So, I enter Rock City in search of the answers. The band meanwhile, are still down the pub. A sensible choice really. The interview takes place in what must be the narrowest room known to man. Sofa’s line the wall, and there’s barely a foot of legspace to the other wall. So basically, I’m at one end of the couple of sofa’s. Mark is sat on the table, at the other end of the room is bassist Tom, then there’s vocalist Anet and finally, sat next to me is guitarist Nick. The tape machine is placed halfway. So I hope it’s picked everything up. Guess we’ll soon find out huh?

It seems the band hasn’t been round long, the only stuff I know is what Sean at Organ has put out. So it appears you’ve come out of nowhere, so do you want to do the boringly brief history of the band?

"Nick and Anet had been looking for members for the band for quite a while" starts the bassist "I’d been in a few bands before that, and had just finished with one 6 months before. Mark was in a band in Belfast. Then I saw the advert in Melody Maker, phoned up, did one rehersal, and the same with Mark about 2 months later. 3 months later we did our first gig at the Red Eye on January 9th where we met our manager Carol (I think, may be Carl?). Then we got a single out in the early summer on Org which got some airplay on Xfm, gigging all the time." "He said brief Tom" chides Nick. "I can’t remember it all" he retorts. "Just up to the Org single" Anet tells him.

Do you think there’s any reason why you were able to get a buzz going so quickly? Any tips that you could pass on.

"Well it was a surprise to us" claims Nick, "the band came together after quite a while of searching for the other half. So when it did we really worked hard on it and kept our eyes pinned on what we wanted to do because it felt natural anyway. So the most difficult part was dealt with by finding each other. The rest of it was just pure gigging and rehersal and good songs and not restricting each other, but letting each other do what we wanted to do. And when that came to a point which wasn’t quite perfect, we kind of went like this to each other ‘let’s do a gig, let’s do a gig’. And from the first gig it was really good. We thought the first one would be like testing the water, but it worked out better than we thought." Why? "I think the energy was right" reckons Mark. "The energy was right" agrees Anet, "but I think there is a bit of luck involved. Number 1 I think is to work as hard as you fucking can, it’s like no lazing about, just work really hard, and then having a good manager helps. If there’s anything in this that is a tip, it’s to get a good manager because it means that you can concentrate on the music mainly and still help round a bit. But having a good manager is important. And then getting the right musicians as well, and you’ve got to want it" she concludes. The drummer agrees. "So many bands it’s just like me and Tom were both working, and we had the choice of going to work or go on to do this. And so many bands choose work. Now I know you’ve got to pay your bills and stuff, but I’m amazed at how many bands just don’t do it." "Find a way" opines Anet to the issue of work and bill payment. "We were trying to find ways of earning a bit of money and fitting in rehersals like crazy. Mark would be up at 6 in the morning and we’d be doing a headline gig at 11 in the evening" continues the bassist. "Also don’t expect a great deal, don’t expect to be handed a deal. Just get on with it because you can still get records put out without one. I think that kind of thinking of ‘oh we need a deal’ will actually stop some bands from getting successful. Just get on with what you want to do musically and get out there and get a crowd going, and put out records. The rest will follow."

I was also going to ask if you thought doing the Org single, where it’s limit to 1000 copies was a benefit to the band.

"A massive benefit" is the general consensus of the entire band. "People like Sean at Org are few and far between, and that single did a hell of a lot for us" says Nick "it got us on to the radio as well."

Some people may look though and say "it’s only a 1000 copies".

"Yeah, but that’s all he’s going to put out, so you’ve got the choice of either doing 1000 or doing nothing" states the vocalist. "To our amazement a fan wave an Org cd at us the other night, and we haven’t even got a copy" says a surprised Tom. "They’re all gone" starts Anet, "but that’s luck you see, a bit like Xfm picked up on, Sean heard it on there, and that station doesn’t exist any more, we just caught the last 3 weeks of it, so our single got played a lot. And now it’s really difficult because there’s not many radion stations out there, at least not in London, where you can get underground music played. So we’ve been quite lucky".

Indeed, copies are rumoured to be changing hands for over £40 quid a time. I think it’s a great concept and series, a single per month, limited to 1000 copies. Something deemed as being so small actually can make a difference, and at the moment, Cay are living proof of that. It’s another example where sheer volume of sales doesn’t necessarily equate to quality. 1000 can mean as much or more than 1 million.

Talk turns to the "London scene" which is reputed to be fairly healthy at the moment. I don’t know, because I don’t live there. But Mark points out the Scotland is the same, and of course I throw in that Newport has been lauded as well. But there’s still that problem of getting recognised if you’re outside of these scenes. "If a bands got it happening, then the A&R will happen" reckons Nick, "I mean I’ve seen them travel all across the country". I guess the man knows more than me, or maybe I’m just a pessimist, because I remain unconvinced. "I think also that if you really believe in your band, and you’ll do anything for it, like if I lived in say Stockport or something and I heard that London is the place to be with your band, I’d actually move down to London because I really really want it. I wouldn’t say ‘oh for fucks sake these A&R’s not coming to Stockport, what am I going to do?’ Well move down there and try and get it there because you can’t wait for it to come to you."

