Youthmovies: "Definitely not Enya"

For every Liam Gallagher or Paul McCartney, there's a Tony McCarroll or Pete Best. Bands move and change, sometimes they explode, but quite often there's a teary eyed misfit left behind. A cast-out whom, through poor foresight or just a plain lack of talent misses out on their shot at the big-time, their only consolation being the twelve pieces of silver offered by scandal-hungry Fleet Street hacks aiming to stain the limelight that follows their old bandmates everywhere. As the media stampede following Foals gains momentum going into spring, it would be easy for Andrew Mears of Youthmovies to take a well-aimed swipe at the band he was instrumental in putting together. But as The Skinny caught up with him on the eve of the release of the band's debut LP Good Nature, the mould of scorned companion doesn't fit. Revenge? There couldn't be anything further from his mind.

"I always said that if something big happened to Foals then I would have to leave because Youthmovies were my main thing. I could never have expected that things would have gone so well for them, but I'm glad it has." The friendship forged when Mears allowed Foals lead singer Yannis Phillipakkis use of his garage as practice space remains, but Mears' loyalty to "where his heart lay" was unflinching and it looks set to be rewarded.

Billed from some quarters as a "band's band" (partly due to guitarist Al English being behind Try Harder Records but also down to their influence on bands like ¡Forward Russia!), now could be the time for Youthmovies to steal some headlines of their own. Mears, though, possesses a level-headedness that comes with five years of incessant touring and scraping together enough cash to spend a couple of days in the studio.

"None of us really hold out any delusions that we'll be an NME front cover starlet at any point. I think we're a bit too stuck in our ways to do anything like that now. The thing that's most important to us is longevity and being able to stay at a certain level. We don't have any aspirations to be big stars or anything."

After forming at university in a "pisswater town" (High Wycombe) in 2003, Youthmovies are garnering a reputation as one of the most exciting bands in the UK. But as we speak Mears finds himself deliberating whether to turn on the TV or the electric heater. "We're still scraping the pennies together, but our time's a little more occupied now!" In a moment of cost-effective lucidity no doubt picked up from those days in High Wycombe, he opts to clamber up beside the box, hoping there's a little warmth emitting from the screen.

The band's time there may not have been academically fruitful, but a communal disdain for the place proved inspirational. As such, Youthmovies weren't quite borne out of a mutual love for music or any particular 'scene'. "Basically it was so fucking boring there. That's why we started the band in the first place. I'm not Enya or anything ," he's quick to point out, "I do listen to other people's music [the Irish ambient froth 'artist' famously doesn't listen to other people's tunes - ed]. But I'm like a musical pariah. It just sounds stupid if I start naming bands because none of them really come across in the music."

From this initial boredom has grown a monster of a sound, one evidently difficult to classify, even for the band itself. "I'm a little bit reluctant to do that, because then we'll be stuck with it. I think we're the result of five people who are enthusiastic about our music and don't really talk about our influences to each other and end up with a big mess." The Skinny suggests 'organised chaos' may be less harsh terminology. Mears concurs and continues, "A lot of the time we do things because we think it's funny. Some people would look at it as meaning we can't write songs, but I guess we look at it as though we have a different take on comedy."

Alas, their refusal to be pigeonholed has not stopped every man and his rag from trying. Despite coming a year too late for the nu-rave movement, Youthmovies have been the victims of some brutal taxonomy. "God we've had the lot," an exasperated puff of his cheeks audible down the phone. "'Hop prog,' that was a strange one, but slightly more palatable than 'post rock'. The worst one I think we've been called is 'emo-jazz'. 'Comedy-Emo-Jazz from Oxford, definitely not Enya.' There's your headline," he laughs. "But you can't write that, I'll be killed!" Now where's that sense of humour?