Oh Oh Oh, Oh Oh Oh. Oh Ay Oh, Oh Ay Oh... repeat

Matt Cartmell gets personal with Sunderland's finest export - The Futurehreads

Barry Hyde is staring deep into Artrocker's eyes as he lets forth a volley of carefully considered disgust: "Man, fucking calm down, stop doing the charlie, don't start every day with a fucking hangover and maybe you'll progress in your job." The frontman is probably right, but even though he's addressing the music business in general and not just Artrocker, we're still terrified by his hardline stance.  

But with Pete Doherty proving his credentials as a Daily Star rock star by how many gigs he can fuck up, surely such talk is tantamount to career-suicide in the UK? Thankfully The Futureheads are the very antithesis of the babyshambolic middle-class drop outs which still clog the pages of other music mags.  

Forming in a youth project in Sunderland with the desire to play with the precision of robots, The Futureheads have latterly gone top ten with a cover of a Kate Bush song and have become the official first line in the UK's latest attack on Western shores. More on all this later, but Barry's still ranting about drugs like a Daily Mail-reading PTA member...

"We have had some experiences with people who have been involved with us who have been in that scene, and so they're out, they're gone. They no longer have the..." Barry struggles to find the right word.

"Job" completes Jaff (guitar, vocals).

"We don't take that bullshit, it just changes people anyway, no one's ever said it, but you spend 20 years becoming a person who can communicate with people and get along with people, to impress people and be nice. And then it doesn't matter how nice you are, if you take cocaine you'll turn into a fucking arsehole."

In case you can't tell, The Futureheads do not suffer fools gladly. Nor do they take shit from anyone. Artrocker is sitting backstage at Islington Academy with Barry and Jaff, who are wearing their customary grey suits. They're confident, opinionated guys with a hell of a lot of self-belief. During our meeting they liken the UK's music audience to "sheep" and its record labels to "headless chickens".

Whilst Barry's words are measured and well thought through, Jaff literally explodes with ideas and strong emotions. There's a strong bond between them and seemingly an absolute agreement on every subject you could name. Particularly on the matter of the band's professionalism...

"We used to rehearse every day," explains Jaff. "We didn't want to be just messing on all your life, you know, getting pissed and not doing your job properly. Like, I got a lot of stick off me parents for that kind of thing: 'You're doing a band are you? Well, are you going to do it, or are you just pratting around?' I turned down going to university to do the band, and I don't write many songs for the band, so for me to not practise music with them and not play... know what I mean? It's just laziness, you have to try and make yourself work hard."

It's this level of seriousness which has placed The Futureheads as one of the bands most likely to succeed in the ultra-professional US, most recently being the opening act for those equally hard-working Brits, Franz Ferdinand.

You know," smiles Barry, "we had this romantic vision of it being like a Trojan horse, like an unexpected band supporting a huge band and the first band on being shit hot. And the first gig was New York's Rosemont Ballroom, which has about three an a half thousand people. Ands we went out and we got everybody basically who was watching us involved. You know when you play a good show, because we have very small gaps an silences in some of our songs, you know, and I always listen to see if anyone's talking... and there was a smattering of mumbles from the very back but everyone else was like [surprised expression] 'Ohhh. What is this?' You know, more intrigued than anything else I think, with our energy and our accents and our songs."

Like all of the UK bands that have recently done well in the US, it seems to be The Futureheads' inherent Britishness that seems to be turning them on. "Yeah, they're anglophiles," agrees Barry. "All over the place. They're obsessed with it, man, they love it. It's like the garage rock thing, when all those bands came over here. All these skinny boys in tight jeans, they're dirty and they're dangerous and sexy, and English tend to be maybe a little bit more masterful perhaps, perhaps a little bit more charming."

The band's eponymous debut album came out last July on 679, and its breakneck songs drew to mind a Jam / Gang of Four hybrid with a peculiarly North Eastern lyrical eccentricity. And with singles 'A to B' and 'Meantime' they've proven their ability to write chart-baiting pop tunes.

