The Black Kids are Alright

If you haven't heard, the music industry is on its knees. Major labels EMI and Warner had a disastrous 2007, with the former's share price dropping 72% from 2005 and the latter culling its hefty infrastructure by 1,800 staff and 400 artists, (a move which may provide a considerable upshot if Robbie Williams carries out his threat to strike), while a number of smaller labels have had no option but to fold. And who gets the blame for this sorry state of affairs? Yes, you've guessed it - you.

According to a recent governmental report, there's an estimated 6 million illegal downloaders in the UK. If each of these, let's call them superhighway pilferers, paid the high-street price of £15 for just one album every year it would equate to annual takings of £90 million: a not-so-insignificant sum that's no doubt multiplied many times over. Some say this is merely a balance redress of industry-fixed inequalities that have seen consumers fleeced to their last penny for years. Yet, despite this weighty argument, one thing is clear: change has got to come and it has to come quick.

The strange thing is that the seeds of this change have already been sewn; but not by the labels. Nope, it's by the artists themselves - with bands like Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and The Charlatans bypassing traditional methods in order to distribute directly to fans while generating a rainforest of positive press. Such established behemoths may have little to lose but these innovative techniques are beginning to percolate into the mindsets of today's young pups – none more so than Florida born pop-cooers Black Kids.

The group's ebullient debut EP, The Wizard of Ahhhs, was released for free via the band's website last year to a blizzard of praise and when The Skinny catches up with founding members Reggie Youngblood, Owen Holmes and Kevin Snow, it finds the trio in bullish mood about the industry's current plight.

"I think one of the main reasons downloading is rampant is because the music industry has let a lot of shit slide by on to the public," claims front man Reggie. "I used to be an avid record buyer - I'd even get records that I didn't know the slightest thing about - but if you've been burned a couple of times you just think: 'Fuck, I'll download it to see what it's like.' I'm not going to get put out if people download our record as I expect we'll make our money out of live shows in the future."

With CD sales on the slide and bands learning to survive on ticket sales and merchandising instead, it's an approach that will no doubt see Black Kids flourish in the future but, without the pre-release hype generated by a label, wasn't it a daring move for such a fledgling group to undertake?

"To us it seemed really obvious – it should be the only stance young bands take," says drummer Kevin. "Typically people don't know new bands and aren't really all that interested. We just thought it would be the best way to get our music out there and get people sharing it with each other. I think in future we'll still try and get freebies out but we need to pay the bills and I guess that's what it comes down to really."

Now signed to Almost Gold recordings, the band – who started out as a faith-based act before, as Reggie puts it, "over-compensating by trying to be in a very cool band" - have been steadily laying down tracks for their debut long-player with ex-Suede guitarist-cum-producer Bernard Butler. So how did it feel to work with such an esteemed (yet notoriously difficult) luminary? "Oh he was a total sweetheart," chuckles bassist Owen before Reggie teasingly chips in: "Yeah, only if you don't mind profanity and him groping and harassing you. If you can get by those things and get it into your head that it's for the good of the band that he's copping a feel then you're fine. The girls are safe though – not sure why that is."

Despite Butler's wandering hands, it's easy to see why Black Kids appeal to him: there's an effeminate slenderness to perky pop jaunts like Hurricane Jane and Hit The Heartbreaks. Reggie, however, is eager to stress there's more than just one factor at work in their doe-eyed arrangements: "In every previous group we were modelling ourselves after something else but now every musical influence we've listened to since we were children has been included - we've not left anything out. Everything from New Edition to bullshit Hair-Rock with a little Hip-Hop has been stirred into the mix. Basically we're raping and pillaging everything we can get our hands on to make something new."

The music industry may be undergoing a rapid transformation but it's reassuring to know that some things will never, ever change.