ASKING a band how they should be described is a question that can be greeted with anything from disdain to downright panic.

‘Genres are for journalists’, I’ve been told more than once.

When I try my luck with Everything Everything bassist Jeremy Pritchard, the response is slightly different.

Basically, anything but ‘Indie’. Or at least, what Pritchard feels Indie has become.

Once synonymous with bands like the Libertines and Strokes, he feels the genre has become a label, ‘a way to sell jeans’.

“Grown out of the success of these bands, suddenly being Indie became a dress sense, a way of being cool,” he said.

“I’m not a snobby musician but it became so the songs and music didn’t matter, which was really sad - it didn’t mean anything.”

Don’t even get him started on X-Factor.

“People go on who are desperate to be famous, they have no interest in creativity, song writing or music - they just want to be on TV.”

Pritchard believes Everything Everything are a ‘reaction’ to mainstream dilution, fresher than the clique, if you will.

Sometimes described as math rock and compared with contemporaries like Alt-J, Pritchard begs to differ.

Still a pop band, he says, but one that is determined to break from the stereotype.

Armed with synthesisers, falsetto vocals, and influenced by dance music and RNB, standing out never looked in doubt.

“Having three vocals was an easy way to look different straight away,” said the 28-year-old.

“Everything has to be remarkable in some way and we want to appear original using words and alliteration.

“Really, we don’t know where we fit in and I think that makes us more successful.”

Everything Everything formed in 2007 when Pritchard met lead singer Jonathan Higgs (‘a genius’, he says) when they both studied music at Salford University.

Higgs was in the process of ‘forming a dream team’, and the foundations of Everything Everything fell into place.

School friends from his hometown of Northumberland - drummer Michael Spearman (‘very cerebral’) and guitarist Alex Niven (‘a gifted musician’) - were drafted in by Higgs.

Living together in a shared house in leafy Didsbury, Manchester, a basement flat was used to thrash out their first offerings, with early influences including the Futureheads.

“I remember thinking everyone was the best on that particular instrument I had ever seen,” said Pritchard.

“And, neighbours will tell you, we all played a lot.”

First single ‘Suffragette Suffragette’ followed in 2008, before Niven (who can do a Rubix cube in 10 seconds after working out the algorhythm, according to Pritchard) left.

He was replaced by Guernsey-born guitarist Alex Robertshaw.

Debut album ‘Man Alive’ was released nearly two years later, charting at number 17 to the sound of critics’ applause.

Pritchard calls it ‘insane’, a record in which the Mercury Prize nominees worked out their identity.

Love, life, loss and death are covered. And, er, climate change.

“Everything in our lives that lead up to that point was in that album.

“It was right in such a confusing way.”

Circa January this year, second album Arc, and a change in approach. ‘Simplified’ as Pritchard puts it.

“We just wanted it to be easier for people to understand - it’s just as emotional, but put forward more simply.”

Tracks ‘Cough Cough’, ‘Kemosabe’, ‘Duet’ and ‘Don't Try’ were released as singles, with no further releases expected from Arc.

The band havestarted on a nationwide tour with gigs in Manchester and Liverpool on the way. Three new songs could feature.

But after six years together, what’s it like for Pritchard and the others, touring and spending so much time in each other’s company?

“We’re a dysfunctional group of people in their mid to late twenties.

“So basically, we drink a lot.”