THE South are back, not only are they touring but they have a newalbum too. Formerly The Beautiful South, the 9-piece band featuring Dave Hemingway and Alison Wheeler, will be singing many of their hits including A Little Time, Don’t Marry Her, Rotterdam and Perfect 10 when they play Cardiff’s Globe next month.

The Beautiful South were formed back in 1988 following the disbandment of The Housemartins, which featured Dave on drums alongside founder member Paul Heaton.

Dave had joined The Housemartins a year previously when he replaced Hugh Whitaker on drums.

“The Housemartins was the first eye opener for me,”remembers Dave, “I’d gone fromplaying in local bands in Hull to not many people tomyfirst Housemartins gig in Belgium to 90,000 people.

From that point on, I realised I’d stepped up to the top level.”

But Dave’s time with The Housemartins wasn’t to last long, “I think Paul initially wasn’t sure what he was going to do,” says Dave “he’d started writing some more songs as he’d always been prolific and he decided to put another band together.

He approached me to see if I wanted to be in the new band, I thought he meant as a drummer but he meant as a singer. He wanted The Beautiful South to be markedly different from The Housemartins in terms of personnel, getting away from the bass, drums, guitar thing.

It was a brave step to do something markedly different, but a good one to take because we didn’t want to tarnish the songs of the Housemartins. That’s why we eventually got the girl singers involved - to make it a bit different from the previous band.”

The Beautiful South’s first single Song For Whoever reached number 2 in theUK singles chart in 1989 featuring Dave on vocals, “I had to learn from scratch really, I wasn’t used to been up front. It took me quite a while to adapt to it and to any level of confidence. It’s not just the singing, its how to behave, how to conduct yourself.”

In 1990, the band scored a number one with A Little Time. “At the time getting a number one seemed to matter more than it does at the moment,” says Dave, “The charts as a whole seemed to be more important to bands. The Top 40 was like dreamland. Getting to the top, even if it was just for one week, is something they can never take away from you.”

The Beautiful South endured for the next 16 years until Paul Heaton’s departure in 2007, “I didn’t have any plans I wasn’t thinking too much about the future,” says Dave, “We’d had a good run and I’d enjoyed it.”Eighteen months after the Beautiful South disbanded Dave was approached by drummer Dave Stead to reform the band, which they did as The South.

Now featuring Dave and long-time Beautiful South vocalist Alison Wheeler, the band are about to embark on a UK Autumn/Winter tour mixing in their rich back catalogue of hits with the very best ofmaterial from their latest album Sweet Refrains.

“I’m proud we’ve got an album out there,” says Dave, “We’ve had to start from scratch to write the songs ourselves. We’re not after world domination or anything. What we’d really like to do is get some more music out there and showwe still produce songs. We’ll mix old songs in with the new stuff and hopefully everyone comes along and has a good night.”

Catch The South at Cardiff Globe on October 11. Visit globecardiffmusic.com for more details.