Django Django have admitted they are relieved to have some new songs to play from their second album because they had ended up playing their hits on autopilot.

The band were nominated for a Mercury Music Prize in 2012 for their self-titled debut, but said that trotting out the same tunes at live shows had started to get old.

Now they are due to release their follow-up album, Born Under Saturn, and bassist Jimmy Dixon said: “By the time we finished touring the first album, I think we were so used to playing the songs, we were doing so without thinking about it.

“We were getting a bit sloppy. We weren’t short-changing anyone, but it didn’t feel like we were tight enough, and we were on autopilot.”

Django Django
Django Django (Yui Mok/PA)

Jimmy added that fans would see a slight difference in the second album – the use of a piano.

He explained: “We bought it, and lugged it up a few flights of stairs, so we were damn well going to use it. But Tommy (Grace, keyboard player) was using it to work out things he was writing, so much we had to physically drag him off it.

“That’s why there are so many more piano-driven songs on the album, but at one point we were worried we’d made a piano album, like Richard Clayderman or something.”

Django Django release their second album on May 4. They begin a UK tour on May 5. Visit www.djangodjango.co.uk