Why the Kids are happy to be helped

May 9 2008 by Gavin Allen, Western Mail

They have been given the backing of Welsh music’s heavyweights Lostprophets and Funeral For A Friend. But as Gavin Allen finds out, Kids In Glass Houses haven’t needed anyone’s help.... until now that is

IN an acoustically-sound rehearsal room, the noise is unmistakable. It’s laughter; raucous and infectious.

The five members of Kids in Glass Houses are rocking on their little chairs, rocking out of the unnatural line in which they were placed for the benefit our video camera.

“There it is, as promised on camera,” says bassist Andrew Shay, zig-zagging his best pointing between vocalist Aled Phillips’ face and the camera lens.

Four of the five that comprise Kids In Glass Houses have tattoos of the band’s flamingo logo somewhere on their body – Phillips, who designed the logo, is the exception.

When jokingly asked when he was actually going to commit to the band by getting his tattoo done, he deadpanned:“If the album goes gold I’ll do it.”

The album in question is Smart Casual, the first offering of the four-album deal the band signed with Roadrunner Records, making them label mates with the likes of Biffy Clyro, Megadeath and The Wombats.

I met the band at their rehearsal space in a unit on a Cardiff industrial estate, the entrance to which is currently undergoing redevelopment and looks like a bomb has struck it; but it’s likely they won’t be here for long.

If you need a sign of their increasing success, that flamingo logo will soon be phased out for a new line in merchandising, reveals Philips.

The hangdog singer fields most of the questions, Iain Mahanty chips in liberally while the others are more reticent speakers, although Shay sticks his oar in when his hangover allows.

Like the best bands – in this case its members are from different parts of the South Wales Valleys – they are a tight unit, and that’s partly because of the way they have manoeuvred themselves into this position.

When I interviewed Phillips last August he was still preaching the bible of independence, revealing that they had turned down five record deals from majors to indies. Under their own steam they had sold more than 1,500 copies of their 2006 breakthrough EP/demo, E-Pocalypse! and run their own headline tours; even in radio and TV the Kids were doing it for themselves.

“We got to a point,” explains Phillips, “where we had to say we can either do this as a sideline, and keep half-a****** it, or we can do it properly, so we decided to do it properly.”

Shay’s head clears momentarily for him to quip: “It also gave us all the chance to drop out of university.”

Between them the lads had began or abandoned courses in illustration, business and physics; guitarist Joel Fisher had “done nothing” while drummer Phil Jenkins, amusingly, dropped out of a course in popular music to do it for real.

So why sign a deal now?

“We had taken things as far as we could on our own and we didn’t have the expertise to take it to the next level,” says Phillips. Mahanty nods: “We are lucky with Roadrunner because they let us keep pretty much all control over what we do as a band. We are self sufficient. They are there for guidance, to push us closer to the level we want to be.”

The template for the kind of success they can achieve has been laid before them by Lostprophets, who invited the band to support them in front of a packed CIA in summer 2006 and have been longtime supporters of the band.

“They have been awesome,” says Fisher in a rare vocal sortie.

“They realise they are in a position to help up-and-coming bands and they use that as best they can. Funeral For A Friend have been good to us too.”

The band admit that in their early days they were probably guilty of aping Lostprophets but since then their style has changed, incorporating more indie-pop influences to create the kind of hook-laden rock-pop that defines their single Give Me What I Want.

“In a way we have kind of gone backwards,” says a still-foggy Shay. “As kids we used to listen to Britpop but as you get into music you find more accomplished stuff. But we seem to have gone back to things that formed our love for music, stuff like Pulp and Blur.”

That sound has already seen them perform at the Reading Festival last year – which they will do again this year along with a few other major festival dates – earn airplay on Radio 1 from Jo Whiley and Zane Lowe and win a Kerrang! award.

Their potential and ambition are unchecked but their reality is intact. “I don’t know where we are as a band at the moment because we have been away from touring for a while,” says Phillips, as the band prepares to launch their biggest headline tour to date in Middlesbrough a week on Wednesday.

“This tour is a kind of a litmus test. I don’t want a massive change in what we are doing but if our shows were to double in size by the end of the year, to about 800 people, I guess that would be realistic.”

Having not learned the lesson from his earlier tattoo promise, he looks at the camera wearily again.

“But I’d hate to say that and end up playing to no-one.”

Smart Casual is out on Roadrunner Records on Monday, May 26.