At home between tours, The Faint’s frontman Jacob Thiele is “tying up a few loose ends” that have been put off due to relentless touring of late. It seems Thiele has his work cut out for him, and his unmotivated delivery seems to give away this fact, even sounding less than enthused when complimented on his band’s new album Fasciination. But then again, he is in The Faint, a band known for their generally detached demeanour.

Despite this, Thiele is quite forthcoming with his answers, especially when questioned on the issue of the wait between their previous album Wet From Birth and their new record. “The main reason is that we were building a studio in our hometown of Omaha. We knew it would take longer to release Fasciination, but now that we have our own studio, we can hopefully release albums more quickly.” The fact that there was no space to build the studio until a year after the release of Wet From Birth added to the two-year construction period. It left the band frustrated, but as Thiele admits, it bore a couple of positives. “In retrospect, it gave us time to think about what songs we wanted on the album, plus it gave us an opportunity to experiment with new sounds. And once the studio was built we had all these resources readily available to us. We can even sleep there overnight if we have to.”

The album’s sound seems like a new progression for the band – both well-polished but still retaining the five-piece’s raw edge. Thiele agrees fully with this opinion. He adds that they were basically looking to strip it down – keep it simple, concise and non-embellished. However, they still utilised their newly-acquired studio to finish off the whole sound. With the band’s musical roots planted in the punk rock and hardcore movements (with the later influences branching out into the use of synthesisers, especially within the art-punk scene), The Faint are leaders in the modern revival of the dance-punk sound.

Thiele is reluctant to admit this, perhaps out of modesty, but lapses back into reality to admit their impact may indeed be significant. “I don’t think about it that way, but there are a lot of bands who tell us we’ve influenced them so much, especially this band Late Of The Pier. They’ve told us that we really mean something to them. We kinda don’t realise the impact we have, I suppose.”

Now that the band has become somewhat godfathers of the new dance-punk, what does the near future hold for the group? Will they stop making music together any time soon? “You don’t think about retiring until you get older. For now, we’re still happy making music together. It’s really a social medium for us, travelling and socialising and trying to blow people’s minds. Also, now that we have a studio we’re looking to produce other bands – it’s kind of a business model for the future.”

So with the future of the band seemingly secure for the time being, this Australian tour should be just as great as the last – if not better. “We’re still figuring out what we’ll do production-wise, but be sure there’ll be a very strong visual element throughout our shows. Lots of flashing lights and video. But no matter what, we’re really looking forward to coming back to Australia. We love it there.” And it’s no secret the feeling is mutual.

The Faint’s Fasciinatiion is out now on Pod through Inertia, and the band land on our shores this week for three much-anticipated East Coast shows.

Wed 24 Sep – The Zoo, Brisbane
Thu 25 Sep – The Metro, Sydney
Fri 26 Sep – Prince of Wales, Melbourne