Bobby Gillespie feels ''validated as an artist'' by the new Primal Scream album.

The singer is immensely proud of his band's latest record, 'More Light', and puts it down to the fact none of the group are taking drugs.

He said: ''The thing is, nobody's f**ked up anymore. We were a bit erratic before, now we're consistently good. Primal Scream never gave up, we never split, we kept going. No matter whether people liked us, laughed at us, loved us or hated us. That's what happens when you have a career, you make records people love and others they don't but you keep going. But if it ended tomorrow, we'd all be proud to go out on this record. I feel validated as an artist because of it.''

David Holmes - who produced the album - said the recording process took a long time, with Bobby and guitarist Andrew Innes taking breaks to reflect on the material they were producing.

He told NME magazine: ''We'd just get together and record stuff, then slowly but surely it developed into what it is. There would be periods when Bobby and Andrew would disappear for months and not listen to anything, then they'd come back and hear it with fresh ears.''