Glasvegas’ (relatively) new drummer Jonna Löfgren is holed up in a Glasgow hotel doing a round of press interviews for the band and is certainly looking forward to her trip to Australia this month for the band’s first ever Australian tour. She’s not been down under before, but says “I’m really looking forward to going, ‘cause I’ve been wanting to go! I’ve got some friends that have been there and have loved it, so you know, I’m really looking forward to going.”

Löfgren has only been in the band for just over eight months – replacing previous drummer Caroline McKay, who walked out during the recording of their second album last year. To pinpoint the date she joined, she says “I guess it hasn’t been that long; it was the 22nd of November.” She explains how she’s gone from being a relatively unknown music student in Sweden to playing with one of the UK’s biggest bands. Still perhaps disbelieving of it herself, she pauses to reflect, saying “I got recommended from a guy that I met, and from the first phone call till I was living in Glasgow, it was like less than a month, you know. It all went so quickly. It was kind of hard to understand what was going on. I didn’t know what I was doing, I was just you know, going with the flow kind of thing.”

Most importantly for intra-band communication though, has she come to understand Scottish accents? Löfgren chuckles. “Well it’s really good now, ‘cause I remember like the first time I met them, I couldn’t understand a word. I was just nodding and smiling sometimes. I was a bit nervous too you know. But now people tell me that I sound Scottish. It’s so weird ‘cause I don’t really notice the way I talk. There was three days in a row, like four different people said “How come you’ve got a Scottish accent?” Home for her is a hotel these days, as she hasn’t had time to find a place between touring, so in effect she’s homeless. “I live in a hotel in Glasgow. I don’t really have a real home, you know? ‘Cause when we’re on tour and stuff we will sleep on the bus and in hotels and when… I don’t have an apartment in Sweden either. When I go to Sweden I visit my Dad and Mum and my family and yeah.” Although she points out it has its benefits. “The good thing about staying in a hotel is that you can get breakfast in bed. I guess maybe I’m getting kind of spoilt, you know. When I actually get an apartment, it’s going to look like shit.”

Although she didn’t play on the album, Löfgren explains that she has no problem replicating the band’s wall of sound live. “We try to make it as big as possible, ‘cause I think that’s the Glasvegas sound, you know, like really big. We don’t try to cut back on the songs from the new album ‘cause Rab and Paul have keyboards that they play with their feet. So both of them are playing both guitar and bass and then on top of that both of them have keyboards. So they can do it pretty much just with them two, and I just play the drums, so that’s good. Me and James can just chill, we just have to… he just sings and I just play the drums.”

Having just played Glastonbury and a whole bunch of European festivals, she’s just a bit disappointed the band won’t get to spend longer in Australia. “I think that we’ve got quite short time. I wish that we had more time to see the culture and the nature and all that kind of stuff, ‘cause I was just talking to another guy, and he comes from Australia too, and he said that we should see the kangaroos, and I really want to do that, so yeah. He said that he can try to arrange it for me, and he doesn’t arrange it for me, maybe you can!” Music goes out the window as Löfgren gets in to the serious part of being in a band touring Australia for the first time – she wants to know more about how she can see kangaroos and koalas, saying “I’m getting all excited now when we talk about it!”

In Addition to Splendour In The Grass, Glasvegas are also playing sideshows in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney.

PERTH ROSEMOUNT HOTEL FRIDAY JULY 22

SYDNEY METRO THEATRE SUNDAY JULY 24

MELBOURNE THE HI-FI BAR MONDAY JULY 25