But that's more by accident than dead-eyed calculation. Howie says: "It wasn't planned to be commercial or sound like anyone else. I always thought that All Years Leaving would turn out like (Van Morrison's) Astral Weeks, but it didn't.
"But with this one I was listening to a lot of Sam Cooke when I wrote it. Weirdly most of the album was written in Europe when we were on tour with Jet, not in America so it's strange it should sound the way it does."
Two of the stand-out tracks on the record, Just Enough Love and When the Night Falls In plough a similar Laurel Canyon-style furrow of early-70s Van Morrison albums Moon Dance and Tupelo Honey.
The sunny, happy, hippy LA sound has came from Beck and Foo Fighters producer Tom Rothrock, and develops the strong Byrds and Gram Parsons influences evident on much of the Stands' best work..
On a final note, we touch on the much written about patronage on Noel Gallagher.
Howie is grateful to the elder Gallagher, and respectful of his band's audience. "We played the City of Manchester stadium and the audience was the best ever, especially given the fact we were Scousers going into the lions' den, but they were really up for it."
When I ask if that's behind it, all those Mancunians know that Noel, at heart, really just wants to be a Scouser.
Howie says: "I had that out with him recently when we were drunk in some bar in Paris. I kept saying he wanted to be a Scouser, but he wasn't having it, he denied it all down the line."
There'll be no denying Howie Payne's talents if this high profile patronage and miles of column inches translate into hits with Horse Fabulous.
* THE Stands play the Zanzibar on Wednesday, July 27.
