After an eight-year gap, Brighton psycho-rockabilly trio The Long Tall Texans released new 13-track album The Devil Made Us Do It last month.

Vocalist and double bassist Mark Carew explains why it has taken so long to record this new album.

“Life gets in the way really. We have spent 30 years touring almost constantly. It’s hard getting to be in one place long enough to record an album. Since the last album, we have played the US and all over Europe.

“We actually started by busking in the streets of Brighton. We got very well-known because we were there every week down in the old Churchill Square. We met in 1983 and started as a band in 1984. We started off doing rockabilly covers then our guitarist at the time, Mark Denman, started writing his own songs and we went on from there.

“Rockabilly is the obvious main influence. Rockabilly and the energy of punk. Theo, our drummer, and I both loved The Housemartins. I went to see them before they got into the charts. [Original Housemartins bassist] Fatboy Slim uses the same hairdresser as me. I don’t know him but everyone says he’s a really nice bloke.

“We played a psychobilly gig in Belgium in the 1980s in front of 12,000 people. Last year we played on [former cruise liner] the Queen Mary in California with The Offspring, NOFX and Iggy Pop, which was a great gig. We aim to tour as extensively as possible through Europe and as many other countries that will have us. As it’s our 30-year anniversary, there will be more to follow this year.”

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The Long Tall Texans play the Green Door Store, in Trafalgar Street Arches, Brighton, with fellow 1980s psychobilly band Frenzy on Saturday, May 24.

The Devil Made Us Do It was released on Friday, January 17, on CD and as a picture disc limited to 666 copies.

Visit longtalltexans.co.uk