Thomas has just released Astronaut from his 2013 album Á, a track that he estimated he had played maybe 600 times live.

"It had become a real fan and band favourite, and then when we promoted it for the shows in Rome this year the response was amazing," Thomas told Fairfax Media.

"So it seemed like an obvious thing to do.

"Sometimes it takes 600 gigs to work out if something is good."

He describes the song as following the "sit on a stool and sing love songs about girls" formula, but more upbeat than some of his previous efforts.

It has been another huge year of touring for Thomas and his band, both in Australia and internationally, including playing shows in London and Rome before the "best the tour we've ever done", which ended in Queensland last week.

Thomas plans to record new tracks in March.

"We keep trying to get better and we're all really confident our best work is ahead of us," he said.

Astronaut is available from iTunes.