A ridiculous fish out of water, I stood in a queue for my press pass at the 2009 Damnation Festival in Leeds University Union on a rain splattered late October Saturday. So afeared for my safety amongst the heavy metal rabble that as soon as the polite young man affixing passes to people’s wrists had done his bit I made my way down to the Union basement and the relative safety of the delightfully divey Old Bar, a spot where in years past I’d sunk many a cheap pint and eaten my weight in McCoys.

Upon approach to the bar I clocked the unfamiliar presence of bouncers and an oddly official looking sign proclaiming ‘NO DAMNATION FESTIVAL TICKET HOLDERS’. Thankfully due to my decidedly non-rockin’ jeans and suit jacket combo, plus a haircut that looks like a particularly cheap Beatles wig, I passed unnoticed through the doors and into the Old Bar’s refreshingly low rent ambience. And thank God for that. Beyond those well fortified doors lay a truly ungodly horde, hellions to a man and uniformly drunk in their leather finery, dubious facial hair and cider addled minds.

I am an unapologetic square and refused to have any truck with these miscreants, I was an embedded journalist reporting from behind enemy lines and was there for one reason and one reason only; to see the mighty Therapy? And to get a few words from them on their best album in years, the heavy and beguilingly hypnotic Crooked Timber. Let me be honest, I was excited. I fucking love Therapy? I rank them up there with the greatest rock bands of the 1990s, alongside the likes of The Afghan Whigs. Across albums like Infernal Love, Troublegum and Suicide Pact – You First, Therapy? forged an intensely abrasive, visceral hybrid of punk and metal with a real ear for melody and hooks that stay lodged in your head for years. And unlike the majority of their contemporaries they never disbanded or descended into self parody or malaise. Crooked Timber is their 12th album and marks the third appearance of their new drummer Neil Cooper, the tub thumper who took the stool following the departure of their original drummer Fyfe Ewing in 1994, and his replacement Graham Hopkins who left after the Jack Endino produced album Shameless.

Let me back up a bit. My love affair with Therapy? began some time around 1995 when I was 12. By that time they had been together six years and had already released the devastatingly bleak and brutal Babyteeth and Pleasure Death mini albums on Wiiija Records, before recording their major label debut LP Nurse for A&M Records. 1994 heralded their biggest selling album Troublegum and the mainstream success that would follow and essentially overshadow the rest of their career. Troublegum is a fucking amazing piece of work, containing genuine anthems like Nowhere, Stop It You’re Killing Me and the timeless Screamager. But it was the troubled, druggy follow up Infernal Love that was to truly catch my imagination and chain my heart to this dysfunctional Ulster rock band for the rest of my life. I could happily extol the virtues of Infernal Love until the cows come home but the proof is in the pudding and I would unreservedly encourage anyone out there to grab themselves a copy of the album to explore its Dionysian depths for themselves.

So it’s really an odd one that all these years down the line I was sat waiting to interview Therapy? front man and chief songwriter Andy Cairns alongside his long term partner in crime, bassist Michael McKeegan for The Daily Scoundrel. And by crikey I must admit I was a tad nervous which isn’t an emotion I feel very often. Please don’t mistake my usual lack of nerves as a sign of bravery, in fact it’s the opposite. I am a terrible coward and have so dulled my emotional responses over the years through a healthy diet of booze, drugs and soul destroyingly base hardcore pornography that I exist in a natural state of blank eyed inertia. Yet there I sat drinking a £1.45 pint of Carlsberg and feeling little butterflies in my (not inconsiderable) belly. Although in truth some of my nervousness could have been attributed to the straight line of obnoxious student alpha males who had plonked themselves down directly opposite me and immediately began shouting ridiculous abuse at the big screen TV showing Premier League football. Imagine me, looking like a young Terry Wogan impersonator, listening to Crooked Timber on my MP3 player and jotting down additional questions for the mighty T? whilst these utter shafters frothed at the mouth with fuck wittery like, “Go on Lampard you fat bastard”, and, “The ref’s a fuckin’ nonce”, all the while seething with the kind of malevolent rage that would be better suited to armed manoeuvres in Helmand Province as opposed to a down at heel union bar in West Yorkshire.

So my nerves were understandingly somewhat jangled by the time I hooked up with Therapy?’s tour manager, who was rather disconcertingly dressed in blood stained surgeons whites, and was whisked backstage. Before I knew it I was in the door and shaking hands with my boyhood heroes who wasted no time in very generously treating me to their beer rider. And as anybody who has ever spent time with musicians knows, this kind of hospitality is very rare! So trying to act well casual, like a virgin that’s just landed a first date with Pam Grier, I began the interview.

The atmosphere in the Therapy camp was mellow, subdued and almost Zen like. You immediately get a sense that they’ve been around the block a few times and bare the stoic Ulster charm of men who have travelled the world but never lost their accents. And what an affable pair Cairns and McKeegan are, immediately putting me at ease and never once making me feel like the interloping, phoney, fan boy hack I clearly am.

First on the agenda was Crooked Timber which Cairns describes as a move away from the more melodic, conventional rock band fare found on their last two albums, Never Apologise Never Explain and One Cure Fits All. This move into the more murky, atmospheric side of T?’s music was prompted by collective writing sessions in their Derby based practice space, in which they worked on riffs, song structures and the tunes that would form the basis of the album. There are references to the return of the “eastern modes” that characterised their early work, as well as the inspiration that comes with working within the parameters of a three piece, and with producer Andy Gill.

