Howling Bells Say the Killers' Mark Stoermer 'Became Like a Band Member'

Howling Bells have revealed how the Killers' bassist Mark Stoermer became like "a member of the band" when he produced their forthcoming new album.

Talking exclusively to Spinner, the band's frontwoman Juanita Stein says that their sessions recording in Las Vegas were some of the best they'd ever done.

"It was just brilliant, it just totally felt like we had another guy in the band," she says.

"Because he understood our music and he's in one of the biggest bands in the world and had a really interesting perspective, of that nice balance of will the fans listen to it and what's going make people pay attention."

The as-yet-untitled album -- the follow-up to the London-based Australian indie rockers' 2009 second LP 'Radio Wars' -- is due out in September.

In her first ever interview about the record, Stein also revealed that they'd been hugely inspired by recording in the desert -- as well as by Stoermer's taste in films.

"There's something very innately atmospheric about the band and something about other worlds and atmospheres and I think that being in the desert and the landscape is so foreign to us, it was very inspiring," she says.

"You hear that in the record. It's a bit more wide open spaces, a bit more psychedelic. Physically and emotionally, it felt like there was a lot more room to breathe. Everyone was jamming and kind of pushing it a little bit further than we normally would as we literally felt we had the space.

"Mark and us have exactly the same music tastes and we were inspired by the same films and books, and when you put a whole bunch of people like that into the same room, you come out with something special.

"He's a massive film buff and he would bring his collection of cult classics, we went through like an entire Hitchcock collection and late-night 3AM Vegas films about cults, just really, really far-out stuff. And all of that is super atmospheric as well and it tends to inform the sound."

Watch the Video for Howling Bells' 'Low Happening'
The band's gig on May 9, meanwhile, was their first in the UK in nearly two years after time spent catching up with family back in Australia and working on the new record.

Stein said she was feeling positive about their new material, too, after mixed reviews for their second disc, and felt it had more in common with the band's 2006 self-titled debut album.

"It feels like a continuation of the first album. The second one feels like a slight detour we made, but it was really important that we explored that.

"But when we went in there this time, we didn't want anything electronic. There were a lot of keyboard and machines and robots on the last album," she says.

"But this time, we just did it really old-school, and decided that we wouldn't record anything that we couldn't perform live, which was a challenge for us on the last album, 'cos we went to town on all these sounds, and we couldn't do it."

As for the name of the new album, Stein muses that it will definitely reflect their experiences on the road touring, especially when they supported Coldplay across the U.S. in 2009.

"It will definitely have something to do with the fact that most of the songs were written on the road about being on the road and all the journeys, and the experiences we've enjoyed whilst touring.

"We've been to some wild places. The last Coldplay tour we did was kind of like the backwaters of America, from New Jersey to Alabama, and all these different moods, they infect you. Most of it is about that, being on the road."

Howling Bells will be able to add to those experiences this September when they plan to tour around the new record.