkson. What you been up to since the last album?
Lurking in dark studios mostly, not getting enough light and complaining about the noise. Writing, recording, touring, it’s actually been a very busy time for us.  I think people assume we just disappeared because we weren’t releasing anything but we’ve been writing the new record and touring all around Europe and the States. We got a new member who we rescued from fashion college and who listens to too much Aaliyah. We played in Russia last year in Moscow and St Petersburgh and the Ukraine, to an audience of 33,000 which was pretty amazing. We also played a really great show in Hoxton Bar and Kitchen in January which was our first proper outing here for a long time so it was great to see a packed out room and an old fashioned mosh-pit. 

And how’ve you moved on since 2006?
We’ve become a force to be reckoned with live. We are a tight unit that’s had its fair share of ups and downs, and we made it through to the other side. We very rarely have bad shows these days. We listen to, and respect each other and there is a unity between us that know one can touch.

Right on! Was 2006 a mad time?
Yes it was, and we were completely unprepared for it. We’d done loads of demos for the record label and they were totally disinterested, then I met up with Paul Epworth [record exec] and me and Jasper [Milton, guitarist] had been working on the ‘Love is a Number’ demo and Paul loved it. We recorded it over a weekend and next week Paul was playing it out at clubs and it just all kicked off. The record company had to play catch up and we were suddenly this buzz band. We are not the kind of band who’ve been to the Paul McCartney school of media training either, so I don’t know how well we coped under the pressure. We didn’t have a lot of time to think about it at the time because we were constantly on tour. It seems to translate to the States too. Suddenly we were in N.Y.C playing to seven hundred people wondering how they knew who the fuck we were. It’s an intangible thing.

How’s the London scene changed since then?
Well it’s all kind of come round to our way of thinking since then. At the time we were the only band really mixing electronics and the live cross-over thing. Now everyone is doing it.

Any new bands you’re digging?
Well I’m liking The XX and we played a gig with Dead Kids…they were frightening and we weren’t sure how to follow them. The singer was climbing up the amps and managed to break a girl’s arm by snogging her and being punched in the face by her boyfriend. I think SCUM will make a good record too. 

Taxxi left and got replaced by Poppy Corby-Tuech. Why?
Taxxi, or Erica as I’m sure her college lecturers call her, decided she wanted to go back and study at art college, which is fair enough as we dragged her out of art college in the first place. She didn’t really enjoy the touring much, I guess it can’t be easy travelling the world with a bunch of blokes, when you just want to spend more time at home with your boyfriend. She is still a dear friend and will always be known to us affectionately as ‘the artist formerly known as Squiffey’. The drummer from Franz Ferdinand said she was the poshest person he’d ever met.

Did the new addition change the sound?
Not just the sound, but our whole way of doing things. Poppy had to come in half way through the album so it wasn’t easy for her. She also had to learn the old set as we were still playing live shows in Europe to help pay for the recording. She stepped up to the challenge; she is incredibly talented, and she has very strong ideas about what she likes and doesn’t like.

You grew up in a hippy commune in Norfolk. What was that like?
Have you ever seen that film ‘Together’? If not you should, that’s what its like. As a child you are treated as an adult, and as a child you soon realize how child-like your parents behaviour can sometimes be.We did get to do what we wanted for most parts, which was fun The word ‘no’ was not in the hippy handbook. There were always artists , musicians and mind bending drugs around and Bunty - the old lady in the caravan - was always very generous with her home brew.