For Andy Lovegrove, singer with New Zealand band Breaks Co-Op, this week's show at Oxford's Zodiac is more than just another gig. It's a homecoming.

Although the band, founded by Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe, and fellow Kiwi Hamish Clark, owes its feel to the sound of Auckland and Christchurch, Andy has his roots in the Oxford music scene.

The sound producer, and the band's token Brit, spent 10 years at The Courtyard studio, in Sutton Courtenay, near Abingdon, hanging out with members of Supergrass and Radiohead.

And he is well aware that many of his Oxfordshire mates will be among the crowd when the band play on Tuesday.

"I'd like to think I'm an honorary Oxford man," said Andy, talking to the Guide from the tour bus, somewhere near Stroud, in deepest Gloucestershire.

"Oxfordshire has been a big part of my life, and playing the Zodiac is really weird, though I'm looking forward to it. It's a hometown gig, and I'm expecting to see lots of faces I know. It's going to be a bit of a party night." Andy was playing in his own band The Away Team, when his manager played the Breaks a demo of him singing.

Zane and Hamish, who had already tasted some success with their 1997 electronic album Roofers, were searching for a more live' sound, and instantly realised they needed Andy's voice.

"Vocals have always been my thing," laughs Andy. And, indeed, the chain-smoking vocalist's treatment of Breaks' song The Otherside is a highpoint of the band's compulsive album The Sound Inside.

So central is Andy to the band's sound, it is hard to imagine the Breaks without him. And he admits the experience has transformed him into a virtual Kiwi. "It has been weird, but I felt it was time to do something different," he said.

"New Zealand is a great place to play and to tour around," he added betraying the slightest hint of an antipodean accent. "We've had a lot of support over there, and everywhere we go here there are Kiwis at our shows."

But while there are New Zealanders aplenty at the gigs, sadly for fans, Zane has chosen not to join the band on tour a notable absence blamed on his Radio 1 commitments, and the birth, last month, of his son Jackson George.

"Would you think the band would come first if you had a primetime Radio 1 show?" asked Andy, rhetorically. "Zane is gutted he can't join the tour, and would love to have got involved. But he has a contract with the BBC and can't get out of it. It's difficult for him to just jump in."

The band take their name from their hip-hop breaks' roots, while the Co-Op' bit is a reference to the wider band which, in Zane's absence, numbers five people.

The Sound Inside has had an incredible run particularly in New Zealand, where it went triple platinum.

"We released the album over there first, to see how it went, then tried it on the other side of the world," he said. "Luckily it went well and is the most played album in New Zealand."

And the secret to its appeal? "It's the melody," explains Andy.

"It's easy to get your head around, makes people feel at home, and has lyrics people can apply to their own lives."

Breaks Co-Op play the Zodiac on Tuesday. Doors open at 7.30pm.

Tickets are £5 in advance. The show is open to ages 14 and over.