Mongrel plan Venezuelan album 'with Hugo Chavez'

Mongrel frontman Jon McClure says he wants to record the band's second album "in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez".

Despite their debut album 'Better Than Heavy' not being released until February, McClure says the band are dead set on heading to South America to record new material as soon as possible.

"The Mongrel thing is just going to roll and roll," he told 6Music. "We've got plans to go and do a second record out in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez. Their culture's kind of exploded, and Chavez has put a lot of his wealth into restoring the indigenous culture and stuff."

McClure says he wants the band - featuring Babyshambles' Drew McConnell, rapper Lowkey, Joe Moskow and former Arctic Monkeys bassist Andy Nicholson - to embrace the local Venezuelan style on the new record.

He said: "We're going to do a kind of Buena Vista Social Club-style thing out there with some of their drummers, and hip-hop people and horn sections and stuff. It should be fun man. Venezuela is like the new Jamaica, or Brazil, or Cuba, it's kicking off."