Music: The Stranglers

This December marks 45 years since The Stranglers played their first gig at The Star Inn in Guildford. Despite the contemporary trend for older bands to relive past glories, you can't imagine the men in black ever basing an entire tour around, say, 1977's No More Heroes.

The irony, the stench of sell-out would be too much for Jean-Jacques 'JJ' Burnel and co.

“We're not a nostalgia act,” says Burnel from his home in France, where he spends much of his time when The Stranglers aren't touring.

It's just a few days after the 66th birthday of the bassist, currently enjoying a “very, very, very late breakfast” with Baz Warne, guitarist and co-vocalist of the band since 2000.

The most consistently successful band from the punk era, The Stranglers have always been outsiders; men who'll do things on their own terms or not at all.

They were far too talented, too ambitious and experimental to be punk; too aggressive and defiant for new wave. In their early days at least, they were unreconstructed yobs to some, arch observers of masculinity in the late 20th century to others.

“We were dangerous,” says Burnel. “People were afraid of us. I don’t think they are any more, you can see them all smiling and stuff. But we’re still not plastic, and we'll never be some cabaret act doing karaoke.”

Seventeen albums down the line, the only thing that's predictable is touring the UK in March, something they began in the early 2010s, when original drummer Jet Black was healthy enough to tour.

Though he retired from the road in 2015, the 81-year-old continues to be “a presence” in the band and acted as mentor to Jim McAuley, drummer for The Stranglers since.

“He has his opinions and we respect them,” says Burnel. “Unfortunately he is quite diminished now but we joke about how he's outlived everyone; Bowie, Lemmy.”

Warne and Burnel's late breakfast is a result of them playing into the wee hours. The pair have been working on new material and will road-test a few live before heading into the studio to record a new record – their first since 2012's Giants. One is called Water, Burnel says, and addresses the thwarted ambitions of the Arab Spring.

“It's got a very strange time signature,” he says. “The other is about space debris. There's tons and tons of sh*t flying around the planet. One little flick of paint, at 25,000 miles an hour put a slight hole in the International Space Station.”

He adds with a laugh: “It's an obscure subject, granted, but it's a very Stranglers-type thing.”

Not that you shouldn't expect to hear the hits either this week or on their October dates with fellow wild rock elders Alice Cooper and Wayne Kramer of trailblazers the MC5.

“It's not fair on the audience to play completely new stuff,” he says. “But we've got enough stuff to choose from and there's always stuff you discover again.”

He continues: “We didn't play Peaches for about six, seven years, others for longer. Sometimes you're like: 'What was I on when I came up with that?' I find my fingers work a bit differently to how they did then.”

The self-described “old bastards” have been writing new songs for a few years, Burnel says. They just haven't yet had the time to record them.

“That's OK though,” he says. “When we first started, we just wanted to play to an audience, you know, two men and a dog, whatever. This is what we live for, we live to play.”