Idlewild - that rare Scottish band

Roddy Woomble (centre) says Idlewild had to create their own scene in Edinburgh.

Roddy Woomble is envious of Franz Ferdinand. His band, Idlewild, have been around for 10 years and five albums, but haven't met with the success of their fellow Scotsmen.

"I'm not going to lie about it, I'd love to sell loads of records," says Woomble in a well-spoken Edinburgh accent. "The thing about Franz Ferdinand, it's the liberty they've been given by having sold that number of records, [that's] the thing I'm, I wouldn't say jealous of, but certainly envy slightly."

But really, Idlewild, who make a quick stop in Auckland this week, have only themselves to blame. They will go and sound like a different band from album to album.

"Our band, we have never had a song or a sound that has defined us which is why, after our fifth album, we'll still be able to be completely different sounding and people will still accept it as Idlewild. Whereas, a band like Franz Ferdinand, and they're a bad example because I do really think they're going to change into something quite interesting, but hypothetically a band that are known for specifically one song, or one record, to veer away from that is quite dangerous really - well, commercially anyway.

"Then again, success is judged purely by the individual. I mean, I felt successful the first time we filled out a club," he laughs.

That first happened back in Edinburgh in the mid 90s. Woomble was a young photography student whose favourite records were punk rock. Even though he didn't know what he was doing he started a band with guitarist Rod Jones, drummer Colin Newton and first bass player Phil Scanlon.

"There was nothing happening in Edinburgh and we kind of made things happen. We found this shithole pub and turned it into this place where we could play every week and all these other local bands started coming out of the woodwork. We created a scene in Edinburgh, because Glasgow is the music city in Scotland."

Glasgow is where Franz Ferdinand, and bands like Mogwai, Belle and Sebastian, and Teenage Fanclub are from. "But Edinburgh had nothing," says Woomble "and we put it on the map."

Idlewild's early releases, like mini album Captain and debut full-length Hope Is Important, were noisy and chaotic, and their riotous and shambolic live shows earned them a good name and a healthy following.

Their 2000 release, 100 Broken Windows, was the record that announced Idlewild's arrival and its more mature sound brought predictions of bigger things for the band.

Woomble describes100 Broken Windows as a "brick of an album, and bombastic in its attempts to be like a stadium filler". But, more importantly, he says it's an album about the frustrations of living in small-town Scotland. "And that record, in Scotland particularly, became a calling point for all the young people."

However, it was their next album The Remote Part, with songs like American English and You Held the World In Your Arms, that was their most successful. But it was a torrid time for the band. Following a punch-up after a gig in Amsterdam they kicked out then bass player Bob Fairfoull. "That was the best thing that could have happened to the band, because it was just going wrong - personally, musically, and everything," says Woomble.

Their latest album, Warnings/Promises, released in April, is the first with new, Guinness-loving bass player Gavin Fox and second guitarist Allan Stewart.

It is a simple album compared with their previous ones. "Most bands tend to get more complicated as they go on because they want to challenge themselves even more. But I think we found it more of a challenge to strip things back and really let the music breathe. We wanted to make everyone heard on it and the only way to do that was to strip it back."

Earlier this year the band performed a string of acoustic gigs - where the band got as heinously drunk as the audiences, by the sounds - which highlighted the direction Warnings/Promises was going to take. But, warns Woomble, chaos and discord are never far away, especially live.

"That will never die," he says, referring to songs like I Want a Warning and Too Long Awake.

"[But] this record is quite a departure for us, and I hate to use the word mellow, but we're relaxing into our roles as songwriters. We got criticised for that because there's not a brashness that the other records had, but when we play live there's always that chaotic element because we're punk-rock kids essentially.

"All these bands like Coldplay and Starsailor, good bands all of them, they play their songs really well, but there's never any chaos theory to it; there's never anything that goes wrong."

Oh Idlewild, you do make it hard on yourselves. But at least it keeps it interesting.

LOWDOWN

WHO: Idlewild

FORMED: 1995, Edinburgh, Scotland

LINE UP: Roddy Woomble (vocals), Gavin Fox (bass), Colin Newton (drums), Rod Jones (guitar) and Allan Stewart (guitar)

WHERE & WHEN: Transmission Room, Mayoral Dr, Auckland, Friday June 3

PAST ALBUMS: Captain (1998); Hope Is Important (1999); 100 Broken Windows (2000); The Remote Part (2002)

NEW ALBUM: Warnings/Promises, out now