Gill is probably best known as an original member of the angular English rock band Gang of Four, and from all accounts his approach to working with Therapy? was both challenging and rewarding. One incident recounted fondly was Gill informing drummer Neil Cooper a day before tracking for the album began that he would have to record parts of his kit separately. “But”, says Cairns, “the great thing about Andy is that he doesn’t balk at ideas. If you say you want the chorus to sound like a haunted amusement park he’ll work it out”. Furthermore Gill’s mainly analogue recording gear lends some truly beautiful atmospherics to stand out tracks like Exiles and Clowns Galore. Perhaps another one of the most striking elements of CT is the lyrical content, which sees a change from the open wound rage that characterised their early work. Cairns admits this more existential viewpoint is the product of a personal health scare earlier in the year and the influence of legendary Irish writer Samuel Beckett.

Indeed Therapy? are a band who have always littered their work with obscure references to literature, movies and music, and their new album is no exception. The jazz inflected guitar solo on the track Enjoy The Struggle is lifted from Charlie Mingus’ Haitian Fight Song, and when I suggest to Cairns that it reminds me of the line in The Simpson’s where Lisa implores a fellow jazz fan to listen to the notes that aren’t being played he admits that during jazz improv piano classes he was advised that, “If you hit a wrong note, go back and hit it again!”.

Ironically Therapy? are not a band who have ever “hit it again”, retreading old glories in the pursuit of critical or commercial success. They have in fact weathered a plethora of diabolical musical fads like Brit-pop and come out the other side with their identity and dignity intact. Although they admit that along the way they have been given some extremely shoddy and cynical advice. Including one point around the turn of the century when Nu-Metal was in full swing, and they were advised by a record company exec that, “Coal Chamber are the biggest selling metal act at the moment, you should get a girl in the band”. Dubious suggestions aside both McKeegan and Cairns appear to view their long career with a real sense of pride. Indeed when I mention the numerous bands now getting back together to perform classic albums in their entirety both chaps seem interested in the idea. McKeegan admits he would be more than happy to revisit albums like Infernal Love and Troublegum in a live setting, whilst admitting that he has lost respect for bands who hate each others guts but reunite purely for financial reasons. Fortunately this is a problem T? will never have. As the amiable bass maestro puts it, “We’ve never broken up, slagged each other off and said -he’s a cunt, she’s a cunt…”.

Whilst on the topic of past glories I couldn’t help but ask a question which has been bugging me for a while now. Troublegum was, and is, Therapy’s biggest selling release, containing some of their most melodic work. Yet I feel there has been a ridiculous amount of historical revisionism from critics when it comes to the album, with many viewing it a straight up day-glo punk pop offering despite the dark, troubling and narcissistic tone that pervades even its lightest moments. Cairns seems to agree, giving me a great little anecdote,

“(The music mag) Q reviewed So Much For The Ten Year Plan, our greatest hits album, and when they got to Troublegum they described it as Blink 182 without the fart gags. I stopped listening to reviews and press a long time ago , but I could have kicked them in the arse”.

But one can’t help but feel that Therapy? have always been, and will continue to be, a misunderstood prospect. Too punk for the metal kids, too metal for the punk kids, too melodic for the hardcore scenesters and too abrasive for the emo brigade. For most this lack of genre specificity would be a burden but T? seem to relish their ambiguity, looking equally at home on an exclusively metal bill like Damnation Fest or playing one of Europe’s many indie orientated summer festivals.

So there it was, as quickly as I’d arrived tour manager Richard was in the door telling me to wrap up, with only enough time to thanks the guys for their hospitality and have a quick peek at the set list for later that evening. One look at the smorgasboard of treats on offer and I skipped out of the backstage area a happy bunny, knowing that in an hour or two I was in for an aural treat to remember.

The Damnation Festival crowd were a mixed bag at best. All ages, shapes and sizes present and correct; goths, punks, psycho-billies, over the hill grungers, crusties, poseurs, skinheads, riot grrrls, straight edgers, deadheads and all manner of weekend rockers who probably work in IT five days a week before slipping on their old Carcass T-shirts. Thankfully I’d had time to sink a few more beverages and was feeling fresh and uninhibited by the time Therapy? took the stage to massive applause. But within seconds of their opening number I was accosted by a guy who looked to me for all the world like the freakish hitch hiker at the beginning of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Gesticulating wildly in his shirtless, cut off leather waist coat he was demanding that I dance, sing and ‘rock out’. Fearing that his next request would be that I ‘squeal like a pig’, I hastily took myself to the back of the crowd where I could watch the show in peace, make notes and not be complemented on my ‘real pretty mouth’.

What followed was a top drawer career spanning set, with the likes of Rain Hits Concrete and Bad Excuse For Daylight mixing with stone cold gems from their early years such as Skyward and Punishment Kiss. And, although it’s a massive cliché to admit it, Screamager is still one of the most perfect slices of pop rock ever written and never fails to raise a smile and get the feet moving. As they closed with their balls to the wall cover of Joy Division’s Isolation I was struck with a real sense of gratitude that a band like Therapy? are still around, still going strong and writing music that never feels like a capitulation to cooler than thou taste makers or money men.

Ah, it was truly an experience to remember. Therapy? I salute you, here’s to another twenty years!