They celebrate their 20th year as a band in 2012, yet Ash are still full of surprises.

“We just got back from Brazil, and it’s the first time we’ve played there. It’s crazy we can still find new places to go to,” laughs drummer Rick McMurray.

“We bizarrely played on the New Stage.”

It’s enough to make you feel old. Ash – the perma-teens whose uber-melodic, often angst-driven tunes were the soundtrack to many an indie fan’s life during the heady days of Britpop – are now in their mid-30s with children of their own. They’ve never stopped doing what they do though. Admittedly, they’ve come close – before third album Free All Angels was released, the band were just £1,000 away from bankruptcy – but the Northern Irish trio from Downpatrick are convinced that when it comes to continued success, it’s all down to passion.

“From the start, as soon as we got a record deal and management, we always talked about how this was going to be a long-term thing. We didn’t want to make one album and disappear. I don’t know what we did, but it worked out right,” McMurray explains.

“We all kinda fit together well. I think the big thing is to continue to produce quality music – I don’t think there is anything else we could do at this stage. We went straight into this from school, never had a proper job and have absolutely no skills whatsoever.”

Ash hit the headlines in 2007, proclaiming they’d never make an album again. Instead, they would solely focus on single releases. The result was the A-Z Singles series, 26 tracks released fortnightly for a year between 2009 and 2010. Without doubt, it pushed the band to their very creative limits.

“It pretty much took three years, on and off. We spent about 18 months in the studio writing and recording it. We really wanted the tracks we released to be of single quality. I think we wrote double what we needed,” says McMurray.

The singles were collected and released in physical format across two CDs last year.

“It was challenging. We were doing it without a record label – in fact, we started our own one up to do it – which was quite brave in these times.” McMurray continues.

“We thought it was time to shake things up. Having done five albums, it was good for us to find a new way to do stuff, so in those terms, it was a success.

"We didn’t have enough money to promote it though; I think there were a lot of fans who maybe weren’t aware of the idea.”

The initiative was a perfect example of Ash’s unorthodox approach to the music business. Indeed, McMurray is proud that, even after all these years, the band still refuses to toe the line.

“We’ve always followed our own paths rather than follow what’s happening in the industry – we’re not afraid to take a risk.

“That really shows in the A-Z stuff which just goes off on tangents all over the place. That was part of the charm – because it wasn’t an album, we could go in those directions,” he says.

“A lot of people thought we’d gone crazy when we followed up [debut full-length LP] 1977 with [1998 release] Nu-Clear Sounds… it wasn’t a commercial success, but that’s where we were at, and that’s what we wanted to do and we wouldn’t change that for anyone.”

As big fans of Star Wars – the aforementioned debut album was named after the year George Lucas’s original blockbuster was released – it seems churlish not to bring up the band’s own dabbles with video cameras when talking to McMurray.

Their music video to Binary – letter Q on their A-Z – sees the first airing of part one of a lo-fi horror film the group made while touring the US. Its existence has long been debated – with some suggesting it would never be seen due to the participation of a young Mr Paltrow, Coldplay’s Chris Martin.

“The Coldplay boys were totally cool with us putting out the video we did.

"Thing was, it was never properly finished.

"I think there’s enough to put together another music video at some point, but there was never any ending,” he laughs.

“We got so many people in there – Dave Grohl, Moby – there are lots of bits that haven’t been aired. I think Chris gets murdered in the second part, which… er… may or may not please some people.”

*Ash play the Coalition on Dec 1, 8pm, £16.50, call Resident on 01273 606312 or Rounder Records on 01273 325440.