The front cover of Pink Martini's third album Hey Eugene! pretty much sums up the band's look and sound.

On it a woman looking slightly the worse for wear is steadying herself and her cigarette against a sink in the corner of a Fifties-looking bathroom while wearing a glamorous cocktail dress and beehive.

"That was the grandmother of my best friend,"

says pianist and band leader Thomas Lauderdale.

"It was that Audrey Hepburn behind-the-scenes look we wanted. It is utter fabulousness."

He describes the 12-piece band's third LP as more "skippy" and upbeat than the band's previous albums.

"A lot of that has to with the fact Hey Eugene! is much more pop than the other songs we typically do," says Thomas.

The band's debut album Sympathique was largely made up of covers of Forties and Fifties standards, including Que Sera Sera and Brazil. It was the follow-up, Hang On Little Tomato - released almost seven years later - which saw them further expand their talents into songwriting.

"There is a certain kind of pressure if you're a pop band to really write your own material," says Thomas. "It's not my first instinct. I'm mostly a classical pianist. I'm happy playing Chopin and Gershwin, but there is a certain expectation from the general public if you are a pop band.

"It is a huge challenge to write in the style of the songs that we are trying to do."

The era that Pink Martini looks towards is the glory days of the Forties and Fifties.

"There is lots of loveliness and beauty in that era," says Thomas. "The significant thing about the old songs, a lot of which were sung during the Second World War, is they are universal and optimistic and beautiful."

Thomas is now planning two new albums for next year, including a possible collaboration with an orchestra following on from Pink Martini's work with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

"We are really speeding things up now,"

jokes Thomas. "I'm working on my building at the moment. It's going to need a lot of construction work so we need to make more albums to pay for it!"

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