Fields started out as a one-man show - a primary school teacher, in a shed, dropping pebbles.

While that sounds about as inversely thrilling as Donny Tourette gobbing on anyone within spitting distance, things started to look up for Neil Peill after the shed sessions.

The singer got his PGCE and just as he was about to be thrust into the world of full-time primary school teaching, he handed his songs to a friend in music management.

Before he could say, "Don't worry, I'll mop up that wet patch", his plans to "get a proper job" were on indefinite hold. He hooked up with the rest of Fields - who according to the biog include a celebrity hairdresser and a woman whose dad wrote the Icelandic national anthem - moved to London, signed a record deal and released their debut, Everything Last Winter.

"There's stuff on there which I never thought would ever be played live," says Peill. "I never thought it would be heard outside the room I recorded it in but some of those songs made the album. They've definitely grown - having a proper rhythm section and a band helps."

To make the album, the five-piece decamped to a damp cellar in Dublin with Michael Beinhorn (Soundgarden and Marilyn Manson) on production duties.

While it seems like an unusual choice for a band which sound like Nineties shoegazers The Belltower and are often compared to Seventies folkies Pentangle, Peill disagrees.

"It wasn't his (Beinhorn's) pedigree which won him the job, it's more we clicked as people," he explains. "He understood that we wanted something heavier sounding."

Their time in the studio with Beinhorn proved interesting. As well as having a run-in with the spirit world - they meddled with a cut-out-and-keep magic circle they found in the National Enquirer - there were Beinhorn's quirks.

"He was a bit mad and very eccentric," laughs Peill. "He was really quite militant about what you could and couldn't eat - no fat, no dairy, no spicy food or alcohol. We were all going mental. I got caught making tea with real milk. We ended up smuggling supplies into the studio so we didn't get caught."

And as for the band's interesting biog...

"Matty (bassist) was a hairdresser," Peill insists. "He did some work for Top of the Pops and styled Kylie's hair. He also used to do a lot of bands - Bloc Party and Kaiser Cheifs.

And what about Thorunn, whose dad wrote the Icelandic national anthem, despite the fact that the man who actually penned it Matthias Jochumsson died in 1920?

"Well he didn't write the actual anthem," he says stalling for thought, "but it's like the people's anthem, a bit like Three Lions."

  • Doors 8pm, tickets £8.50. Call 01273 709709.