Madchester godfathers James are celebrating their quarter-century by reforming to record a new album. First, however, there’s a new ‘Best of’, with singer Tim Booth’s acting career (launched in Batman Begins) put temporarily on hold.

It’s over 5 years since James split, so why reform now?
The whole idea originally was that we’d write an album and that’d be the first thing you’d hear, without this big James comeback hullabaloo. But then we heard that Mercury were releasing a singles compilation and a promoter got wind of it and put this tour together – literally without consulting us!

Any pre-tour butterflies?We’ve been rehearsing for the last few weeks and it’s sounding fantastic, so I’m not nervous about that. It’ll be interesting with the festivals in the summer when we’re third on the bill to Kasabian and Killers, but for our own gigs we can change lots of things around, playing songs a James fan wouldn’t expect at all.

The shows sold out in 2 hours, so there must be a few fans just waiting for this reunion?
Yes, 5000 people – it’s like the Pixies I think, you almost get bigger when you’re away. I think James has been very much taken for granted, so it’s great that the music’s done a lot of work for us in the years we’ve not been around.

Does the reunion mean the solo career is on hold?
I’ve two collaborative albums that are going fine, but I’ve had to put the acting down for a good 8 months – that and screenwriting, but you can’t be in two places at once. It’s not a wrench though, as I’m having such a great time doing the James stuff 

And the reasons for the band’s initial split, all put aside?
So far, it’s working really well. In the last few years of James, the way we were working… was very dysfunctional. 
So this is going to be alive and raw and creative – that’s the rule and if people can’t keep up with that they won’t be in James – and if WE can’t we won’t have a James, so we’re being quite ruthless on this.

Stuart McHugh