Around four years ago, Lostprophets of sessions before getting back in the studio to record the seething The Betrayed. This time around, things have gone a lot smoother, and that's reflected in their.To mark its release, we caught up with the band's bassist Stuart Richardson and Mike Lewis to talk Lana Del Rey, Labrinth and why they just 'don't give a f.k'. Here's what they had to say.How would you describe your new album Weapons?Stuart: 'Banging.' Mike: 'Just a big anthemic rock record.' Stuart: 'Doing what Lostprophets do best.' Was it a reaction to the hard time you had with The Betrayed?Mike: 'No. The only conscious thing we tried to do was to not have a gameplan.

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To just write music and see what happens.' Stuart: ' The Betrayed was never meant to be a dark record. We just had a lot of bad luck and were really p.ssed off, and wanted to stick in as many knives as possible. This time round, like, we just wanted to jettison all that - we've got everything off our chest.'

This is your shortest gap between albums - are you on a roll?Mike: 'Yeah. We lost a lot of momentum. We hit a couple of bumps in the road.

Writing this one, we felt like we got our momentum back, we've got a bit of a spring in our step.' Your album says deus velox nex (God is a swift death) on the cover - what's that all about?Mike: 'It was Ian's idea - I think it's more of an aesthetic thing than anything. I saw it as a Boondocks Saints thing.'

Stuart: 'He loves pop culture and he likes to push buttons. He likes to make people think, 'Why did he say that?'

'Mike: ' As a band, we leave things very open to interpretation. Even the album title itself is purposely ambiguous, and a lot of the lyrics are left that way as well.'

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Stuart: 'There are certain things we do just to be cool - no other reason than that. There's other things we do that we think deeply about. But we'll never tell you which one's which!' How do you feel about being on the bill for the Hackney Weekend?Stuart: 'It's awesome.

That we're asked to do that, considered. Mike: 'Exactly. That Radio 1 asked us to do it - us and Enter Shikari are the only rock bands playing it, so to be in that position is amazing.' Stuart: 'It's pretty awesome and the response has been pretty cool about us playing as well. It seems to be a big deal, so we're pretty excited about it. You grow up listening to the charts as a kid. We're all essentially punk rockers but you can't deny the charts - they seep into your consciousness.'

Mike: 'I've just got my fingers crossed we're on the same day as Lana Del Rey!' Is there anyone you want to see on the bill?Mike: 'Jay-Z is playing apparently, I'd be stoked to see Jay-Z. He'd be pretty rad.' Stuart: 'That'd be awesome. And Labrinth is playing.'

What happened with that collaboration you and Labrinth did on 'Earthquake'?Stuart: 'It's a long, convoluted story. Iain met up with him about a year and a half ago, and they hit it off. Then he gave us 'Earthquake' to see if we could do anything with it.' Mike: 'It was before it was 'Earthquake'.

There were no lyrics, no melodies. It was just his music - the loops, the chorus. He gave it to us and said, 'Can you do anything with this?' So we took it and arranged it and wrote guitar parts to it, live drums.'

Stuart: 'It sounded really cool.' Mike: 'It turned out awesome, actually, then he was like, 'I've used that for my record with Tinie Tempah' and we were, 'Alright'.' You could still put it out though?Stuart: 'I don't know if we're allowed.' Mike: 'It's a weird, record label thing.'

Stuart: 'There's no hard feelings. Urban producers and pop producers can knock out a song in a day, 'cos it's all done on computers. Whereas a band, there's the six of us. We make a record, they make singles. He was like, 'Come on man, I can go tomorrow on this'.

And we were like, 'Give us six months'. He was like, 'Six f.kin' months?' It's just the way it is.'

Mike: 'We had to get in the studio and work on it, and write all the parts as a band and record them, and then Iain had to write lyrics. It's a lot more than just banging together a pop song.' Stuart: 'We're not trying to belittle pop music, it's just a lot simpler to create.' Your Modestep mix up rock and dubstep - is that something that you're interested in?Mike: 'We've always an electronic influence on our music. Maybe not to that extent, but when we go back to debut album Fake Sound of Progress, we had breakbeat interludes.' Stuart: 'We did dubstep before dubstep even existed!'

Mike: 'I was going to Ibiza when I was 18.' Stuart: 'I was probably in the chalet next to him.' Mike: 'I love dance music, and everybody in the band does as well, so we've always had that influence coming across, whether it's the Prodigy or DJ Shadow. With Modestep supporting, we just wanted to do something different.'

Do you think your fans will be receptive to them?Stuart: 'Our fans are pretty open-minded.' Mike: 'I like to credit our fans with a bit of open-mindedness and tolerance. I'd like to think that if they're not into it, that they would respect it.

The most f.king idiotic thing is booing a band or throwing bottles at a band at a festival. If you don't like a band, go get a beer, whatever. Respect the band and the people who are there to see the band.' Why do you think Lostprophets have stuck together for so long?Stuart: 'The simplest reason is that we've never given a f.k. We've always done what we wanted to do. I think a lot of bands do what they think they should do.

We've never worried about being uncool. I think any band or any artist who does it for the right reason will do what they feel like.'