15 Minutes With: Conrad Keely

When your last album was both a critical confusion and a commercial failure, where do you go next? Without any publicly claimed ambitions to "reinvent the wheel," by all accounts …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead's 'Worlds Apart' seemed poised on breaking some serious ground. That is, until it leaked online, months in advance of an already heavily delayed release.

Considering this aloud, vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Conrad Keely reflects on the disillusioning aftermath: "How I felt afterwards? I was devastated. I almost felt like I didn't want to do music again and just go on and do something entirely different." He concedes, before raising his voice with a subtle optimism. "After coming back from tour, there was talk of possibly re-releasing it under different circumstances with better publicity. But then when we started working, things were going really well in the studio and it just felt like, well, let's do the next record."

The result, 'So Divided' is an album smothered in orchestral melody and straight laced rock n' roll grooves; paying nods to the varied sensibilities of everyone from Beat Happening to The Doors: less surface noise, more raw feeling. Here, aided by the backing vocals of southern soul collective Brothers & Sisters and Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls, the lingering air of baroque that has become more prevalent with each Trail of Dead release fully comes to life.

Experimental noise alone may have been the initial impetus for their earlier comparison to Sonic Youth, but similarly to the ethos of Kim Gordon and co there seems to be a degree of trial and error that Trail of Dead unflinchingly embrace; a bold admission for an internationally known band in an era where bravado equals instant clout and humble pie seems no easy thing for a rock star to snack on. Trail of Dead seem more concerned with achieving better art through grappling with the unknown and being the first to reflect on their varying levels of success. 'So Divided' seems hell bent on continuing this tradition; "This album is far more disjointed than any of our other records," offers Keely, "far less thematic, each song is a different experiment and form of pastiche."

No self-certified Jesus, yet more concerned about making a statement than shaking some ass, Keely seems uncertain as to what the fine print of his job description as a rock band frontman entails. "I was raised by these survivalist type parents who were really serious about the state of things and I always think about things on a more global scale. But, on the other hand maybe it's not really our place as musicians or entertainers, it's not like we're CNN.com, obviously we're not telling anybody things that they don't know. I like to talk about them, maybe just to make people realise that songwriters these days can talk about more besides partying and fucking dancing and whatever bullshit you hear on the radio; that we actually give a fuck."

After a cynical Skinny pauses in horror to consider how Terry Wogan's Radio 2 show is probably the only place to find "the realest shit" these days, the subject of Keely's move to New York is broached (the rest of the band are settled in Austin and Nashville). But is Conrad a big believer in long distance relationships?

"I haven't been but I guess, for me, what's more important is just where I need to be right now. You have to put yourself first when it comes to things like that. Your career or whatever? Put it second. I've just got to be happy or else there will be no band."

With UK dates in the works for early spring; you can expect all bloody hell to break loose when this lot get behind their gear. But, after all these years of shredding stages, there has to have been something in amongst all that kit that Trail of Dead have immediately regretted destroying? "You mean besides hearts?" Keely chuckles. "I always regretted losing this custom made guitar strap that had been made for me by the people at Paul Frank. It got torn off by the audience. I was really upset about that. Guitars? Y'know, whatever… I don't care about guitars really, but that had my name on it, that was a big deal."