TODAY is a day that many people, including brothers Jim and William Reid of The Jesus and Mary Chain, thought might never happen.

For the band is set to release their long-awaited new album, Damage and Joy - their first since Munki was released backed in the summer of 1998.

The band split up shortly after and didn’t reform until 2007.

Despite regular touring it took some time before the brothers could agree on a plan to record a much-mooted seventh album. “We started to – can you believe? – listen to each other a bit more,” explains Jim, the band’s frontman. “In the last couple of years, we’ve buried the hatchet to some degree, and thankfully not into each other.

“Most people who know us would say that we haven’t mellowed that much. I think it was to do with the fact, dare I say it, that wisdom comes with age. Let’s live and let live, and let’s take each other’s opinions into account.”

Now they are back on the road and will be playing at the O2 in Bournemouth on April 1.

“We will be playing songs that people recognise as well as some of the new stuff and playing them to the best of our ability,” says Jim. “We’ve all got expanded waistlines and more wrinkles but we still sound pretty good I think.”

When I ask if the band has played at Bournemouth before, his answer is surprisingly candid. “I might have played Bournemouth before, but I spent much of the 80s and 90s in a drunken pickle so I won’t remember!

“We were a bit out of it a lot of the time, but it was all down to the fact that we were quite uncomfortable in the spotlight - especially me.

“I had to get tanked up to give me a bit of Dutch courage first which has kind of stayed with me and I ended up with drink and drug problems which still plague me to this day.”

Jim adds: “I’m quite timid but people confuse that with being a dour Scotsman. I can’t think of anything to say on stage that wouldn’t come across as insincere - I wouldn’t want to come across like Hughie Green! If something pops into mind I might say something, but generally I just sing the songs.”

Jim admits his brother William is more relaxed on stage but adds: “He plays guitar - it’s more difficult standing out in the spotlight when you’re a painfully shy human being. He didn’t have to do that.” One of their songs, Facing Up To The Facts, offers the revealing lyric: “I hate my brother and he hates me / That’s the way it’s supposed to be”.

But Jim says their relationship is better than it has been for some time.

“It’s never been easy and it can all change tomorrow, but it’s OK at the moment and that is good enough for us.”

The new album commences with Amputation, which addresses Jim’s feelings of “being edited out of the whole music business.”

“Although we had always planned to do a new album I resisted because I had terribly unpleasant memories of doing the last one. Munki broke the band in half and I was terrified of getting back in the studio and it was going to be the same old, same old.

“So I guess I kept putting it off and people kept asking in interviews when this new album is coming out and soon six or seven years had passed and I thought this is ridiculous. “We either have to make a new album or we tell people we were only kidding and that there isn’t going to be a new album so I got together with William and I said, ‘come on we can do this’ and that was it.”

The other element that’s changed over time is their fan base.

“Our audience is pretty mixed. There is a cross section of ages now. There is our new audience and old audience. There are kids who probably weren’t even born when the band broke up. I hope that continues.”

Jim has been based in Devon for the past ten years and says “life is pretty good.”

“I’m married and separated, I have two children and I’m in a relationship. I live on the coast, I go for walks and try and stay out of pubs. I do struggle but I’m not going to drink when we’re on tour - I’ve done it before so I can do it again.” But despite his personal demons, Jim isn’t worried about being back in the spotlight.

“It’s different now because we kind of set the pace these days, whereas back in the 80s we had record companies kicking us up the arse.”

The new album features performances from the band’s touring drummer Brian Young as well as former Lush bassist Phil King. “The interesting thing about this record is what comes out of the speakers,” declares Jim. “To make a good record is an achievement if you’re 22, but to do it in your 50s, the way we are, I think is a minor miracle.”

The Jesus and Mary Chain play the O2 Academy in Boscombe on April 1.