When Stone Gossard isn't shredding for Pearl Jam, he's jamming for Brad, an outfit he founded back in the early '90s as an outlet to experiment outside the confines of a grunge-rock band. He's done very well out of it too - while not hitting the multi-platinum levels of his day-job band-mates, Brad have scored respectable sales and drafted a handful of decent rock albums that have ranged from the downright rough and dirty 'Shame', the band's 1993 debut, through the rather more polished 'Interiors' right up to 2010's procrastinated 'Best Friends?', recorded in 2003 and issued some seven years later.

Whilst not as commercially viable as Pearl Jam's straight-edged classic alternative rock, Brad's gritty approach has been warmly received by a loyal legion of fans on both sides of the pond. 'Shame' actually spawned a minor-hit single in '20th Century', but record-label Epic perhaps underestimated Gossard's clout and his band mate's pedigrees - vocalist Shawn Smith was a member of Pigeonhed and Satchel, for example - and weren't at the helm after album number two. Nowadays, without major-label pressure, Brad continue to record new material sporadically, whilst achieving the same results on the smaller Razor and Tie imprint, as on 2012's 'United We Stand'.

With Keith Lowe now firmly installed as bassist, the band are once again firing on all cylinders and ready to plug the new album with a very very rare UK tour next year. Brad have never crossed the Atlantic to Britain before, which makes this trip very inviting indeed. Confirmed so far are shows in Manchester on 8th February, Birmingham on the 9th and Islington on the 10th. We'll have tickets for all three shows from 9am on Friday 14th September with all expected to sell very quickly. For support, you get UK band New Killer Shoes.