Portishead plan '4th'

The band will be recording another album but bow out of touring

08 July 2008 - Contrary to reports that April's ten years in the making album Third would be their last release, Portishead have revealed they will record another album together.

Guitarist Adrian Utley has also exclusively told 6 Music why the band are not going to be playing in the future.

"We are thinking a new album," he said. "That’s partly why we’re not touring enormously, because in 1998 we toured for a year and a bit and it just crashed us. None of us wanted to see each other for a while after that."

New album progress

However, another extensive gap between releases is not on the cards, as Utley revealed work on their next record has already begun.

"We got together the other night discussing stuff and getting a bit of a plan together," he explained.

He then told 6 Music that while they have got songs written already, they probably won't make the final cut: "I mean we have got stuff, but we'll start again - that's what we want to do."

"We’re gonna do various things and play stuff. But we’ve got plans for doing a new record now."
Adrian Utley

No more touring

The Bristol trio’s last tour was a fairly short jaunt but Utley explained that they have family now, as well as different projects on the go which they want to work on: "We’re all gonna be doing stuff. We’ve finished our touring for this album for this year because of things that we want to do."

Utley was speaking to us at Glastonbury but as to why they did not play the festival, he explained: "We slightly discussed it and then we had a date that we were going to stop playing and that was before this so that’s that really. It’s unfortunate really as it would have been good fun but we’re not."

For now, family is a priority for the band members, as Utley went on to explain: "To be at home with our children, very young children. I mean really, just babies - it is an important time and I don’t want to miss that."

Utley finally told us about one 6 Music related project - their future appearance on our very own Stuart Maconie’s show, saying: "Jeff and I are gonna be coming on the Freak Zone, and we’re gonna do various things and play stuff. But we’ve got plans for doing a new record now."
 
No date set in stone for the Freak Zone yet but details will be posted on their homepage .

Georgie Rogers