You've been booked because of what you are - it'd be odd to rock up and go "Yeah, it's a punk festival so we've brought a guitar." It would be bizarre.

-In terms of your production work, do you get a similar buzz between the work you do for other artists, compared to stuff with you and Pip?
Well, I do get a similar buzz, but generally with the remixes I only get that buzz if it's me DJing it. If I'm in a club and I drop something that I've done, even if it is a remix, and people dance to it, then I'll get that buzz.

It is different with remixes, because so much of the work is already done - you're just re-imagining. To be honest, you can be quite lazy with remixes - you can take just three words from a song, and then build something knew - which is actually more work, but it is lazy.

You're using somebody else's words to express something new. I do definitely get similar buzzes, but it just depends on the context.

-How's your solo record going at the moment?
Slow. About a month ago, I finished it and then me and my partner sat down and had a listen to it. We just felt like there was something missing.

So, I'm now just re-working some tracks. I should have it finished by mid-December. That's the plan, so I can just sit on my arse over Christmas.

-How's it been working on your own, compared to your albums with Pip?
Well, the problem with working on your own is that you're on your own. There's no-one standing there saying "That's done, that's finished."

That's been the biggest problem - there's tracks that, by now, me and Pip would've come to a point where we were happy. Maybe we would've made some compromises, but we'd have got to a point where the consensus was that it was finished.

There's one song that I've been working on, on and off, for about six months. It's the drums! I can never decide if the drums are good enough, but because there's no-one there to go "Oh, those drums are amazing, Dan", then I don't stop. That's why I've given myself a deadline, so it's finished - no matter what!

-I spoke to Pip a couple of months back, and we were discussing the London riots, specifically the PIAS fire and the affect it had. How did it effect you?
Just on a purely selfish level, it pushed my album back by four months, because of all the repressing and all the stuff that our label and PIAS had to deal with.

On a more human level, it was just so sad. There's so much of that stock that's never going to get repressed - so much of that stock that's gone.

OK, the stuff that's getting repressed, that's maybe because it didn't sell enough copies to warrant it - but it's still somebody's art. Somebody has poured anything from 6 months to 6 years into those pieces of work. For them to be gone, is a truly sad thing.

-From that, a lot of labels and artists - particularly Xtra Mile - came together to support each other. Was it nice to see that unity?
Yeah, it was brilliant. There were quite a few people trying to organise fundraisers. It was nice to see people in the industry that you hadn't really pegged as people who gave a s*** actually speaking up - simple things like compilations. So, it has definitely been nice to see the music community get together.

-It seems to be a strange time for independent music. You've had something like that happen, then people like Scroobius and Frank Turner breaking into the Top 20.
Yeah, it's definitely great to see it. It's a strange thing, because I think...not to get into too big a subject, music buyers have a weird perception of what is evil in the music industry. The word "major label" kinda connotates...you've sold out, you'd do anything for money.

The difference between some of the major labels, and some of the bigger indies, is very little. They've made as much money, you know…XL have Adele! She's one of the biggest female singers in the world, but because they have managed to keep their moral feet grounded, they're still worthy of the name "indie".

It's good to see that people are supporting the people that are doing it morally correctly. Frank Turner, particularly, is someone who does it do it morally correctly - he does do his up-most to put on a good show, to not overcharge his punters.

He's got that big show next April at Wembley. It's pretty amazing to see how someone who's not on a major label can be putting on a bill in a 12,000 capacity arena.

-Looking ahead, is there any word on when you'll be starting to work on the next dan le sac vs. Scroobius Pip record?
Well...annoyingly, we were going to be working this month. The plan was, his album was always meant to be coming out earlier than it did. So, it's kinda slipped everything back.

It's always hard to say how much he'll have to write about, and how many new noises I can find. But, because his tour went back - he'll only have finished his tour two days ago - it just got to that point where...now, we're looking at the first couple of months of next year.

It's been really nice to go off and do other things, because I've got a lot more of an idea of what I want to do with Pip. Coming up to the last album, we had no real plan for it.

We just wrote some stuff - some of it worked really well, and some of it didn't. This time, we're both more aware that for our third album, we could really focus on some ideas and turn it into something great, hopefully.

For more information on CALM, head to thecalmzone.net.

Female First - Alistair McGeorge (Follow me on Twitter @AlistairMcG)