“Ow you doin’? Orright?” asks Rob Harvey, frontman for The Music. The heavy Leeds accent piping down the line to Melbourne is like a little paper diagram of the commanding version that leads his band. I am orright. I have accepted that he is running half an hour behind time for the interview and am sprung making myself a cup of tea when the phone rings. It’s laaaaaate in the evening for me and needless to say the brains trust is starting to deplete.

A dodgy phone line, an annoyingly interruptive phone operator and a surprisingly reserved interviewee do not make for a good chat usually. While I had prepared a heap of serious of musically creative questions, expecting a forthright and semi-arrogant respondent, I am taken with the fragility and uncertainty in Rob’s voice. I want to wrap him up in cotton wool and make him a cup of tea instead of drilling him.

After sky-rocketing success when they were barely eighteen, The Music were thrown into the rock and roll School Of Hard Knocks and barely graduated. Coming clean about his addictions and depression over recent years, Rob submitted to professional support shortly after the release of The Music’s second album, Welcome To The North . This was a period that severely threatened the band’s inner relationships, and of course, their future.

In a nutshell, they were falling apart. “That’s pretty much what ‘appened,” agrees Rob. “We just lost any kind of inspiration. All point and reason had been lost through relentless touring and the breakdown of our relationships really.”

Communication ended up being the key to unlocking the future for a band who had straddled worldwide success and were now peering over the precipice. “We ’ad to sit down and be honest with ourselves, and be honest with each other.” I get the general impression from articles and video interviews that everyone in the band knew what was wrong but no one wanted to say it. I admire the fact that they all continually talk about “we” and “us” when discussing that shaky period.

Therefore, the title track of the new album, Strength In Numbers is a brilliant affirmation and opening song. They clearly all pulled together in the end but I imagine it was up to Rob to admit a few things to himself. “I were like, ‘Fuck it I’ve had enough’. It were killing me mentally. My ’ead were fucked. I just didn’t want it anymore. My attitude needed to change.”

With that, of course, a change in the music was imminent. “It’s more focused,” Rob says. “We tried to embrace technology a bit more. [Previously] it was pretty much based on guitars, you know what I mean?” After a moment’s thought he laughs, “Now, I think it sounds like now instead of say, 1972.”

How’s the writing dynamic then? Everybody friends again? “I been writing with Adam,” he reports. “Adam’s been doing the bulk of the music and I’ve been doing, like, the bulk of the melody and lyrics. From there, we’ve taken it to Stu and Phil and worked at it from a live point of view.” It’s definitely working. I read a quote to Rob where another writer has, on one hand, praised the band for being one of the premier live groups and on the other hand, used the word ‘comeback’.

Were you that precarious before, that this should really considered a comeback? I lost him at ‘a quote’: “You know what music writers are like?” he scathes. “They say anything they like so long it makes sense in their view.”

Yes Rob, I reply blithely, I do know what music writers are like. Fucking vipers. The penny drops and he cracks up. “I never said that, I never said that!” That’s fine, I tell him, when I am host of the biggest music interview show on the planet, he’ll be buying a shitload of chocolate for me, to buy his little band’s way onto my show. He laughs with me and I finally feel like I can ask directly about his state of mind.

I confide that years ago I went through a similar situation to him and was amazed at how out of touch with reality I was. A scene I related to was one where a friend of Rob’s simply said to him, “Robert, you are depressed.” You just don’t see, I empathise. You’re like, What have I been doing? It’s like a light comes on.

“Yeah that’s really scary!” he laughs. “As well, it’s about finding out what depression is. I were like, What is it? Depression is a taboo subject. People need to learn about it. To be told about it. People are made to feel bad for feeling down. Where I’m from you say you’re depressed and everyone goes, ‘Oh shut the fuck up, get on with it,’ you know what I mean? It should be about people coming together and ’elping each other as opposed to ‘get on with it.’ That attitude is getting in the way, y’know?”

Our discussion turns to men: about how blokes I know have committed suicide, leaving me and my girlfriends pitying them for not feeling able to talk about things as openly as women do. “It’s happening a lot around here too, you know? One guy jumped in front of a train and another hung himself. All because of drugs.”

We are lucky that Rob turned the corner in time. The resultant album is an optimistic, inspired effort from the band who nearly wasn’t. “It’s fresh. It feels like there’s a reason and a point to it again. As though it means something to people again. Primarily and essentially, it’s because it means something to us. It’s all about inspiring people and trying to make people feel good.” And hopefully, himself as well.

Strength In Numbers is out Saturday 14 June through Universal Music. The Music play the sold-out Splendour In The Grass in Byron Bay on Saturday 2 August.