Jack Steadman, Jamie MacColl, Suren de Saram and Ed Nash of Bombay Bicycle Club

BOMBAY Bicycle Club lead guitarist Jamie MacColl has a unique take on life in a high profile band, admitting it can sometimes be boring and that they don’t like their name.

Ahead of their gig at former cinema and bingo hall, The Troxy in Commercial Road, Limehouse, on Sunday, MacColl told Review: “We were only 14 when we got our first gig at school, and didn’t even have a name. We used to walk past a Bombay Bicycle Club restaurant every day, so just went with that. We hadn’t even been in there.

“When you’re that age, you don’t really think about it much, or that you’re going to make it big and the name will be scrutinised. I’m sure we could have come up with something more exciting.”

Barely two years later, in 2006, and the four-piece from Crouch End had won a Channel 4 Road To V competition, which handed them a live spot at the V Festival in Chelmsford and Stafford, and soon a major deal with iconic label Island Records beckoned.

Frontman Jack Steadman, bass and keyboard player Ed Nash and drummer Suren de Scaram, all 20, complete the line-up and Jamie, now 21, who also performs backing vocals, continues: “The reality is that being in a band signed to a major label at our age can be quite boring.

“All our friends are off at university, while we’re all living at home with our parents still. There’s definitely a sense between us all that we’ve missed out on something by not going to uni.”

I put it to Jamie that many people who go to university would instead love to be in a band, and signed to a major label, and the irony is not lost on him. He certainly doesn’t come across as ungrateful, just honest, and refreshingly so.

“Going on tour or performing gigs is a great release, “ he adds. “And every time you do something that’s a step up from the last, then that’s definitely exciting.

“We went to Brazil recently and that was crazy, actually playing music out there.”

Last year saw the release of the band’s debut album, I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose, which charted just outside the Top 40, but since then their acoustic album, Flaws, reached number eight in the album charts.

The gig at the 2,600-capacity Troxy venue on Sunday is almost sold out, while two special acoustic sets at 900-capacity Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank on Saturday, a matinee and evening session, are already sell outs.

Jamie, holed up in a cottage in Norfolk working on the follow-up to the band’s debut “electric” album when I spoke to him, concluded: “Tickets have gone well for these end of year gigs, but with it so hard to make money by selling records these days, because of all the download sites, it looks like we’ll have do a lot of touring to be really successful.

“I’m not sure how secure a career this is, so we’ll just have to see where it all goes.”

Refreshing, honest and laid-back...don’t be surprised if this lot do go far!

For ticket availability for The Troxy gig go to www.troxy.co.uk. For more information on the band go to www.bombaybicycleclubmusic.com.