Having consistently wowed audiences across the region with their hard-rocking and often hilarious tales of genius owls, rat sarnies and being stuck in a maze, Lock Up favourites the mighty Doctor Nut return to amaze the Wheat Sheaves in Frome tonight.

Your Time caught up with the band's lead singer and guitarist Dave Wood to see how life is treating the band since paths last crossed in the Somerset Standard and Guardian Battle of the Bands final in August.

Your Time: You've played the Lock Up a few times now. Why do you think they keep asking you back?

Dave: Well for a start, Frome is a great place for music and art anyway.

The Cheese and Grain is obviously the big one but The Lock Up is important for keeping that whole local band community-spirit going.

It's a mystery why there aren't more venues in Frome – I think someone is missing a trick!

I think they ask us back because we were lucky to be in the right place at the right time there, all our Lock Up gigs have been great, and naturally the venue is going to stay interested if you keep supplying the goods.

I love playing there, it's really the only place we get to play for longer than half an hour any more.

What can people expect at a Doctor Nut gig?

From what people have told me, there are mixed reactions. Some people love the humour element, so there's a good portion of the crowd laughing and smiling.

That always gives me a boost of energy on stage!

Others have said they like the progressive element – the epic songs, odd time signatures and rhythms.

You can expect a very original band, three people who can play very, very well.

I'm not concerned if people think that's big-headed – there's always room for improvement but if we weren't great, we wouldn't bother at the end of the day.

So how did Doctor Nut come about?

Doctor Nut formed at the end of 2006, Andy, Rich Vaughan and I decided we'd like to get a band together – just for a bit of fun every now and then!

No plans for galactic domination (like we do now).

We went through a few changes we started off as a rather straightforward pop-punk unit, then when Brave Sir Nivag (Gavin) replaced Mr Vaughan, we took on more of a humorous element with songs like Rat Baguette, then we took that even further, adapting the humour into a longer song format with, for example, Ladders in the Maze.

We write about fictional things – stories that we make up like medieval battles, hyper-intelligent owls and castles. Some of our best songs are about Brian Blessed.

Musically, we always cite ManOwar, COOL!, Cardiacs, System of a Down and Ensiferum as the big influences, but even stuff like Queen and Green Day finds its way in ... when I can help it!

Have you got a CD and when will you be getting it out for us to hear?

Yes we have a CD! We made an album called Mountain of Othello early last year, all of the copies have been sold but I will happily print a whole new lot if there's enough demand.

A lot of the pop-punk stuff survived on that.

We do sell a demo called The Royal Selection at gigs.

We are half-way through a new album (I'm not telling you what it's called) and I expect that might be out in half a year or so.

Do you think the music scene in the area is healthy and could more be done for young bands?

I think we have a very healthy music scene indeed, but sadly people don't take enough interest.

My iPod is full of local music – Langur, Frenzy, Landscapes ... these are all great bands – they're just as 'real' as any signed or major bands.

Take for example California in the early '90s, bands like Operation Ivy, Bad Religion, Green Day and Isocracy were not 'successful', but by keeping that team spirit alive, playing countless shows together, they created something the whole world would eventually want to hear.

There's no reason something like that couldn't happen in south west England, I think one of the biggest problems is this whole 'my band is more important than yours' element, which is seriously getting in the way.

I've seen people fall out over it and I think it's ridiculous – you're only ruining it for yourselves and everyone!

But yes live band nights at venues such as The Wheat Sheaves and The Wunderbar are all very important for keeping the cogs turning.

What do you hope to achieve with Doctor Nut?

As long as Doctor Nut are always going and always working hard I'll be happy.

For me personally, the further we can go, the better – you hear about lots of good local bands splitting up all the time ... we will not be one of them – We're staying whether you like it or not!

This time next year, we hope to be promoting and selling a new album, to have played further afield than before and to have supported at least one independently successful band – all of which we have a reason to believe are achievable.

Support comes from The Clearest View.

Admission to The Wheat Sheaves is free and music will start about 8.30pm.

For further information on Doctor Nut visit www.myspace.com/doctornut.