Delirium Tremens aren’t sleeping much at the moment. Their time is filled with new songs for their next album, rehearsing for up-coming gigs, recording and talking to press, preparing for their next video, and planning a Home For Fallen Women/Delirium Tremens album launch for Thirst (after a little cock-up at iTunes Thirst was mistakenly filed as the second album of another band, but the album is now available and has been released by Universal).

The band itself, made up of Karis McLarty (singer), Nick Bovaird (guitar, singer), Ant Hull (electric guitar), Matt Povey (bass) and Jon Lamont (drums) started as an acoustic duo of McLarty and Bovaird. In 2008, after deciding that they wanted to broaden the sound and play bigger venues, the couple asked Lamont, Povey and Hull whether they fancied a bit of a musical five-way, and their sound developed.

To deal with our nagging, pointed and oh-so-clever questions, the guys share out the answers betwen them.

So, how did you all meet?  

Bovaird: I met Karis in a blues club where we were supposed to be watching Herbie Hancock play, but he no-showed. Instead, Lee, ex of boy band Blue, sang The Two of Us as a duet with his mother. To their eternal credit, no one in the room laughed. The others I met on the road, and it's been a long road.

And who chose the name?

Bovaird: When Karis and I were playing acoustically we really only needed something to describe the two of us accurately. Delirium Tremens, the DT's, is the shakes. But it's more than that too. A doctor friend swore once that the Northern European myth of the little people; dwarves, elves, pixies, and such, is because that's the most common hallucination in alcohol withdrawal. He's full of shit though, and I'm too lazy to look it up, so you'll have to take his word on that.

How excited are you about Thirst?

McLarty: It's our first record! I'm proud of it and intrigued to see what response we get, and from whom. I've no idea who our target audience is because I can’t see beyond my own need to sing the tales we've woven.

Your influences list poets, designers and fictional characters alongside musicians -

McLarty: Music tells stories, nightmares, romances, eulogies and invectives, and the influences we chose tell sadness, delights, aesthetics, ideas and themes we empathise with. I suppose we feel more an affinity with them rather than making our music an homage to them.

What has been the weirdest thing that happened at the infamous Home for Fallen Women parties?

McLarty: What really makes the parties are the joyful, out of control guests. We did have some performance art with a TB invalid in bed showing a picture album and eating cakes-which was interesting.

What are your plans to promote your work? 

McLarty: We work with Smash PR at the moment, but although we don't have the expensive machine that the big labels have, the most flattering way is word of mouth. I doubt we'll be getting our pants out for Max Clifford any time soon.

What have been your biggest achievements so far?

Hull: Playing Standon Calling three years in a row has to be up there. When you look at bands like Florence and the Machine who are nobodies one year, and come back Mercury nominees the next, you realise what a cultural happening that festival has become. And it’s the most fun you can have in a field with your wellies on.

How did you get chosen for inclusion on the soundtrack for the ‘made on £45’ horror film Colin? 

McLarty: That was back in the time MySpace had real people on it sending real messages and listening to real music. Not that it's not still a valuable exposure - but we used to get contacted by all sorts of creatives about collaborations. MySpace felt alive with possibility and Marc [director of Colin] was one of those people. I'm overjoyed it's doing so well.

What is it like for you Karis to be the only (and very glamorous) woman in the band?

McLarty: Absolutely Fucking A. I love the male dynamic, and I like being alone in my feminine wiles. Marilyn Monroe used to insist on no platinum blondes in her pictures. I insist on no other high heels in my band.

Where else in the world would you like to work?

Hull: Japan. The kids out there sound crazy, we've got a Japanese following on MySpace, and I’m intrigued to see the difference in the music fans from what we’re used to in the West.

Where do you see Delirium Tremens in a year, five years, or ten?

Hull: Hopefully we’ll play Glastonbury and start sorting out a deal in a year. I guess five years from now we’ll be on to album number three as a band and those members not in rehab will be releasing their solo work. Ten years time? Sitting in the bar trying to work out where it all went right.

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