MOST bands work intensively on a new album before taking the songs on the road and introducing them to fans.

But for relaxed reggae/roots band the Beatroots, that is far too stressful.

The chilled-out group say they’ve been gigging the songs on their upcoming album, Paper, Scissors, Stone, for about two years – but they’re finally perfected and due for release in November.

Frontman Dane Glasby says: “We’re always just about one album ahead of ourselves. It just seems to work out that way really.

“Every time we put an album out we’ve always had that music for about two years, gigged it and spent time with it.

“Because we’ve got our own studio it gives us all the time we want. For this one we had all the time in the world to hang around in the studio when we weren’t gigging. We didn’t rush at all, which is the way I think music and any kind of art should be – without any kind of rush.”

Describing the new album’s sound, he says: “All the songs are really fired up. If you listen to the first and the second ones they’ve got a lot more edge to them. We’ve definitely found our sound if there is one. But saying that, the next album is going to be completely different again.

“Our sound is changing constantly, which is something we’re quite proud of really.”

The band are known for their reggae sound, but Dan says they don’t set out to emulate reggae of the past, but take the sound and influence and do something new with it.

Dane says: “Reggae’s a difficult subject. It’s Jamaican music and obviously that’s evolved from the mid-Sixties, to now where it’s more dancehall mixing up with R&B and that.

“We never had any plan to become any particular area of reggae. It’s not like we set out to be roots, or have a two-tone influence.

“We’ve got a reggae influence as in our timing’s reggae, but our basslines are very melodious. A lot of the time in reggae the bass and drums just drive the rhythm, whereas we’ll be trying to take a song and do something different.”

The band’s sound contains none of the religious overtones in some reggae music.

Dane says: “Jamaica’s a very religious place. Obviously, Rast-afari was a new thing at the time and reggae got caught up with that. A lot of the songs sing about God or Jah, but that doesn’t really any theme in our music.”

The band is already working on its next album and Dane says it’s a more stripped back sound and lineup.

He says: “Our next album only has four of us working on it, so the music has obviously changed. The band line-up is changing, that’s why people have been seeing a lot of me doing slow songs and just trying to keep myself busy all the time. It’s just practice.

“I think that’s where they all start, on an acoustic guitar. Then when we take them out and gig them people are up for a party.

“Over the years, we’ve become quite an energetic band. At a lot of the places we play, people are there to dance, so we have to provide that music. But for me it is more about singing and songwriting that I love.”

The Beatroots will be doing a free giveaway of their album to fans in November.

To find out details about the date and location you need to “like” the band on Facebook at www.facebook.com/the-beatroots or subscribe to www.youtube.

com/user/DaneGlasby