Tom Smith liked the range of non-rock instruments he got to use on his Christmas album.

The Editors singer has teamed with former Razorlight drummer Andy Burrows for a festive record, ‘Funny Looking Angels’, which gave them the chance to explore some avenues he wouldn’t on a record by his main band.

He exclusively told BANG Showbiz: “Editors are four people, and between the four of us we don’t like most things! There are things that I want to do that I wouldn’t do in editors, like my favourite albums, ‘Automatic For the People’, ‘Born to Run’, Bridge Over Troubled Water – all these great classic rock records I listen to constantly, so we’ve enjoyed picking up the acoustic guitar, or being able put a flute in.”

Tom and Andy also found using a different set of instruments meant they got to meet a whole interesting new group of musicians who came over to play with them.

Tom added: “Tim, the guy we made it with, is clued into this cool band of London session musicians, who are like loads of these old dudes, who would have like fingers yellowed by rolling tobacco, and weathered old punks and folkies.

“They’d come and play saxophone or mandolin and we had this interesting stream of characters come through the door, and I really enjoyed that, being put next to these people who spend half their time playing mandolin and the other half of it, I don’t know, cleaning windows or whatever.”

Tom and Andy will release their ‘Funny Looking Angels’ album under the name Smith and Burrows on November 28.