Nothing But Thieves seem to have suddenly popped up from nowhere, but chances are you’ll be hearing more of them soon as they have signed to RCA Victor, the record label of David Bowie and Pharrell Williams.

The Southend band, all in their early 20s, have just got back from playing T in the Park in Scotland and are chatting to me ahead of their gig at Chinnerys on July 25.

“Yes, it does all seem to have escalated a lot more recently,” said guitarist Joe Langridge-Brown, when I spoke to him on Monday. “T in the Park was brilliant!”

So where has this Southend five-piece been hiding exactly over the three years they’ve been together?

“We have been gigging all around,” said Joe, “but we’ve been mainly putting a lot of effort into learning to write good songs. We spent the first year in Dom’s garage (Dom is the other guitarist), just writing and recording demos. But we got a bit stagnant, just because we were in the same place.

“So we planned a trip to America, to Nashville and LA, where we went and worked with various producers and songwriters.

“We have a management team who are US-based, who had taken us on because they wanted to work with a UK band and they wanted to help develop us. It was luck really. They got to hear of us through a mutual friend. But they helped by putting us in touch with people in the States.”

The band say it is the best decision they have ever made, and they left feeling massively inspired.

“The songs came really fast after that,” said Joe, “and we got together the tracks for the EP quite quickly. An album is out later in the year.”

Their sound is fundamentally rock, but with beautiful melodies, flavours of Queens of the Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails wafting through, two of the bands who Joe say they are partly influenced by.

Although Conor is the lead vocalist, Joe writes the lyrics. He says he likes them to be fairly ambiguous, “not too specific”, so people can interpret their own meanings.

He says: “I know what they mean, but I like to hear other people’s take on it, even if that’s not what they are actually about.”

The tracks on the EP – Graveyard Whistling, Itch, Emergency and Last Orders – have been online for a little while, plus videos on YouTube. It was the track Emergency that Radio 1’s Zane Lowe insisted be played on his show on the strength of one listen.

Further radio play has followed and Fearne Cotton is also a fan.

The band has played all over the country, and will be heading off on another tour around the UK, just after the EP’s release date of Monday, July 21.

They’ll be stopping locally on Friday, July 25, for a special free launch gig at Chinnery’s, in Marine Parade, Southend.

Joe says: “It was really beneficial to us when we were able to give up our jobs to do this full time. That happened when we got signed really.

“We’d had a couple of other offers before we accepted the one with RCA Victor. They just really seem to get us. That’s what we stick with really, working with people who really get our vision, such as the director of our videos, Lewis Cater, a brilliant director, who we want to stick with.”