The lore of Fizz’s formation is “murky”, Dodie, one-fourth of the band, tells me.

“We’re not quite sure how it happened,” the English singer-songwriter continues. “But it was always destined to be.”

Individually, all four members of the London-based group – made up of close friends Dodie, Orla Gartland, Greta Isaac and Martin Luke Brown – weren’t doing too badly before coming together as Fizz. All four singer-songwriters have clocked up millions of streams, and built up fervent fanbases, off their own bat.

But while hanging out together in rare spare moments, they found that songs were “spilling out” of them as a four-piece. Although their debut album, The Secret To Life, ultimately came to life as a brilliantly vibrant “mad rock opera”, as Dodie describes it, the road to creating the project was refreshingly casual and uncalculated. Together, they headed down to Middle Farm Studios in South Devon – the same spot that Fizz’s Dublin star Orla had recorded her lauded 2021 solo debut, Woman On The Internet – with the intention to “just play.”

“We said to ourselves, ‘Even if these songs live on our computers forever, at least we tried – and we’ll probably have a really good time doing it’,” Dodie resumes.

For Orla, it was a perfect case of “making things for the sake of making things.”

“The music-making was done in such a vacuum,” she recalls. “The original ambitions we had for it were basically non-existent – because the music was made for music’s sake, and not for releasing or even live shows’ sake.”

“The writing was so pure,” Martin nods. “It was a bit of an exercise in letting go, and saying ‘yes’ to everything. And that’s partly why the album’s so crazy and theatrical, and why there’s so many key changes – because we weren’t thinking about it cynically.”

Throughout the record, you get a palpable sense of the kind of unselfconscious fun and freedom the friends were embracing in the studio.

“For me, it was like nothing I’d ever done before, really,” Greta reflects. “Making this record was just about leaving the imperfections and all the rough edges in there, and just capturing the energy, and harnessing that.”

As all four members of the band have weathered long hours of work and touring as solo artists, the sense of camaraderie offered by Fizz has been special.

“We have bands that we’d play with when we do our solo gigs,” Orla explains. “But no one in your band or your team will ever have the same stake in your project as you will. Why this has felt so communal is because there’s four of us with the same stakes in it, and the same care for it.”

At the same time, Martin notes that there’s becoming less of a space for bands in the modern pop industry.

“The whole culture of music now is so centred around social media and TikTok, and personality-driven stuff,” he states. “So the idea of bands, and having multiple voices and multiple personalities in a room, just doesn’t happen very often.

“Doing promo and social media, it definitely is hard having four people who are very much used to having their own voice, and condensing that into one unified voice,” he adds. “Orla always makes the point that it’s not surprising that every other band is basically just the lead singer, and three other randoms! Ingesting four is quite a lot.”

Of course, money is another reason why more people are opting for solo careers, Martin points out.

“People are in solo projects because they literally need to keep all the royalties to themselves to try and make a living,” he resumes. “So there are so many cultural factors at play. But it’s such a shame. Music would be better if people allowed themselves to have fun, and share, and trust other people – just bouncing ideas off each other.”

Each member of Fizz hails from a different place – Orla from Dublin, Greta from Cowbridge in Wales, Dodie from Essex, and Martin from Leicester – but all four are based in London. Though Orla has to cover her eyes in mock-horror when Dodie almost refers to The Secret To Life as being “quite British” sounding, there’s no doubt that their years spent living in London have had some bearing on the project.

“What London means to me – as a Welsh woman! – is newfound family,” says Greta. “It’s this point in your life, in your mid to late twenties, where your friends become your family. Fizz aren’t my family of origin, but they are a kind of family for me. I feel like I’ve learned loads from these guys, and I don’t think we would have met if it wasn’t for moving to London.”

“Some people are ground down, and made really cynical by London,” Martin considers. “And to me, the album sounds, maybe as a result of all that, a reaction against it. Because we’ve gone in the completely opposite direction.”

Given the informal roots of the band, the four members aren’t afraid to get playful – and poke fun at the industry – with Fizz. It’s something that’s evident from the opening track ‘A New Phase Awaits You’, a “crazy ditty” that Orla describes as “a nod to something almost like Scientology – and the almost seedy side of pulling someone into something.”

“We speak a lot about Fizz eventually being a very cult thing,” she resumes. “And it kind of is already, in its current form. It’s the kind of thing that you either get, or you don’t. That excites me. I really like whenever someone doesn’t like it. Music that’s inoffensive, and bland, and pleases everyone, is of so little interest to me now.”

“It’s also taking the mick a little bit, out of this ‘cool new artist’ thing,” Greta says of the opening track. “And that’s not even talking about us – it’s just the smoke and mirrors of a new project, or a new artist, and the way that the industry talks about people, as if they’re not people. They’re not even saying anything about them, they’re just like, ‘Yeah, they’re really cool…’ Or, ‘Up-and-coming...’”

Of course, the relentless pace of the modern music industry is a lot for any act, Fizz included. Although they initially planned to release The Secret To Life in September, and tour the album around the same time, they made the decision to push back the dates, noting in a social media post that the “fast paced nature” of the campaign had “taken its toll” on the group.

“Everyone’s been so nice,” Martin says of their fans’ response to the announcement. “I actually thought we’d have more kickback, to be honest. When I’m back in Leicester, all my friends are plumbers or work in trade jobs, and as soon as I talk about music in any regard that isn’t like, ‘I’m having the best time ever!’ – they hate it. They’re like, ‘What are you on about? You don’t even do a job! You just sing for a living!’

“But there’s definitely more of an awareness of it now,” he adds. “That Lewis Capaldi documentary was a really good example of putting it under a microscope.”

“People just get it,” Orla reckons. “I don’t think you need to be a musician to understand burn-out. Everybody knows it in their own way. You can talk about your project in this heightened, almost fictional way – but at the end of the day we’re just people. Every artist is just a person that gets tired if they put too many things in the calendar.”

With their new tour dates locked in, the group are more than ready now to share Fizz with the world – and are continuing to find inspiration as a four-piece.

“Whenever we’re not writing, we’re suppressing it – because we always want to,” Dodie remarks. “Songs just pour out of us. We can’t help it!”

• The Secret To Life is out now. Fizz play Vicar Street, Dublin on February 18, 2024. See their full list of upcoming tour dates at yourfavebandfizz.com