Taking six years between a debut album and its follow-up could prove hellish for a band, forcing it to reintroduce itself to legions of music fans as well as radio.

But Australia's Sick Puppies [ tickets ] did it--with no regrets. The group, whose debut was 2001's "Welcome to the Real World," found success with the 2007 album "Dressed Up as Life," which spawned the hits "All the Same" and "My World."

"We changed dramatically during those six years," lead singer/guitarist Shimon Moore told LiveDaily. "We're older. We're wiser. We're more accomplished musicians, to a certain extent.""

Moving to the United States has been educational for the band. Moore said he feels he and the rest of his group--which also includes bassist Emma Anzai and drummer Mark Goodwin--honed their songwriting ability while living here.

"We definitely learned more about the songwriting process, which was the whole point of having moved to the US," Moore said.

"When we did our first record, we had a month and a half to record it. We had been writing for two months before that. It was just kind of mashed together. You can hear it on the record. It just sounds like youthful teen chaos, which was working for the moment. For this one, we wanted to create more of a universal-sounding record. I think we did. That takes time, to sort of find what you needed in yourself to create that. You can't just sort of say, 'I'm 17 and I'm going to write a universal album.' You have to go through a lot of things to get there, meet the right people and do the right things."

The band also moved to the United States from Australia to tap into a much larger fan base. Moore said he wanted to be "where the most people are going to hear" Sick Puppies.

"All we wanted to do when we moved over from Australia was just work all the time," Moore said. "Now that's what we're doing."

Before Sick Puppies started their current headlining tour, they holed themselves up in a record studio to start preliminary work on their third album.

"We're always writing songs," Moore said. "We're just taking a day off to come out to the studio and sort of jam to see what's going on. We've been doing a lot of rehearsing for the tour that we're doing over the next couple months. But, every once in awhile, it's good to focus on writing some new stuff as well."

He added, however, that he's thrilled with the sound that's reared its head during the recording process.

"I think our next record's going to be sick," Moore said. "Everything's going to be more emphasized. The lyrics are going to be even more focused. The storytelling, it's going to be more to the point and honest. The riffs are going to be heavier. The melodies are going to be more lush. I don't want to take it to an extravagant place--but I definitely want to stretch our legs a little bit and really sort of explore, getting really deep into it."

Sick Puppies are in the midst of a tour that kicked off last month in Alaska and features openers Saving Abel and Dropping Daylight. The itinerary, which stretches through April, is included below.