In an era where mass produced pop music dominates the music market largely to the derision of the music cognoscenti, the fact that Chumbawamba love and celebrate pop with such gusto comes as a shock to many. There’s something in the title of their new album that may offer clues as to why they are so unafraid of the genre. Dada figurehead Marcel Duchamp coined the term ‘readymades’ as a consequence of his rejection of traditional notions of what ‘art’ was and how it was classified and validated. Thus, an everyday urinal could become an artwork titled ‘Fountain’ – it becomes art simply through the process of being looked at in that context.

So pop, like Duchamp’s reclaimed readymades, has been dealt an unfair hand when classified as artless, and Chumbawamba are prepared to challenge people’s perceptions of it. Nutter sees the band’s embracing of pop as coming down to the simple fact that it is easier to convey a message to the average listener if it comes in the guise of an inherently accessible medium – like pop music. Much of the criticism Chumbawamba receive is along the lines of ‘if they’re so angry, how come they don’t sound like it?’ Nutter is aware of the paradox. “People have no reason to listen [to your music] other than wanting to. Back in the ‘80s we had peace punk, and it was just like being hit over the head with something, it was so angry and ‘Ra! Ra! Ra!’ I wouldn’t be that receptive to it either. You know when somebody turns you off to something? It’s just annoying, innit? Or when somebody barks at you ‘what I am saying sounds ugly but I demand you listen up’.”

Nutter feels that there is more room for artists like Chumbawamba to move and evolve now, whereas previously hardcore exponents of punk set out genres and modus operandi in black and white. “I think people are coming out of the worst excesses of punk rock – and Thank God! It’s thirty years later! It’s like being in the army, ‘you’re not allowed to do this, you’re not allowed to do that’. I haven’t got respect for people who are that didactic”.

With Readymades, Chumbawamba have abandoned their familiar shouty choruses in favour of subdued breakbeats layered with traditional folk music, both in samples and in lyrics borrowed from sources such as Jock Purdon’s Bound For Van Dieman’s Land. “The reception from people in the folk scene has been amazing”, enthuses Nutter, though in typical Chumbawamba style she is quick to dismiss suggestions that the band’s ‘genre’ is now folk. “I don’t think it’s just a style of music, folk music. I think it’s a method people use to tell stories about their lives. It’s the music people play in pubs and in their living rooms. All music is folk music”.

It is perhaps fitting for a politically and socially aware band like Chumbawamba, though, that folk has traditionally been where protest songs and the music of uprisings has been nurtured. Even the band’s most upbeat songs have generally had a message or motivation other than wanting to make people dance, and Readymades is no different. The stand out example is the track Jacob’s Ladder, re-released with tweaked lyrics as an anti-war single during the Gulf conflict. “It seemed really important to us that war was brewing with Iraq, and it were really important to us that we should make some kind of statement against the war. Fewer and fewer artists these days are willing to risk their careers, are willing to actually say ‘look, I’m really bothered about this and I think it’s important’.”

But is it necessary for recording artists to have the courage to make a statement, simply because they are in a position of influence? “Yes, I really do think it’s important. You get people who have a certain amount of media attention, and I think it’s up to them to use it; otherwise what you get is just Rupert Murdoch’s view of the war. I think [recording artists] are scared, and rightly so sometimes, because as soon as you start talking about politics you’re ridiculed. And derision has always been a way of dismissing what people say.”

How did the band’s political views and anarchist philosophies go down with former record label, EMI? “They went down like vomit”, Nutter states categorically, before expanding, “We were viewed as sell-outs [by some], but [through greater album sales] we made money for the anti-capitalist movement when it needed it. It was quite beneficial in terms of when there needed to be international conferences organized we could fund them”. And also the simple fact that being with a larger record label meant the band could get their message and music out there on a greater scale. “Oh, absolutely – we were pragmatic about it, completely up-front about the fact that we wanted to get into people’s living rooms and sell records [to do that]. We never would have sold all those records on our own label.”

So why have Chumbawamba survived this far in the turbulent world of music and politics? “I think we’ve lasted this long because we really like each other, that’s the bottom line. We like each other and we’ve all got a sense of humour”, offers Nutter. And presumably working in a collective fuels the creative fire for longer than going solo. “I think you can make great leaps forward collectively that you can’t do on your own. People think that [as an artist] you produce things out of the ether, that summat comes to you in middle of the night – it’s not true. You’re affected by what goes on culturally around you all the time.” And if you think that something is not working, the rest of your collaborators will support and affirm your work. Most of the time.

“Well”, laughs Nutter, “if I thought something was the worst thing I’d ever done they’d probably agree.”