Taking their name from what frontman Robbie McSkimming describes as a “fairly boring story”, Dancing On Tables became the band you see before you after seeing a bunch of people doing said action on the night of one of their first shows. “It’s us and we live with it!” Robbie laughs when he recalls the name choice.

Now with hoards of people dancing at their shows – although maybe not on tables – the quintet have cemented themselves as one of the most exciting new bands around. Made up of Robbie, Callum Thomas, Hamish Finlayson, Gregor Stobie and Michael Waterworth, the group’s delightful indie-rock stylings partnered with their emotive songwriting is a beautiful mix that is certain to see the band’s following develop even further in 2018.

Dropping latest track “Body” last week, the song is yet another example of what the band can achieve; an upbeat banger with an unapologetic attitude, the song kicks with a rock chorus and glistening pop melodies. And if that doesn’t sell, there’s also a cowbell! What more could you want?

Below we catch up with Robbie to get the low down on all this and more.

Hey Robbie, how are you?

Yeah not too bad, I’m trapped in the house for the third day in a row because of the snow, but apart from that it’s okay! It’s absolutely brutal. It’s like the apocalypse. Everyone’s running and trying to get bread and milk and everything’s ran out! I think they’ve gone a bit over the top… There’s a red weather warning, which is the first one ever, but we’ll see what happens.

Well moving on to nicer things, your new song “Body” came out on Friday. Happy to get it out?

Yeah it’s really good! The stressful part is over now, now it’s out you can sort of breathe and enjoy it being there and hope other people enjoy it. It’s the month of work before it that kind of stresses you out!

Can you tell us about the inspiration behind it?

“Body” is about frustration, with us all being in our early 20s and especially in music, sometimes you feel like you’re in this middle ground and a weird stage in your life, you don’t really know which way you’re going to go or what you’re going to do. So that was kind of the inspiration behind it. And musically, with the chorus it’s a lot more rock-y than what we’ve previously done. It kind of gets all our frustration out. We listened to a lot of people like The White Stripes and The Black Keys, not especially rock bands but more heavy guitar bands, and we tried to take that and channel it into the sound that we want to associate ourselves with but take it more to the rock side of it.

And what’s this leading up to? You’ve got quite a few songs out now so are you looking towards an EP?

Yeah, I think in the last 20 weeks or so we’ve done three songs! So I think the plan now is to do an EP, I’m not sure what the date is but we’ll definitely be releasing it before summer. That’ll have another track or two on it. We’ve been putting these tracks out to build a bit of momentum, you know, there’s so many good emerging artists that are doing so well at the moment so trying to be heard against the noise is the main thing.

Completely. And what do you think makes Dancing On Tables stand out against the rest?

It’s hard trying to find that uniqueness. I think because we have two vocalists, it gives us that edge and helps us stand out a little bit. It gives us so much more scope for songwriting and how we can utilise the two of us and allows us to do things that maybe some other bands might not be able to do. We’re just trying to keep doing what we’re doing, and we’re quite happy with the sound we’re putting out at the moment. We spent quite a while getting the sound that we wanted to be associated with and we finally found it. I think just trying to push that is important and hopefully gives us momentum!

You’ve recently been hailed as the new Coldplay! How does that feel?

A bit surreal! It kind of came out of nowhere. I don’t know, it adds a little bit of pressure. People hear that and then they automatically listen to our music and compare it to Coldplay, not even if they intend to. If people know that that comparison is there then they’re going to subliminally be comparing us slightly. But being compared to a band as successful, it can only be good. We’re still quite young boys so it shows that we’re on the right track. What I like about Coldplay as well is throughout all their different albums, they try out different genres but it’s still a Coldplay sound, which is what we’ve been trying to do with our own music, trying to keep ourselves as open as we can be with our influences and not shut anything off and be willing to try different things. I think Coldplay are quite good at that. So it’s a very nice comparison to have.

Albeit, fairly pressuring?

Yeah. It is quite stressful, but it’s good. It shows that we must be doing something right! It feels more like a pat on the back than a pressure.

And you’re off on tour soon, right?

Well it was meant to start on Thursday, but the snow had other ideas! So we’re rearranging the Glasgow date. Then we’ve got a date in Dundee and Aberdeen and Inverness!

And what else have you got planned for the year?

Well we all kind of focus on short-term – taking it one release at a time at the moment and seeing where that takes us. We’ve got quite a few festivals planned and we’re going to do a UK tour. We’re actually heading out to America – to Nashville – in May to do some writing sessions and to play a few shows. So that’s the next focus for us, to get ready for these shows. I don’t really know! We’re happy with what we’re doing so will see where this year goes!