Hello, Barry. So now you're your own bosses – is it all about getting up at 3pm and watching 'Countdown'?

Ha! The day-to-day lifestyle of not being on a major label is pretty much the same; the only difference is that if we sell an album, we actually make some money from it! Instead of getting 20p for every album, you get six or seven quid. But we're not slackers, we're constantly on the ball with the business side of things. Everyday we have several different little meetings. But you know that in the music business, when people say 'having meetings' …you just sit, have a sandwich, talk about the band for five minutes and go, 'Good meeting, great meeting.'

With all that extra cash we hope you've been wasting some of it?

I just keep on buying daft musical instruments, like I recently bought some bagpipes. The next album is going to be recorded on all the instruments I've been buying over the years so it's going to be mainly tubas and bag pipes. I bought a mandolin, a penny whistle and I'm going to get a harp soon. You know, it's going to be experimental!

We can't wait... What was it like recording with legendary producer Youth in his Space Mountain studio in Spain?

Amazing. He designed it himself. Youth is a very eccentric man and the property he's having built has been a work in progress for five years, because of the very slow pace that the Spanish builders work at. We were staying in this hotel a mile away and every morning, his builders would be sitting in the bar getting absolutely steaming drunk – at like 8am in the morning! And then they'd go up and work for 15 minutes, smoke a few cigarettes and go to sleep having another meeting.

Just add sandwiches and you have a Futureheads business meeting. Your new single is about a girl with a 'Radio Heart', wouldn't that actually be annoying and wake you up all the time?

It would depend on how sexy she was! It would probably clash with my hearing aid though. It was written on the last day of recording and we started it at 3am and by half three it was done and recorded. Me and Ross were basically in fits of laughter about the idea of a girl with a radio instead of a heart. I'd been drinking and Ross is teetotal so he was basically taking the piss out of me. It is quite light-hearted really.

And your biggest radio hit to date. Quite handy it's got radio in the title, eh?

That wasn't a conscious decision! We're not really like that. There are may hit songs with radio in the title but we're not going to be challenging 'Radio Ga Ga', let's face it.

Thanks, Barry.

The Futureheads 'This Is Not The World' is out now.