After nearly a decade of The Amazons, Matt Thomson knows experience can make you a better songwriter — but it can also cost you the spark that got you there. He talks 21st Century Fiction: Epilogue, changing the band’s line-up, resisting musical trends and why they won’t be making a Fontaines D.C.-sounding record anytime soon..

It’s nearly a decade on from your debut. How has your relationship with songwriting changed?

I think we’re better songwriters as a whole. There’s more of a craft to the songwriting now. I think the trick is, as you get older, to not let the spark and that kind of urgency leave you.

You’ve built a career in a world where everyone’s competing for attention. How do you stop yourselves making music for trends?

You’ve basically got to make the art that sustains. Otherwise, you’ll just check out. Most of my heroes are from the 20th century, so we’re not going to be making a Fontaines D.C.-sounding record anytime soon.

Has there ever been a song everyone else in the band believed in before you did?

We had a song on this new album called Pitch Black that I thought was cool, but whatever. Chris went to town on it and took it in a direction that got me really excited about it again.