The title to The Go! Team's 2004 debut, Thunder, Lightening, Strike couldn't have been more apt. A dazzling collage of samples, live instruments and high impact vocals from resident MC Ninja, the record struck a chord with the mash up generation, earned a Mercury nomination and instantly transformed Go! Team founder Ian Parton from bedroom button pushing genius to the leader of one of the hottest live bands around.

2007's follow up, Proof Of Youth, saw The Go! Team go into the studio for the first time in its full six-piece incarnation, and - having gained enough clout by this point to attract guest appearances by the likes of Chuck D - once again wowed the kids and the critics alike.

After three years away, January 2011 will see the release of The Go! Team's hotly anticipated third studio album, Rolling Blackouts. While the record retains much of Parton's famous use of wide ranging samples, Blackouts is a far more melodic, 'song' driven record. With guest vocalist ranging from Satomi Matsuzaki from Deerhoof and Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast - not to mention a live brass band and African gospel choir - the album is without doubt the most expansive, multi-faceted and downright crazy thing The Go! Team have done to date. We caught up with Ian Parton in his home town of Brighton where - ahead of the 31 January 31 release of the album - things were all Go!

So, you've been away for three years. What the devil have you been up to?
It doesn't feel like we've been away to be honest because we've just been in other countries doing different things really. So, it's been partly that, partly the fact that I've had a kid, and partly just that this kind of music is very work intensive, you know? There was a period where I'd just get up and listen to like thousands of records all day, every day on a quest for new samples and stuff. On this record there was no kind of songs to begin with, there was nothing left over so it was really just starting from a blank canvas.

Wowzers (and congrats on the bambino)! How was that process? Sounds intense!
That made it quite liberating in a way, the fact that I was starting again and coming at it from a different angle and looking in different places. The set up of this band is very different from other bands, I suppose, in that we don't just pick up a guitar and write a song; with us the songs are really quite hoarded and lots of different bits and pieces are all stored away for a period of time and then all bought back together.

So, you almost have to research an album then before you make it?
Yeah, in a way. I would kind of make files full of my favourite ideas and that would then get whittled down and whittled down until perhaps thirteen songs emerged. It's a lot to do with trial and error and remembering things and singing into your phone and hoarding and all that sort of thing.

You've used fewer samples on this record and lots more live instruments. Was that a deliberate decision?
There's still lots of samples and there always was live instruments, it's just that people didn't really realise it. This time it's kind of written from a very song-writing point of view. There's more singing on it. Rather than it being chant led, it is more melody, vocally led.

Oh! Did that make for a more time consuming recording process?
Well, I'm a fan of lots of different kinds of voices so the appeal of an album for me is using lots of different voices that wouldn't usually be brought together under one umbrella, so you have Satomi Matsuzaki from Deerhoof [see our Deerhoof feature, page 6] on one song and then on the next you've got a 19-year-old rapper called Dominique Young Unique, and then you've got Bethany Cosentino from Best Coast. I'm really a fan of surprising people with all sorts of different artists. I still wanted to make it very girl group-y, you know, and I guess it became like this diagram where girl groups and riot girls and female rappers kind of overlap, you know?

Did working with all those different people mean you had to do a lot of travelling?
Yeah, it was done all over really. The vocalists were all done wherever they lived so some of it was Florida, some of was Tokyo, some of it was California, and then a lot of it was done in my bedroom in Brighton. I didn't really go out to any of those places; it was just kind of sending it back and forth type stuff. Then some of it was recorded in a big church with an African gospel choir and then some of it was done in another studio because we used a 12-piece community brass band on some of the tracks. A lot of that was new territory for us too, you know? We were scoring out parts to get that marching brass band sound that I'm a real fan of - that parade kind of feel. That was nice; to be in a position where by you could get that kind of thing done.

The premise of 'Secretary Song' - where Satomi Matsuzaki sings lead vocals over the sounds of elevators opening on the beat, typing in time and phones ringing in rhythm to evoke the feel of a real life Tokyo office - reminds us of the theme tune to Are You Being Served. Was it an inspiration?
Haha! That's an amazing song, that is. I always claim that that's the first drum'n'bass song. It's kickass!

We'll take that as a yes then. What led you to working with Bethany from Best Coast?
It seems like we've jumped on the band wagon with them but when we got her in no one had really heard of Best Coast and now everyone loves them. She was just a MySpace discovery for us really. I really dig that whole California, sun drenched thing...

For Go! Team live dates, click here:

3 February @ Oran Mor, Glasgow
4 February @ Liquid Room, Edinburgh
5 February @ Lemon Tree, Aberdeen
8 February @ Heaven, London
9 February @ The Junction, Cambridge
10 February @ Birmingham Institute, Birmingham
11 February @ Anson Rooms, Bristol
13 February @ The Princess Pavilion, Falmouth
14 February @ Old Fire Station, Bournemouth
15 February @ O2 Academy 1, Oxford
16 February @ Concorde 2, Brighton
18 February @ The Cockpit, Leeds
19 February @ Academy 2, Manchester
20 February @ O2 Academy 2, Liverpool
21 February @ Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
24 February @ Waterfront, Norwich
25 February @ O2 Academy 2, Sheffield
26 February @ O2 Academy 2, Leicester
27 February @ The Millenium Music Hall, Cardiff