Noah and the Whale: I never thought of myself as a singer'

^'What's that line?" Charlie Fink frowns. "'She was 15 years old and she'd never seen the ocean/ She climbed into a van with a vagabond'?" It is a late, wintry afternoon, and we are sitting in a quiet north London pub discussing the merits of Tom Waits's 1992 album Bone Machine. Already we have debated the poetry of Frank O'Hara and the art of Edward Hopper, as well as the work of John Cale, Arthur Russell, Lou Reed. Fink, well-spoken and finely drawn, is setting out the influences behind the new Noah and the Whale record, Last Night on Earth; dismantling them for me.

For those acquainted with the work of Noah and the Whale, Last Night on Earth is perhaps not the album you were expecting. For those unfamiliar with the Twickenham-raised five-piece, a brief history to date: in 2008, Noah and the Whale were the reigning kings of the same young London folk scene that counted Laura Marling, Mumford & Sons, Emmy the Great and Johnny Flynn among its number – Marling and Emmy were, in fact, the band's backing singers.

Their debut, Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down, was an exuberant affair that spawned a giddy, infectious single, Five Years' Time, and built the band a loyal following that delighted in their sweet, melodic folk-pop. A year later, they returned with their second album, The First Days of Spring. Charting the break-up of Fink's relationship with Marling, it was a sombre, introverted collection of songs run through with an exquisite kind of pain. There were no perky singles. Gone were the whistling and the ukulele, and in their stead mournful strings and despair.

Last Night on Earth is a shinier prospect. Disarmingly radio-friendly, Tom Pettyesque in places, and unquestionably showing the influence of Waits and Reed and Springsteen. It is the sound of a songwriter not coming of age exactly, but coming to terms with who he is; the introspection lifting and the gaze shifting outward, the focus falling on lives other than his own.

Across its 10 songs, Fink shows himself to be an exceptional chronicler of lives, both ordinary and extraordinary. There are women who flee their dull suburban routines in search of a wilder kind of existence, and a man who "took apart his own life and left it on the shelf". There is a song that began as a 10-minute, richly detailed epic in the style of Street Hassle, before Fink boiled it down to its five-minute essence. He was, he says, greatly influenced by Reed's 1973 album Berlin: "Just people songs," he says. "I do feel that lyrically it was a leap forward for me. It was writing out of my comfort zone, writing in a new style, with new subjects. It opens up a whole new world to write; once you've opened up the third-person narrative it means you have to rely less on your own life and it's more fantasy and fiction."

It is also a strikingly visual style of songwriting. Fink has spoken often of his interest in cinema, and the release of their last album was accompanied by a film he wrote and directed – a process he feels has exerted a tangible influence on the way he now thinks of his lyrics. "It infiltrates the way I write songs," he nods. "A lot of them I imagined as scenes." And so it seems natural that he should talk of wanting the track Wild Thing to have a "Twin Peaks feel", that he should praise Waits's songs for their "cinematic" quality, or remark that "Dylan said that songs should feel like looking out the window of a moving train. And I think that's genius."

There is a great deal of movement here too, a sense of propulsion, of running away and escape – from the promise of "Tonight he's not gonna come back home," in Tonight's the Kind of Night, to Old Joy's quiet lament: "Tall buildings and a wife won't be enough for me/ There is more in the world to be found than dreams." It is an album itching to be out in the world.

"From the beginning," Fink explains, "I wanted to write a record that had that excitement of being young and being in the night. I think it's that naivete – that feeling that things are happening everywhere except where you are, wondering what's out there in the wide world. It's when you're on a bus, you don't know where you're heading, you don't know what's at the end of it, and you have this fantasy that whatever's at the end of it is going to be remarkable and magnificent."

It was an ambition quite unapologetically fuelled by the music of Bruce Springsteen. "He really captured that excitement of getting up and leaving town," Fink says, "he does that better than anyone." There were, however, some logistical drawbacks to consider: "It's really difficult to transpose that idea, that romantic Springsteen image, to England," he says, "because in America you can get in a car and drive 10 hours into the middle of nowhere, whereas in England if you drive 10 hours you've gone off the map. It doesn't quite have the same romance."

