1989 was a momentous 12 months for music, as the likes of Soul II Soul, The Stone Roses and acid house defined the zeitgeist.

Classic albums like De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising, Pixies' Doolittle, Paul's Boutique by Beastie Boys were all released but closer to home a gang of West Midlanders also made a splash as their lairy mix of hip hop, dance and rock took them into the charts and helped soundtrack a thousand indie discos.

"It was probably our best received album and also sold the most," laughs Graham Crabb, co-frontman and songwriter with Pop Will Eat Itself, who celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This! with a UK tour later this year. "It's seen as the groundbreaking one because it took elements of sampling and punk and techno and it was that time when new music forms were coming in and being accepted. It felt a bit like the first time all those had been mashed up and made into something that wasn't easily definable."

Along with vocalist/guitarist Clint Mansell, keyboardist Adam Mole and bassist Richard March, Graham helped hone a fusion of rock, pop, and rap that the band themselves dubbed 'grebo' and by the release of their 1987 full-length debut, Box Frenzy, and the hit There Is No Love Between Us Anymore, they were all the rage in the British music press.

"Getting further into hip hop was either brave or stupid and there's a fine line between the two," continues Graham. "We always did this though: we'd make a bit of progress and then we'd do a swift about turn and try something else. We were just always adventurous in spirit and to us it wasn't just a career thing but more about coming out and doing the best records and most groundbreaking stuff we could do."

The influence of hip hop became even more pronounced on singles like Def. Con. One and Can U Dig It? which both reached the UK charts and in late 1988 PWEI were invited by Rush Management to support Run DMC on their European tour.

"Before This Is The Day... we'd started listening to a lot of US hip hop and it was a big influence," agrees Graham. "It wasn't really getting into much UK music at the time and it became an added string to our bow.

"Public Enemy joined the Run DMC tour and they were coming through like a steam train. We couldn't believe we got asked to do it and it remains one of our career highlights. Chuck D had nothing but encouragement for us despite us having quite a hard time on that tour with what was quite a militant crowd.

"He was telling us that when they first started they weren't seen as 'proper' hip hop because they'd play with all this white noise in the background and sirens wailing. It was a noise onslaught and the crowd weren't used to it, but he said we just had to keep at it and keep hammering away and eventually they'll get it."

By 1992's The Looks or the Lifestyle, PWEI had a live drummer, Fuzz, to expand their ever-mutating sound and along with a fearsome live reputation, the band celebrated a top 20 album, and two top 30 hit singles, Karmadrome and Bulletproof!.

"We had two frontmen in me and Clint and it gave us that extra energy something other bands hadn't got," says Graham. "To this day the energy is what's most important to us."

In 1994, the Dos Dedos Mis Amigos album peaked at No. 11 in the UK Albums Chart and spawned their then final single release, Everything's Cool, which became their ninth Top 30 UK hit. The band also collaborated with The Prodigy on the track Their Law, which featured on their breakthrough second album Music For The Jilted Generation. Two years later they decided to split, with Fuzz and Richard forming Bentley Rhythm Ace and Clint going to become an acclaimed film composer famed for his work on Moon, The Wrestler and Black Swan.

"We're back now and it's about as close to an original line-up as you're going to get," says Graham, who will be joined by Fuzz, Richard and Adam for this anniversary tour, after the band first join up with fellow Black Country acts Ned's Atomic Dustbin and the Wonder Stuff's Miles Hunt for a series of gigs called From Stourbridge With Love....

"Clint does his soundtrack stuff now and that's really his forte," adds Graham. "It's great for him because he was always the film buff of the band. All the film samples we used were his idea and it was his big passion. As soon as he got to do soundtrack stuff he was off and has done very well as we knew he would.

"With Ned and Miles, it's great we can all still get together. It is quite weird how so much music came from Stourbridge at the same time - I don't really know how to explain it! One band influenced and inspired the other, so I guess it was just like a snowball thing but it's great that everyone has kept at it and are still playing today."

Pop Will Eat Itself will mark the 30th anniversary of the release of their classic 1989 album This Is the Day…This Is the Hour…This Is This! by playing the record in full along with a selection of other tracks at Chester Live Rooms on Saturday, April 27. Tickets cost £20 and are available from www.seetickets.com