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Your Vegas, the English rock band from Otley quickly made themselves known throughout The States while on tour with The Bravery over the course of the past few months. With a sound big enough for any arena, song style charismatic as your favorite pop-rock band and more captivating songs than you can shake a stick at, its no wonder why Your Vegas immediately hit the ground running as their first full-length album, A Town and Two Cities made its stunning debut last month.

While the band has been busy on their tour, we were lucky enough to get a few answers from Coyle Girelli (vocals, guitar) about the new album and some lingering thoughts:

Your band name sounds inspiring and open-minded, what made you choose the name ‘Your Vegas’ and what’s the meaning behind it?

Your Vegas was a song that I had before we formed. Its a song about escape, about finding your place in the world where you belong. It’s about hope. When we were looking for a name we kept hitting brick walls. Then someone suggested Your Vegas – it seemed to fit and sum up a recurrent theme in many of the songs – escape, struggling to find a place in the world and eternal hope.

Your first singles came out in 2005 (“Your Vegas”) and 2006 (“Flybuzz”) respectively, what was the biggest factor in getting your first full-length album out the door?

I guess my trip, turned move to NY. We released those indie singles but needed the backing to release of first full-length out of the door. We had 70 odd songs and were confident we had a great record in there and we needed it out! We had a deal with Sony in the UK fall through and were at a crossroads. I went over to the US to test the water and see what people were thinking of our music. Pretty quickly we were all in NY doing showcases and soon after were signed to Universal Republic. So I guess that decision to come over for bit was the biggest factor.

You can hit every note in the spectrum, where did you get your pipes?

Thank you very much. I have both Italian and Irish heritage – two nations blessed with a long line of great singers so I guess it’s in the genes. My grandma has always walked around singing Opera. Singing has always been around me. It sort of came natural I guess.

A Town and Two Cities is a crisply produced album, what musical influences pushed the direction of the album one way or another?

We went into the studio with a very fixed vision of what we wanted our album to sound like. We had worked on it for a while. Musical influences from the early 80′s from bands such as Echo and The Bunnymen, Big Country, Simple Minds and U2 to the ever-present influence of Springsteen and The Beatles shaped our vision. Our producer David Bendeth (Paramore, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Breaking Benjamin, The Almost, Vertical Horizon) added his thoughts to (our vision) and helped give us a heavy bottom end.

The messages in each of your songs seem to be that of a positive and good-willed nature, what inspired you to write your songs this way?

Writing music for me has always been a sort of exorcism. Its a release of what’s going on inside! A lot of the time, I guess, I’m writing to myself. Messages of hope. Songs that lift and make you feel better. I guess the theme of good will and love comes from this. I want our music to have a positive effect on people. To make people think about things and feel good about themselves. I want to make music that matters to people the way it does to me.

The name of your album, A Town and Two Cities must be talking about Leeds/Otley (your hometown) and New York City, where your careers began to bloom. Which of these places had the greatest effect on this album?

Hmmm? Good question. I guess its Otley. It’s where we grew up. It’s the place we fought hard to escape from and I guess it’s the place that stays in our hearts no matter how far from home we are. I have this love/hate relationship with Otley. It trapped me, yet it’s the place that I guess set me free. It’s a source of great contradiction for me.

Your Vegas draws a crowd on their tour with The Bravery

“The Way The War Was Won” has a strong message connected with world peace, is there something specific to you that made you write these lyrics?

Yeah, seeing an unjust and needless war unfold before my eyes – a war that my country is involved in, against my and majority of the populations wishes – a war which has cost so many innocent lives and caused so much pain and destruction – I feel ashamed and so sad at the state of the world right now. Humanity seems to never learn lessons. Its the same crap over and over again – greed = lies = war = destruction. It breaks my heart and is a theme in a few songs and many of our new songs, post A Town And Two Cities.

You have quite a tour happening right now, playing with The Bravery, then with Duran Duran in the coming month, and then finally playing at both Lollapalooza in Chicago and lastly the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee, what has your best tour experience through The States been thus far?

Yeah it’s amazing. We’ve just finished with The Bravery. They’re an awesome set of guys and a great band. We’re gonna miss playing with them, but I’m sure it wont be the last time we do. The whole tour with them was an incredible experience and we got to see so much of America and play to so many amazing crowds. We feel very blessed and can’t wait to keep touring and touring and touring for a long time!

Mp3: Your Vegas – In My Head (buy)

Listen to Your Vegas on iTunes, check them out on their MySpace Page, YouTube, purevolume or check back on their Official Homepage for more details about the band.