THE Travelling Band are living up to their name by playing 24 dates across Britain on their Hands Up tour – if their transport behaves itself.

“We’re really packing them in and testing the reliability of our transit van, which has had its problems in the past,” says Jo Dudderidge, the Manchester alternative folk band’s vocalist, guitarist and keyboard player.

“We had to replace the engine after 200,000 miles and we’ve had the stereo nicked – and you can’t go on tour without the stereo!”

The van’s good health permitting, Jo and co will be playing The Duchess in York on Saturday, on the back of releasing the digital Hands Up EP on a Pay What You Want basis, available online from thetravellingband.bandcamp.com “Our main motivation for releasing it like that was we were happy for people to take it for free, but there also are people out there happy to pay for music – and it fits in with the way we have funded our latest album,” says Jo.

“Pay What You Want for the EP is a good idea for now. We’ll give it a go as it’s a way of getting our music out there.”

The Travelling Band emerged on the Manchester scene with their shimmering blend of cosmic-country-pop and nu-folk in 2006, going on to record debut album Under The Pavement in New York and 2011’s release on the Cooking Vinyl label, Screaming Is Something.

Now they are using the pledgemusic.com method to raise the money to record new album The Big Defreeze for spring or early summer release. Under this “crowd-funding” scheme, those who made the album possible by pledging donations will receive it first, with 1,000 advance copies being made available at the Pledge Music website for delivery before the tour started and at this month’s gigs “until they run out”.

“This is a new process for us,” says Jo. “The first album was an opportunity that arose from when one of the former members met a guy from Brazil who let out part of his building in New York to a guy who had a studio and just said, ‘You get yourselves to New York’!

“That brought six of us together as our chance to record as before that we weren’t really a band, so it was a bit of a whimsical project at that time.

“For the second album, we funded it ourselves, saving money from the first album sales over two years, recording it in isolation on the Isle of Mull and putting it out through Cooking Vinyl, and this new one feels like a natural progression as I know DIY is the new buzzword but we’ve always been a do-it-yourself band – and for better or worse, you can’t wait around for things to happen.

“You have to do it yourself now and we had fans out there who we knew would be willing to support us.”

Under the Pledge Music system, a band sets its own target for how much money need to be raised, in this instance a five-figure sum. “If you don’t meet that target, nothing happens and you give the money back, so you have to say precisely what you’re going to do in order to receive the funding, as the last thing you want to do is let your most valued fans down.”

The Travelling Band have found inventive ways to drum up the money, including playing gigs in fans’ living rooms, priced at £750 for an acoustic gig or £1,000 for an electric performance with the full band.

“We’ve also made our own chilli sauces, which cost £16 including postage and packaging and a digital album,” says Jo. “We all did the sauces together and we’ll be piecing together a video of what we did, as we’re all obsessed with chillis, and we’re now thinking of branching out into selling the sauces at our gigs as there was a bit of an overspill!”

• The Travelling Band play The Duchess, York, on Saturday, supported by Ellen & The Escapades and Pelico at 7.30pm. Tickets: £7.50 in advance on 01904 641413 or £9.50 on the door. Further dates: Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, tomorrow; New Adelphi, Hull, March 30.