But it's an album that very nearly didn't happen, being recorded twice because they "fucked it up" the first time with Gang Of Four's Andy Gill behind the desk. "It was fucking balls" snarls Jaff, whilst Barry puts it more politely: "It was two-dimensional. We used to have confidence tussles with everything that we were doing - not live, it was mainly when we were coming to terms with recording music. We had to make some severe mistakes in order to learn. It wasn't a natural thing or us."

"And that was all our fault, you know," admits Jaff. "So we had to learn to trust other people."

The band re-recorded the album with Paul Epworth (Bloc Party): "He just had faith in our album - energy and his attitude. I think he just kind of, I dunno, he really knew where we were coming from, in terms of the style of music that we were trying to create and getting reference points that we wouldn't necessarily push forward."

But the album has been no overnight success, having slowly and surely worked its way into the nation's psyche thanks in no small part to the band's recent cover of Kate Bush's 'Hounds Of Love'. It's safe to say that the song has caught the UK's imagination, with its catchy staccato harmonies and that video where they're sitting in a tree with their amps.

The 'Heads are confident they can handle the new-found fame: "We're ready, done our homework, there's no stress when we play. And you will not be disappointed with what we're doing. 'Cause we play our hearts out and we're tight as fuck. And we enjoy it and we get people involved and celebrating, and we're not ashamed of anything that we're doing, we're just..."

"It's almost like we've been learning our trade for so long its time for them to come and see," adds Jaff.

Learning their trade - very Futureheads, that. But it's been no overnight apprenticeship. The band formed in "the arse end of 2000" in Sunderland, whilst at the Sunderland City Detached Youth Project. This was organised to help under-privileged local kids get involved in music, and which must surely account in part for the band's hard line view on recreational drugs: "The Project was meant to draw people away from hard drug abuse, car crime, burglary - all those antisocial things that people are trapped in," says Barry, who ended up teaching guitar there.

Jaff recognises the importance of The Project to The Futureheads' story, turning to Barry: "There's a massive chance that I might never have met you if it wasn't for The Project. 'Cause I was from slightly out of town. Actually, I might have lost interest in playing music, 'cause until we found that free rehearsal space, there was no place we could afford to go to."

What did you do there?

"We'd practise the guitar all the time, I wasn't even interested in singing, just wanted to be able to play the fastest solos on Earth, basically."

  "You've achieved that, though!" laughs Jaff.

"I wanted to be able to go 'wwwowowowowwo' [imitates his fingers moving Joe Satriani-like over the fretboard], basically!"

The music that was created by the first incarnation of The Futureheads was even more fundamentalist in its attitude to frills and fripperies than it is now. "We were obsessed with having short songs. One was 30 seconds," says Jaff. "I wanted to have the most harsh, antisocial guitar sound on earth," remembers Barry. "My sound was like someone stabbing you in the eyes. It was so trebly, gnawing away at your brain, and we had this vocal thing where someone would sing a syllable then someone else would sing another one, and it's like a barrage, but a barrage split in two. That way it creates a three dimensional feel to the music."

Later in the evening we witness their three-dimensional rock attack for real, as they headline The Academy. The band are in razorsharp form, piledriving through their set to a clearly ecstatic fanbase who sing along throughout the gig. And when it comes to the 'Wolves' moment, the band splits the audience in two to join in with the a cappella vocal riff, the room resounding with the sound of a thousand Londoners imitating a Geordie "Oh oh oh"...

"It shouldn't be exceptional for a band to be tight," argues Barry, back in the dressing room. "It should not be exceptional for a band to be able to play their instruments. Professional musicians should be able to play. And unfortunately it is exceptional when you see a band. And it's like 'Ooh they're really good'."

"He can play the guitar well!" laughs Jaff in mock-surprise.

"Yeah, no shit they're really good, they're getting paid enough! Know what I mean? Everyone should be good." Artrocker is sensing another self-righteous moment on its way - ah yes here it comes... "There's so many shambolic bands - you wanna say stop getting pissed before you play, stop staying out all night, frigging get some sleep, have some rehearsals. Smoking weed in rehearsals isn't going to help. If you take it seriously you can enjoy it when you play live. And everyone can enjoy it."

The man's got a point - but by God it's a terrifying thing to behold.

Matt Cartmell