Those who have visited Dublin will know that sipping Guinness by a fire in a nice old pub while it's chucking it down outside is one of life's great pleasures. It's also, as you can probably imagine, the perfect setting for eagerly hatching wild ideas and schemes.

And so on one such blustery and cold night in September two friends, Tim Rice-Oxley and Jesse Quin of Keane decided that they would make a country album, and so the side project of Mt. Desolation was born. The band's line-up is extensive, including members of Keane, Noah & The Whale, The Killers, The Long Winters, The Staves, and Mumford & Sons.