Tim Hughes talks to Oxford singer Phil McMinn of Winchell Riots, on surviving the worst of the music industry – and coming up smiling.

IF anyone deserves to be a star, it is Phil McMinn. A songwriter of note, with a towering stage presence which belies his stature, the frontman of Oxford’s mighty Winchell Riots has something which should make him the envy of the business – a startling voice.

By turns intense, expansive and epic, he, and his band, are among the best-loved on the Oxford scene. But, for much of the past year they have only been notable by their absence.

Now they have returned with the ultimate comeback – one which is certain to earn them the fame which they have worked so hard for.

On Saturday they return to their spiritual home – the Oxford O2 Academy – for a party to launch their debut EP – an elegantly packaged 10in vinyl.

For Phil, pictured second from right, and fellow former Brookes student, drummer James Pamphlion, bass player Rich Leicester and guitarist Nathan Allsworth, the launch couldn’t be more satisfying.

It took almost a year to release and, put bluntly, it almost broke them.

“Things are going really well now,” Phil tells us, while fiddling with a toaster in the house in Catherine Street, East Oxford, into which he has just moved.

“We are glad the EP is out now but it has been a very long road – and it has been an immensely long period of time since we have done anything.

“Work started on it in January 2009, and it was actually completed last year. But we have had massive issues on the business front. And it nearly finished us off.”

Phil is naturally cagey, but hints: “There were people around the band who wanted to use us and take from us.

“We have always had an attitude within the band of being nice to people – but that has been thrown back at us by certain individuals who have tried to take us for idiots.”

He describes a roller-coaster ride of financial and legal conflict, which drove the band to the brink of ruin.

But then no-one knows the vagaries of the rock ’n’ roll industry better than Phil, who along with James, and their previous band Fell City Girl, were signed – and dropped – by Sony, headlined the city’s Zodiac three times, played storming sets at Cornbury and Truck – and, as weird as it seems, shared a stage with Girls Aloud and Status Quo (for a Children in Need gig at RAF Brize Norton) – before breaking up.

Almost immediately, Winchell Riots was forged – taking its name, in typically bookish style, from a chapter in a Philip Roth novel. And they vowed to keep their independence. Whatever it costs.

Phil, who has a day job looking after the fiction section of a bookshop, explains: “What we’ve learned, is the reality of being an independent band is completely different from what you read in The Guardian – of groups happily creating their music and releasing it on the Internet.

“We’ve now met a few sharks and burned a few bridges. We can joke about it, but we do care about what we are doing – and to have other people try to break it down was heartbreaking.”

The band’s saviour, he says, was producer Dan Austin (Doves/Cherry Ghost), who has also been working on their long-awaited debut album.

“We now see ourselves as a cottage industry,” he says. “It’s a terrible cliché to hear bands say ‘we just do what we want and if anyone likes it, that’s a bonus’ – but it is true. After all, what else do you do with your life? If you find something you enjoy, you’re lucky.”

Featuring songs Love, the Great Olympic Sport, My Young Arms, Glasgow Spaceflight and live favourite Red Square, the EP is released on the band’s own Andrew the Great Record label.

The map-like packaging, designed by DC comics guru Rian Hughes, is a source of pride. “Our world is full of books and maps,” he explains. “We wanted to make it an artefact that people would want to spend £10 on, rather than just download for free. I’d like to think it’s a thing of beauty. It’s an archaic notion, but then I think CDs are rubbish. They all look the same and line-up together. We wanted this to be different.”

So, how would he sum up the band’s sound? “We get compared to Muse,” he says. “But I’d like to think we are not too over-the-top. I wouldn’t want people to think we are sitting here reaching for the sky, when we are not.

“We just like making music that’s loud. After all, when you’ve had a rubbish day, there’s nothing better than getting on stage and making a noise – knowing no-one can stop you!”

* Winchell Riots play the Oxford O2 Academy on Saturday, with support from Rock of Travolta, as well as Vixens and Minutes. Doors open at 6.30pm. Tickets are £6 from ticketweb.co.uk .The Red Square EP will be on sale at the gig and is also available from the band’s website thewincellriots.co.uk