While the notion contemporary artists pilfering obvious sounds and influences of bands from the late 70’s and early 80’s is commonplace, it’s rare to find a group who actually build on these influences and rise beyond the domain of gimmick, creating music that’s exciting and important. The Futureheads are one of the select few who have beaten the system and the post-punk contextual cliché. Upon first listen of their self-titled debut album some critics felt a knee-jerk reaction to quickly draw comparisons of The Futureheads to bands like XTC and Gang Of Four. What they fail to realize is that The Futureheads bring such a level of precision and polish to their craft that they’re anything but a recycled knock-off. The Futureheads realized success by combining layer upon layer of baroque musical attack into short yet sweet tracks, blending danceable razor sharp riffs with an almost barber shop quartet style of harmonized singing and screaming. The end result of this approach beautifully manifested itself last fall when the band opened for Franz Ferdinand at The Commodore Ballroom. At the beginning of The Futureheads opening set no more than 50 people stood by the stage. The band feverishly pushed through their set and crowd enthusiasm immediately began to build as the dance floor grew from a mere 50 people to full house of 1,000 people. The room moved, grooved, cheered, and sweated as the band clearly stole the show, leaving the crowd – myself included - begging for more.

Cord Mag spoke with The Futureheads about the business of touring… and the genius of Kate Bush.

You’ve spent the month vigorously touring the US and parts of Canada for the first time… has America been as strange as you imagined?

Ross Millard: It’s been great. With the record not coming out [in North America] until November, we’ve acknowledged that not that many people know of us in America or Canada. It’s been exciting to play these shows and open up [for bands like Franz Ferdinand] to a crowd of a couple of thousand people every night, and then take them by surprise. The audiences have been really warm to us, and it’s been really encouraging because people have been getting involved and getting into it, dancing around and clapping and carrying on. The prospect of coming back in November is really exciting.

Have there been any memorable gigs, any high points?

Ross: There’s been a couple of great ones. The first show in New York was pretty amazing. You step out of all those people… and wow, it’s New York! You know what I mean?

The Futureheads are contradiction… and I mean that in a good way. The band has been painted with a post-punk / D.I.Y brush, yet you defy the norm. Unlike your contemporaries, you guys have chops, you guys leverage and experiment with your 4 piece band structure and in turn bring surprisingly complex harmonies and arrangements to the table. Let’s talk about this…

Barry Hyde: Yeah, that’s the way like to describe it… the contrast of the harshness of the guitars with the rhythms with the quite luscious intricate vocals arrangements.

Ross: You know… your question is pretty much how we try to answer questions about how we sound. (laughs)

Yeah, but that’s what jumps out at me, you know, anyone can plug in an electric guitar and play away. But you guys bring a sensibility that you don’t really find elsewhere with your contemporaries…

Ross: I think that has to do with some of the influences we have. We’re all into different stuff and so there’s elements in the band of all the different types of music that we’re into… there’s the harshness there, but then there are those quite delicate melodious moments. It’s all of equal importance really.

Was this always the plan? Or did it just happen?

Barry: We just wanted to take full advantage of the entire band. We realized that everyone in a band who can speak should really have a microphone in front of them, not necessarily to sing, but just to add to [the performance]. If someone’s playing away and they happen to scream or moan that should be picked up as well. It was about making the band as powerful as possible without having to rely on effect or distortion pedals to make things louder and more dynamic.

When you first started performing as a band your gigs were ten minutes long, your debut album clocks in just over 30 minutes, how does your live show stretch into an hour?

Barry: (Laughs) Our first gig was four songs in seven minutes, our second show was ten minutes long. (Laughs) If we played all of our songs that we’ve ever written we’d perhaps hit an hour… plus we could get Kate Bush involved. (Laughs)

I love how you guys cover Kate Bush, I wouldn’t expect that from… well… anyone our age…

Barry: She’s totally underrated as an arranger and singer. Some of her songs are perfectly arranged and quite complicated. She makes great pop songs with excellent production. And you know, we were all born in the early 80’s… so Kate Bush was around all of us… to a varying degree.

What’s next for The Futureheads?

Jaff: Tour, man. Lots and lots of touring. Finish this tour, go back home, have one day off, and then do a UK tour for a month, then have two days off and go back to the United States. Plus, during my time off, personally, I’m going to do military style training and take paintball to a professional level! (All laugh)