The LaFontaines are back with a new album and a sold out Barrowland show – and they’re still doing things their own way.

The Scottish group’s blend of rap, rock, funk, pop and whatever else they can find is a unique mixture, and one that’s baffled some record companies over the years.

They’ve wanted the band to polish their sound, but the lads have always stuck to their guns.

“We’ve had quite good deals offered to us, but I ned to understand that whoever is working with my band actually understands us,” says the group’s singer, Kerr Okan.

“We once got an email that was headed Project Braveheart, as if they’d be getting us in kilts or something, and I couldn’t even read it. We just happen to be a band from Scotland, we’ve not got tattoos of the flag or anything like that. So someone needs to understand what we are all about.”

The band all hail from Hamilton and Wishaw, and they’ve just released Common Problem, their second release after 2014 effort Class. While the band are infamous for daft misadventures, the new record shows a sharper, smarter side.

Fuelled by massive sounding tracks like Release The Hounds, opening statement of intent Explosion and the swaggering Armour, it’s an album that takes aim at the world today, from Brexit to Donald Trump.

“With everything going on, like Trump, Brexit and refugees, I feel like you should be speaking about that,” says Kerr.

“I don’t want to be preaching, but if you’re not speaking about those things then you have your eyes shut. Nowadays even the Kardashian generation are aware of what’s going on in the world – that’s how massive it is.”

However the singer had to get back into the right mood for music first. After touring Class Kerr found himself burned out.

“After we did Class I didn’t write anything for a year and a half,” he says.

“We were on tour quite a bit, so time was an issue, and then I actually fell out of love with making music. I was scunnered with creating things, and then what happened was that Joe (Cross) from the Courteeners got in touch and asked if we’d be interested in doing a song with him producing.

“I sat down and wrote Release The Hounds, and it went well. Once I started writing again I was spoiled for choice.”

However despite Common Problem’s serious themes the band are still typically daft. This is, after all, a band who nearly ended up in jail while shooting a video in Morocco years ago, and who infamously annoyed James Bond star Daniel Craig by singing the Skyfall theme to him when they saw him in a restaurant.

Their latest trip, to Venice for a video, was the predictable chaos.

“John (Gerard, bassist) never made it to Venice so we had this big blow up doll instead that we carried around, and we just felt like idiots,” says the frontman with a smile.

“Everyone else in Venice looked they were couples, and then there’s us, like on a terrible lads weekend. That’s the way it’s always been – us doing our own thing.”

Yet the lads are a serious proposition in the live stage. They rocked TRNSMT earlier this year, and the Barrowland should be no different. And Kerr is already thinking ahead…

“The goal posts move all the time,” says Kerr.

“If you’d told me a couple of years ago that we’d have sold out the Barras two months in advance I’d have been buzzing, and I am, but now I’m thinking how can we top that next year? It should always be a progression, about the next thing.

“We’ve toured the majority of places but nowhere touches Barrowland. It’s my favourite venue in the world and when you get a Glasgow crowd in there it’s hands down the best gig you can get.”

The LaFontaines, Barrowland, Saturday, sold out, 7pm