'People talk about us being an 'overnight success' but to me it's been like the longest night there ever was. The reason we're here is because we've put the time in over the years (firstly in the boy band MyTown, then as writers/producers). We've called it our apprenticeship. We've worked behind the scenes so much on that production and remixing level, but if anyone wants to think it's an overnight success thing, that's up to them. Getting all the recognition is one thing, but it's all smoke and mirrors until we actually sell some records.

'As producers in the US, we would get sent songs from Jive Records to fix up artists' vocals or whatever. We did a remix of a Justin Timberlake track and did some work with Britney Spears too. Justin is one of the most normal guys in the industry, and knowing that taught me one thing – in this industry you don't put yourself on a pedestal. There are plenty of people around who will do that for you instead.

'our friends weren't envious at that time, mainly because they've seen the struggle we've gone through. Publicly, it's easy to give the past few years a glossy overview, but what people don't hear about is the time you did a remix purely to get enough money to keep the lights on in your apartment, or not being able to pay rent. We did a lot of chasing dangled carrots, but we somehow got by. This industry is all about missed opportunities – one time, we thought Britney Spears was going to record one of our songs for her Overprotected album but it never happened. There have been so many near-misses over the years.

'People have been talking about the fact that we look like a boy band, or whether we have credibility, and to be honest, the fact that people are talking about us is a positive in itself. No one cares about whether we look like a boy band or not anymore because whoever comes to the shows loves us. I thought our demographic would be purely 17-year-old girls but I'm seeing 50-year-olds coming along to the gigs too.

'I used to get mad when I heard people say we were a cross between U2 and Timbaland. I hated that any Irish band would get compared to U2 but then I figured that in between U2 and Timbaland is a whole spectrum of stuff, so that could mean we sound like anything.

'I grew up around St James's Street and built a small studio in the garden – it was like our little goldmine away from everything. My mother was terminally ill at the time so I'd walk out from St James's hospital to the studio, thinking of songs I could be writing on the way. It was a time that definitely tugged on the heartstrings, and it shows in the album. But I would run through a wall for this album now so we're going at it with all guns firing. We know that this album will now go out in 42 countries, and that's more important to us than making it big in America. That would be nice too but I could care less about it.

'When we got a mention on Perez Hilton's [Hollywood gossip] blog my wife was more excited about it than I was, until I found out that he gets something like 36 million hits every week. I contacted him personally thanking him for the heads-up and he thought it was brilliant I was getting in touch because no band has ever contacted him before to thank him for anything. But that's the charming Irish rearing for you, I guess!"