Yard Act interview: Leeds band on second album Where’s My Utopia and upcoming city-wide takeover

“Album two is famously meant to be quite a difficult one, isn’t it?” says the 43-year-old of Where’s My Utopia?, which is out tomorrow, two years after their first record, The Overload, stormed to number two in the national charts.

“But the first one had done really well and I found that to be a bit more reassuring. (When) we made it we didn’t know if it would ever find an audience because not every record does.”

Perhaps just as significant though, he feels, is the fact that this is the first album they had made as a four-piece, since guitarist Sam Shipstone and drummer Jay Russell joined him and vocalist James Smith.

“On album one it was kind of me and James, it was written in lockdown and it was not how you’d ever choose to make an album with a band, so this one feels like the first one for all of us,” he says.

“Because we were so busy (touring) the first one, we kind of know each other inside out creatively and it was just flowing, we worked fast and it was good.”

There is no “magic” formula for success, though, he appreciates – not even for pop acts.

“I think that’s what also makes this whole thing completely addictive and makes you want to keep doing it because you want to crack the code, but maybe you never will,” he reflects.

The running theme of Smith’s lyrics in Where’s My Utopia? is about the struggle of being in a successful band. Needham acknowledges that it is “tricky territory, you can come across as ungrateful, moaning b***ers, but it’s not that”.