It sounds like every band’s dream – giving a label a five-song bedroom demo, only to be signed pretty much on the spot.

But that is what happened to New Yorkers The Virgins, who found themselves on major label Atlantic Records on the strength of frontman Donald Cumming’s home recording.

“I was making recordings in my room with [guitarist] Wade [Oates] and [bassist] Nick [Zarin-Ackerman], making little demos and getting our songs together,” says Cumming from Lyon, in France, where the band is about to play a show on their mammoth European tour.

“At some point we made a five-song demo that we gave to our friends. We got a record contract really quickly that just came from an email we had sent out with the demo.”

All three musicians had been in bands before forming The Virgins, but they had never been at what Cumming describes as “the level of being a professional band”.

“It was a dream of mine to play music and be in bands,” he says. “I had started bands and broken up bands, but this one felt like we should be putting in more effort.”

The breaks kept coming as the band found themselves sharing a bill with Sonic Youth and Patti Smith in Paris for their third ever gig, for a high-profile show organised by French fashion designer Agnes B.

“She heard of us through some friends,” says Cumming. “And she invited us to play with these very serious and respected bands that are huge for us in our own lives.

“And we were stupid enough to say yes. It was insane. It was definitely a terrible show, but it was an important moment for us as a band. We had never been thrust forward quite so sharply before.

“I’m not into roller-coasters. I don’t jump out of planes. I’ve never been in the armed forces. But I did go on stage in front of 3,000 people, having only played two shows previously, in direct support to Patti Smith.”

Their original self-titled EP showed them to be a fairly typical New York garage rock band, albeit one with a great ear for a song.

But the new album, released later this month, feels more like a love letter to the 1980s, with Nile Rogers-style drum machines and bass sounds, and synths that drag you back to the New Romantic era.

“We wanted to do something a little bit more ambitious, especially since we were re-using some of the material from the EP,” says Cumming. “I was born in 1981 so the late 1980s and early 1990s were the foundation of my experience on Earth and of popular culture. I feel really comfortable stealing ideas from that time and place, because I feel like they belong to me.

“I thought it would be fun to make a record that was an honest essence of the influences and inspirations that went into it.”

Support from Chew Lips.

  • 7pm to 10pm, tickets £7.50, call Rounder Records on 01273 325440 or Resident on 01273 606312