Not only is he enjoying the café's lovely vista across the hometown which continues to inspire the music of Harrogate's most famous rock band, he also appears slightly stunned at what Wally have managed to pull off since they reformed last year.

One sell-out reunion show at the Royal Hall, another to follow in two months' time and now the new album, the first in 36 years.

For a legendary band marked by tragedy as well as triumph, it's an amazing story whose twists and turns show no sign of settling into a predictable pattern anytime soon.

If the band's existence is a miracle of chance and time, the new recordings are a gamble whose outcome was far from guaranteed.

Montpellier, like their last album, Valley Gardens co-produced by Bob Harris and released by Atlantic Records in 1975, is named after the town where half the band still live.

With the other half scattered across the globe, however, (keyboardist Nick Glennie-Smith, for example, is a resident of LA where he has won awards for his soundtracks to big Hollywood movies sich as The Rock, The Man in the Iron Mask and We Were Soldiers), uncertainty as well as excitement was in the air as Webber and the rest of Wally gathered in Soundworks Studios in Leeds to start the new sessions.

"I was a bit worried in advance. You never knew if the chemistry would still be there. But it felt good in the studio together. We really gelled."

New songs such as She Said, co-written by Webber and new band member and producer Will Jackson, developed from scratch in the studio.

Unreleased songs from the 1970s such as Sailor and Sister Moon were entirely revised.

"There had to be some compromises but there's some great playing from all the guys. Paul Middleton's vocals on Human were done in one take and are amazing, full of emotion. Roger Narraway's drumming on Giving is what welds the song together but until we reformed he hadn't even picked up a drumstick for 17 years. Pete Sage's fiddle is vital to the Wally sound.