If Fink's songwriting has grown into itself more on this record, so, too, has his voice. There were moments in the past when he seemed half-apologetic. On this record he appears stronger, prouder, even if old doubts linger: "I've never once played this album on my speakers at home," he says and grimaces. "I listen to it on headphones. I get embarrassed playing it out loud. I find listening to my own vocals quite difficult sometimes." He hesitates. "I've never really thought of myself as a singer. Some people don't believe me, but I only started singing because I had these songs – I had songs I wanted someone to sing, and no one else would do it."

But for the reluctant frontman, these new songs demand a showmanship when played live. "I feel like I need to find something different in myself as a performer for these songs," he says. "The last album, while it wasn't easy to deliver, it felt natural delivering it, in that there's this style of performing that comes naturally to me, which is, I guess, head down, slightly inward or whatever." The new album's first live outing came a few weeks ago, at London's Bush Hall, and met with excellent reviews. "It was the first time I'd played songs without holding a guitar, just me standing with the microphone," he says. "I was quite nervous, because I think it's hard not to look awkward doing that. In rehearsals I was trying out some moves, some Prince-style microphone throwing … but I decided to just start small and then maybe build up to that."

Though it appears unspoken, there is a level of expectation attached to this album. The last few years have seen the band's contemporaries achieve a great deal, gaining audiences and accolades – Marling and Mumford & Sons scoring Brit awards, and Mumford performing with Bob Dylan at the Grammys. Fink brushes away any hint of peer pressure. "You see your friends on TV when you're in the gym, and that kind of thing," he says, "but I try not to think about it too much. Creatively, I try to always look forward and look at the next thing I want to do."

There is always, he tells me, more that he wants to do. "I've always had this thing where I can't stop. I hate standing still. As soon as one thing's finished, I want to be working on something else. I respect artists who don't rely on a formula, such as Neil Young or Lou Reed, who are constantly trying to find something new." The external pressures, then, are kept at arm's length. "Once you're at peace with the fact that you can't please everyone, then it's a lot easier," he says lightly. "Because all you have to concentrate on then is just seeing your ideas through as best you can."

Since the last album, there has been a crucial change for the band – their drummer, Fink's brother Doug, left to complete his medical training. "He's just finished tropical diseases," Fink smiles. "And he's been working in A&E, which is the most intense thing you can do." He has felt his brother's absence keenly on this record. "He's my older brother, and there are so many roles he fulfils on the road, not just the drummer, so it's kind of hard."

It is still Doug he consults first on matters concerning the band. "He can always see where I'm going, even when something is embryonic and sounds like madness," Fink says. And even on practical issues: "The most recent example was that I decided to put the lyrics in the CD booklet, so I wrote them all out and sent them in to the artwork guys, and then when they sent them back to me I forwarded them to Doug, and he just replied with a huge long list of grammatical errors that I had made, correcting all my mistakes."

The band's new drummer is Michael Petulla – found, surprisingly, via Gumtree. "We just put: 'Band, year of touring coming up, looking for a new drummer,'" Fink laughs. "And Urby [Whale] and Fred [Abbott] auditioned 100 or more drummers and whittled it down to about 10 and then we did a rehearsal with all of them." Petulla was the last auditionee of the day. "He's great. He's only 21 and he's from this small town in provincial Australia, and in the last month since joining our band he's had hummus for the first time, he's had a flapjack for the first time, and he's said the only other time he's worn shirts is for a wedding."

The formal shirts are a recent addition, too – Fink and his bandmates cut dapper figures these days. On stage at Bush Hall they wore suits, and today he is wearing a crisp, pale turquoise shirt and blazer. It is as if the men and their songs were standing a little taller, a little broader. The look is, Fink says, a half-conscious decision: "Because this album is a new thing, I wanted it to feel like we'd changed as well as the music. And it's genuine," he adds, "we have changed." He thinks for a minute, finding his explanation: "When you start playing music when you're quite young, it's easy to stay young. And then you're touring, and you see people who've been on the road for 10 or 15 years and they just haven't grown up at all. So I think with us, we're all trying, in our own way, to take on the responsibilities of being men."