When The Ordinary Boys played at the Students’ Union, The Edge went along to talk to their front man Preston about the USA, black sheep and tattoos...

Apparently your tour bus arrived quite early today, what have you done with your time in Southampton? I took the train here so arrived at 4pm. I had a day off, so wanted to spend as much time in my flat as possible. Also this Uni is quite self-contained. I always feel a bit intimidated walking around a uni because every one is clever. You walk past people and they are having really heated political debates, then we turn up and play the fruit machines.

You recently played a gig in New York. How do shows over there compare to over here? Obviously it’s better over here. It’s weird playing in America. Our last album was quite sarcastic and I am not sure how well that was perceived over there. For example our song ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ people in America took at face value and thought we were rowdy lads. They didn’t pick up on the subtleties. We are not one of those bands who want to ‘crack’ America. If they want us, they can have us. Too many bands go over there with a business plan. That is everything we are against.

Explain the art work on your record sleeves? For the first album we had a black sheep, representing the ethos of rock and roll, but put against a baby blue background. It backfired as everyone says "oh, I love that dog on your album" or "I like the little cow, how cute!" The last album cover we wanted to be really bold and like a 60s reggae record.

What was it like to launch ‘Virgin Radio Extreme’? It was s**t. I told them there was going to be a power failure during the gig, and there was. One thing I can say is that I am always right. I flipped out and smashed up my guitar. When some people smash guitars they then shout "f**king rock and roll!" But I just felt really embarrassed. We went back on and did the gig anyway.

Name a new band you think will make it big. I said it about the Kaiser Chiefs when they supported us and now I am going to say it about Bedouin Soundclash, the support band for tonight. I am good at these things, it’s a sixth sense.

As a band, did you ever feel at a disadvantage not coming from a big city? Coming from Worthing made us the band we are today. Everyone looks to London as this exciting place of opportunity, people move there, realise its s**t, and move back home to where they started in the first place. I live in Brighton now. It is exactly right, small enough so everyone knows each other, unpretentious and exciting. London just shatters everybody’s dreams.

Do any of you have side projects? If you have got the energy to do a side project you are not working hard enough for your band, so no.

Apparently you are all big into tattoos? We have all got the Ordinary Boys logo tattoos. James has got a massive one. Loads of people have them. I get people coming up to me and saying "check this out". People from all over the world have them, Japan, America, everywhere. I love it.

How do you decide which songs go on the play list and which you are going to do as an encore? There is a song we called ‘I Made Someone Cry’ that appeared on the record as ‘How Do You Sleep’ because the record company f**ked up. It’s a heartfelt song, it takes it out of me. If the crowd is s**t I won’t play it. ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ is always in the encore because that was our smash hit at number 16 in the charts. We save our favourites till the end. We try to add a bit of narrative to the set.

Are you interested in chart success? It’s easy to say your are not interested when you have had no success, but I am going to say it anyway, I am not interested. We have been unlucky. For example, they released ‘Week In Week Out’ on a bank holiday. It’s all b****cks and nothing to do with the songs. Its all to do with back-scratching, planning and luck. But I do think you have to push yourselves as a band, or else you stagnate.

How do you pick what gets put as a B-side? Its just stuff that didn’t come up when we were recording the album. ‘Little Bubble’, and ‘Nip it in the Bud’ were both B-sides, but could have been singles. I am really up for doing a B-sides album. Hopefully it will be out at a similar time to our next album. A lot of people just get someone to re-mix their songs, or do a live version for their B-sides. That is just cheating people.

Do you ever do covers? We have done Stevie Wonder, The Ramones, The Kinks, The Ruts and a Phil Spector song. We are going to do a Buzzcocks cover tonight. Most of our crowd are a similar age to us, around twenty. You do get a few older people who were well into punk so we want to throw in a few things for them. It is cool that they come. However, if I see someone with a t-shirt with another band on it in our crowd I get really jealous. I hate it. It’s as if your girlfriend has cheated on you.

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