I met Johnny Dangerously in the late-1980s when I moved into a house he was vacating in Crumpsall, north Manchester. We spent a night attempting to recreate the hoot of the tram - a kind of ghostly whistle - with beer bottles. He was always experimenting with sound.

By 1999 he'd reverted to his birth name John Bramwell and teamed up with Andy Hargreaves and Pete Jobson to form I Am Kloot. I moved down to London and we lost touch. It feels funny picking up the phone after 17 years.

For quite a while I Am Kloot managed to fly under the radar but then they got found out. Their fifth album Sky at Night, released in 2010, was nominated for a Mercury Prize. 

"Not deliberately under the radar," says Johnny. "The Mercury brought in an audience who may or may not remain with us. There's a certain amount of that audience where what's talked about that year, that's what they go and see, but it doesn't mean they're necessarily going to come and see every gig.
"We made our least eclectic LP there. Sky At Night had one mood, one feel and that made the whole thing easier for people to get a handle on." 

They're now touring with their first live album, Hold Back the Night: I Am Kloot Live. So how's it been revisiting the back catalogue?

"You get a bit of deja vu revisiting old stuff. We’re going to do five songs from each album and going back to being a three-piece band it’s got to be songs that really work in that stripped down way, which most of them should because they won't get through rehearsal if they don't.

"We’ve never done anything where we’ve invited the audience to participate before but now we're taking requests from people. There are certain songs that we’ve never played live such as An Ordinary Girl. The three of us absolutely love it but, we’ve never gigged it before.

The band are back playing Glastonbury again this year and in between Kloot gigs, Johnny also plays solo at small town venues. I’m hoping to lure him to The Horns in Watford. Johnny is up for it. "If there’s somewhere they want me to play I'll get in my car with my dog, my guitar and a box of cds and off I'll go," he says.

Now living outside Crewe as Manchester "got a bit messy", Johnny spends his days walking his dog Henry and recording bits of songs while on foot.  
"Anything I come up with I either record it as a voice memo or just make sure I get down any ideas. I’m constantly singing and making up songs that I send to Andy and Pete straight away and say have a listen to this and see what you think.

"The next thing I want to do is an album where what I would call we 'Pink Floyd' it. Because of technology we can go in and record stuff with laptops and with microphones and really do some serious improvisation. The thing is with the technology as it now is we can play around and it doesn't cost you owt, so why not? But listen I can be saying this and Andy and Pete will go 'we hate doing that and we're not going to do it'. I don’t know if were going to be able to agree on anything, that's the only problem."

So which is his favourite track from the live album?
"Hold Back The Night - it's a great title for an album because that's what a gig is really - we’re holding off the night for a bit here."

I Am Kloot play the Electric Ballroom on 7 May.  
www.iamkloot.com

Melanie Dakin