When Youth Group played in Adelaide a couple of months ago, they played on the same night that both End of Fashion and Eskimo Joe were also playing here. As a result of most venues in Adelaide being booked out, the band found themselves playing their smallest venue for a long time. The band also experienced some trouble with the PA, so lead man Toby Martin is pretty happy that they've has been booked into a larger venue for the next tour in August.

"It was a pretty tough one," confesses Martin of that show. "Playing a smaller place like that, I didn't think we were going to play shows like that again. The other shows on the tour were great, but this was like starting all over again. A little depressing. It was alright, it was a pretty enjoyable evening, but it just wasn't the best gig."

The band has had their share of high points though, chief among them a place at this year's Coachella Festival in California, and supporting Death Cab For Cutie on their North American tour last year.

"The Death Cab For Cutie tour was definitely the high point of my time in Youth Group so far, I think," says Martin. "I'd always wanted to tour overseas, and that was a great tour to do. We were really lucky to be able to go to America and play such big venues, with such a good band."

And what about that song? After playing Shadowlands in an episode, the band was asked by the producers of 'The OC' to record a cover of Forever Young.

"They do that quite a lot, apparently," Martin explains. "They commission bands to do covers of songs for particular episodes. A bit of a curatorial approach to music, I guess. So at the time we were recording it, that was all we thought it would be for. We did it as a little project, and then the ball started rolling and it turned into a single."

I ask if the band finds the massive success of a single which they didn't write themselves to be a mixed blessing.

"No," replies Martin immediately, as if he's fielded the question a hundred times since the beginning of the year. "Not at all. That's very odd. I don't know why people ask me this. I mean, since Forever Young, we have gotten a whole new audience that we haven't had before. That audience isn't there just for Forever Young. They've been going out and buying our last album 'Skeleton Jar' and our other music. If any people are into us just for Forever Young, well they won't be fans of us forever. We'll move on and they'll move on to their own thing. We did have reservations about releasing a cover, but I'm really glad that we have done that."

Youth Group's second album 'Skeleton Jar' took a year to record over every odd weekend around band member's jobs.

"It was a long labour of love," Martin recalls. On the other hand the new album 'Casino Twilight Dogs' was recorded over two months. It's something the nine-year-old band can afford to do now, since Youth Group has finally turned into a full-time job.

And that's not all that has changed. According to Martin, stalwart producer Wayne Connolly (You Am I, The Vines) helped steer the band to a different approach this time around.

"I'll tell you what we were planning to do," begins Martin. "Our aim was to make a 'live' record. 'Skeleton Jar' is very dense and layered in terms of the recording process. There was a long period of overdubbing and instrumentation and stuff. We kinda wanted to do something different for this record, and just try to record it all in one go. It didn't end up being completely live, but it is a lot more stripped back than 'Skeleton Jar'. So I see the record as being a bit harder-edged, a bit looser, and bit more spaced."

Despite the changes, Martin acknowledges that most listeners won't notice in the end. "The process is more for us," explains Martin. "It's interesting working with Wayne. We as a band are very interested in our experience of recording, and what our experience of recording could be. Maybe the end result isn't that different, but it made it a different experience for us."

Regardless, it's an impressive album. Some inspiration has been drawn from life on the road (The Destruction Of Laurel Canyon), while TJ is about the tragic death of TJ Hickey in Redfern.

"In my mind," declares Martin, "'Skeleton Jar' is more of a mood album, whereas 'Casino Twilight Dogs' is more a collection of individual songs."

Eddie Chan

Youthgroup play the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Wed 5 July with Coldplay. 'Casino Twilight Dogs' is out 8 July through Liberation