After nearly a five year hiatus, Bombay Bicycle Club are back on the road. Laura Hanton chatted to drummer Suren de Saram about what lies ahead.

The four members of Bombay Bicycle Club were just teenagers when they began performing together more than a decade ago. Growing up in north London, Suren was in the same class as lead vocalist Jack Steadman and guitarist Jamie MacColl.

"We did our first gig in a school assembly," Suren, 30, recalls. "From what I remember, it went terribly, but we carried on anyway." And lucky they did: bass guitarist Ed Nash was a mutual friend of the boys' and joined the band soon after they formed. The foursome have since gone on to release four studio albums and several chart-topping singles, perform at some of the most famous music festivals and tour the world, playing in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.

Yet while touring So Long, See You Tomorrow in 2014, the band began to feel like they needed a break from the spotlight.

"We'd been performing together since we were 15, so it was all we'd ever known," Suren explains. "Things were beginning to lose their excitement. We just felt like we needed to experience life outside of the band."

And so commenced more than four years of solo projects, with Jack and Ed creating the musical acts Mr Jukes and Toothless respectively, and Jamie going away to university. Suren worked as a musician with a number of big names, and spent several months touring with singer Jessie Ware. He says the time spent apart 'benefitted us as individuals and as a collective.'

"It's made us realise what a special thing we have," Suren reflects. Now, the boys are back with their fifth album, Everything Else Has Gone Wrong, which is released tomorrow.

"It goes back to our roots," Suren says of the new record. "So Long, See You Tomorrow had been very experimental, very electronic. Guitars had definitely taken a backseat. With Everything Else Has Gone Wrong, guitars are back at the forefront."

The idea to reform and create new music came about last year, when Bombay Bicycle Club were celebrating 10 years since the release of their debut album. The band performed a five-date tour to mark the anniversary, including a date at Brixton Academy in London.

"That performance was absolutely unreal," Suren says. "Even after we'd finished our set, the crowd just would not stop cheering. It made us realise how much our music means to people, and any doubts we had about getting back together went away."

Although Jack remains the band's primary songwriter, Suren says their new album feels more collaborative, with all members having contributed to the lyrics. Described as "an album for anyone who's ever turned to music in a time of crisis," Suren adds: "Music can be an amazing escape. It can provide a real comfort during difficult times."

The band currently has no plans for a sixth album, aiming to take their future as it comes.

"We're taking it slowly, and only really thinking short term right now," Suren says. "We're really excited about the tour and about performing new music to crowds across the country. We've been to Bournemouth a few times and our gigs there have been great, so we're looking forward to appearing there again."

And as for that unique band name? "It's always a massive let down when we explain how that came about," Suren says. "Bombay Bicycle Club used to be a chain of restaurants, and there was one near our school. We were desperately trying to think of a name before that assembly performance, so we just went with that. We've regretted it ever since!"

*Bombay Bicycle Club will perform at the O2 Academy in Bournemouth on Tuesday, January 21, from 7pm. Tickets are £29.50, available from Ticketmaster.