THEY’RE a band that likes to have fun but a band the music world is taking very seriously indeed.

This week The Lottery Winners signed a record deal with major label Warner Brothers which is sure to take the four-piece from Leigh to the next level.

This summer they are to play at the Lytham Festival, one of a series of festival dates.

“Summer likes us but we all hate summer,” said the band’s frontman Thom Rylance.

“We all get dead easily burnt, one of us is ginger and I’ve got dead fair skin. I’m more of a winter guy, I like big coats and scarves. But some nice gigs do happen in the summer and we always seem to get booked for festivals.”

A quick chat with Thom gives you a glimpse into the band - earthy, funny, irreverent and yet insightful - these are characteristics which define the band’s sound as well as their lead singer’s personality.

“We’ve never been fans of bands that take themselves very seriously,” said Thom. “You see a lot of skinny, cool indie lads standing in front of some graffiti in black and white but that’s all they are.

“We feel like there are four big personalities in our band and we like to get that across.”

The band - Thom, Rob Lally, Joe Singleton and Katie Lloyd - have been together eight years having originally met at school.

“I was a pretty naughty kid and could never settle down in lessons,” said Thom. “I always wanted to challenge the teachers so that didn’t go down too well and I ended up getting expelled from high school.

I moved into this new school and I remember this kid who’d been forced to show me around and we kind of sparked a friendship straight away. So that’s how me and Rob met. Katie and Joe were friends at school.”

The band has built up a growing following with their live shows but have still to release their first album.

“We been going eight years now and never done an album so it’s about time we did,” said Thom. “We’ve ten million songs. We kind of feel that an album is a really big deal. We wanted to have the right backing and feel that if we are going to do it we have to do it absolutely properly and make it the best we can.”

WHen the band finally go into the studio one thing they won’t be short of is songs.

“I write a song a day,” said Thom. “I went to a BBC Introducing workshop when I was a kid and I remember Tom Robinson telling us ‘if you want to be a songwriter, you need to write a song a day. Nine out of 10 might be garbage but the tenth could be one you want to keep. That made a lot of sense to me.”

Thom is the band’s main songwriter but all four members have plenty of input.

“I’ll go with a skeleton of a song and then the others will add all the nice bits.” he said.

Unlike many bands who start out as friends but them ultimately implode as success beckons, The Lottery WInners remain a very close unit.

“We have had difficult times obviously,” said Thom, “but when you’re in a band it’s a family. It’s more than your immediate family as you are with them all the time and you are in such confined space of time, you have to love each other or it won’t work.

“I think the most important thing, rather than how good you can play, if you are going to choose a band member it’s can you tolerate that person?”

The Lottery Winners play Stage Too at the Lytham Festival on Wednesday, August 3. For tickets and details of the full festival line-up visit lythamfestival.com