Pop resurrection brings converts to Chvrches Iain Cook, Lauren Mayberry and Martin Doherty of Scottish band Chvrches in Sydney. IT'S something of a happy accident that Glasgow trio Chvrches (with a v but pronounced Churches) has become one of the international success stories of 2013. For years producers Martin Doherty and Iain Cook and singer Lauren Mayberry had been around the traps separately in Scottish bands without troubling the masses. Then, in September 2011, the two men asked Mayberry to sing on some demos they had been collaborating on, which turned into eight months of the three of them writing songs together for the first time. The fruit of those labours is The Bones of What You Believe, 12 tracks of infectious electro-pop with their roots in the 1980s, but given a 21st-century makeover. The album, released two weeks ago, has enjoyed universal acclaim, suggesting that the early attention Chvrches attracted after they released the song Lies for free download early last year wasn't just hype. "The reaction is not something anyone can really expect," says Cook, sitting in a Sydney cafe, just a few hours into the band's first visit to Australia on a whirlwind promo trip. It continues to be something that takes us by surprise. We're taken aback by how people know songs that aren't even out. The three Scots are surprised also by the level of attention they've been getting in Australia, something that seems likely to escalate when they return as one of the headline acts on the touring St Jerome's Laneway Festival next January and February, in a line-up that includes Cloud Control, Lorde, Jagwar Ma and Haim. Back home, the British press is giving The Bones of What You Believe album-of-the-year nominations, accolades given weight by the success of the singles from it: Lies, Gun, The Mother We Share and Recover. It's a big return for what was initially a few speculative rehearsals and recording sessions at Cook's tiny studio on the south side of Glasgow. "That kind of informed the way the band sounded," says Doherty. "We had to keep it tight, so we were using drum machines because there was nowhere to set up a drum kit or for a full band to set up . . . although," he adds, "having a full band was never really in our minds." What was on their agenda was using those drum machines and synthesisers to fashion electronic pop songs in the vein of artists such as Robyn and Purity Ring, but with a nod also to 80s electronic popsters Depeche Mode and the Human League. Cook, 38, and Doherty, 30, had known each other since they were at university. Cook was in Glasgow band Aerogramme for several years and made four albums with it. He also produced Doherty's band the Twilight Sad. Mayberry, 26, played drums in a handful of bands from the age of 15, then expanded to percussion, keyboards and singing in the outfits Boyfriend/Girlfriend and latterly Blue Sky Archives. It was while Cook was producing that band's EP that he suggested to Doherty that they should ask Mayberry to help out with their new project. "She liked what we were doing," says Cook. That's when the three of us starting writing together and decided to treat it as a proper band. Up until that point we had been treating it just as a writing project. Mayberry knew immediately she was on to something with her new colleagues. "You never know how it's going to go," she says. It can take a while to get to know people, but we were really pleased with what we were coming out with. That stood us in good stead. When we put a demo (Lies) on the internet people straight away got excited about it. If we hadn't had any other songs that could have been intimidating. Rather than being intimidated, Chvrches blotted out the spotlight by staying in their windowless studio and working. "The writing process was also the recording process for us," says Mayberry. It wasn't like we spent months writing the record and then more time in a fancy studio recording it. That felt like a really personal way to make an album, but also it probably made the most sense to us after there was a bit of hype and buzz about the band. It helped us to keep our heads down and to keep working in a way we know how to, being slightly removed from the UK industry. Those days are over, however, and Chvrches' profile continues to grow. Much of the attention so far has been focused on Mayberry, not surprisingly since she's the lead singer, although Doherty sings on the songs Under the Tide and the album's closer, You Caught the Light. There's an added charm in Mayberry's voice -- even in the darker songs such as Tether -- due to her unmistakable Scottish twang, although at no point did she decide that she had to sing in a Scottish accent. "I'm not technically trained in music the way the guys are," she says. It just seemed natural for me to sing that way and it makes it a bit more honest as well. This is the first band where I've done vocals as the main instrument. It has been a learning curve being a singer and not having an instrument to hide behind, but it's also been good to concentrate on it more as an instrument. From the beginning of their short career the group has been keen to stress Chvrches is the three of them working together as a unit rather than a singer backed up by two blokes with synths and computers. To that end they've been working on their live show, which they promise will have an extra visual component by the time they get to Australia in February. They got to see the potential for exuberant stagecraft when they did four shows with Depeche Mode in Europe recently. "We played to so many more people in those four shows than we have in the rest of our career," says Cook. In Warsaw there were 50,000 people in the stadium, so they had to try to project. "It's important to us that the live show is a live show," says Mayberry. We don't want people to turn up and just see someone pushing the space bar on a laptop. The Bones of What You Believe is out through Liberation Music. St Jerome's Laneway Festival begins in Brisbane on January 31 and travels to Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Fremantle.