Maybe that is the reality of the situation, but to me it still doesn’t make it right. I’ll stick with being naieve at the moment, as from what I can see going on here in Nottingham where I’m currently living, or over in Derby, or across the midlands in Birmingham, there’s more than enough reasons for A&R to shift their arse. Besides which, why should the rest of the country be cheated of having local bands. It all becomes lopsided if you shovel everything down to London. Ultimately you need local scenes to eventually encourage national tours by both UK and international bands.

You’re getting a lot of comparisons "to Hole yeah" complete the band wearily for me. All except Nick who is busy playing with some bubble wrap. Well, they’re a band I’ve never bothered listening to, along with Sonic Youth who they’ve also been compared with, but do you think the comparison is a hindrance.

"No it’s alright" reckons an unconvincing Anet. "You always get it don’t you. I’ve said it before, it’s some of our songs and not all of them, but some of them probably sound quite Nirvanaish and Hole sound like that as well, and because I’m a girl it’s an easy comparison to make. It’s lazy journalism, cos there’s a lot of holes in it."

Would you agree then with the Janes Addiction comparison?

"I haven’t listened to them much, maybe Mark or Tom could say". They can’t, and to be honest, it’s something that I really can’t hear in the music. But hey, more knowledgable people than myself have said it, so it must be true! "We’ve also been compared to some of Syd Barret’s stuff" reckons Nick. Something again I wouldn’t really know about.

Anet then goes on to ask what sort of music I listen to and cover in the zine. A list of names are reeled off, and that’s not them covering their ears in anguish in the picture. But the name Monkey Boy illicites a response. "Mmm Monkey Boy, whey" everyone goes. "They’re great" says Tom, "they’re mates of mine" is Anet’s response. The Monks have the Cay seal of approval.

One song I wanted to ask about, is Seven Schizos Sat on a Beach. The middle section I found hard to deal with. Up until then the EP had been 2 1/2 minute songs, speeding by, and on this there’s a similar pattern, followed by almost 5 minutes of basically instrumental noodling, which struck me as being a bit arty for arts sake.

"Marks responsible for a lot of that" Nick apportions blame. If of course blame is the right word, it all depends on your point of view with respect to the song. "The initial song I wrote quite a few years back now, and it was a 3 minute straightforward sort of punky grungy kind of song" says Anet, "and then there was a little bit of noise with the breaks was in there already. And then when Mark came to join the band he just went ‘well how about if I just do this’ and does this great big drum solo" she laughs. "No, he said why don’t we just do some stuff. I’ll do some things on the drums and you just do some stuff on guitar for a bit. And then Nick and I were like ‘oh fuck, what’re we going to do on the guitar, well ok, right, we’ll just do something’. So we ended up doing atmospheres and everything, and Mark just " she giggles again, "kept on drumming for like 4 or 5 minutes. It’s just really nice, we all really like it, because we can all just going into freefall and just do whatever the fuck we want." "There’s no set formula" adds Tom.

To me it just sounds like a rhythm section solo or instrumental.

"But it’s good. What I like about it is that Mark doesn’t just do straightforward 4/4 punk rock beats, there’s more to it and I think that it’s really interesting" say Anet. "But that session when we recorded it, I was really fucked up, been out all night, had 10 cups of coffee and played that song straight off. We didn’t know what we were going to play in that section, and we just played on and by the end of the end of it, we listen to the CD nowadays and it’s like ‘what?’ claims the bassist. The drummer that stands accused now puts in his defence. "That’s purely live". "And it’s one of the most interesting things for us, because if you just play punk rock songs, then it’s going to get boring for us" adds the singer.

Where does the line get drawn before self indulgence. I personally hate drums solos, bass solos, anything like that.

"I’m not into them myself" states Anet while Nick reckons that "It’s listening out for each other." Mark adds more "it’s having fun. Ok, we’re playing these punk songs, and now we’re going to play for us." "It’s also for the audience, because they love it" adds Anet "it’s just part of the song, just a bit different. We’re like that anyway, whatever comes out musically. We’ve got a song like Princes and Princesses which is a straightforward punk song, and then we’ve got Skool which is really really slow, atmospheric. On the actual album we’ve just recorded it’s got viola on it, and we wanted to do pianos as well. And then we’ve got a song like Dragonfly which is almost jazzy with really soft guitars. And I think that’s what we’re about musically. Whatever comes out we will do and it will fit into Cay. And I’m really glad it’s like that." "And also it means that when we go back to playing a hard dynamic track it affects us differently because we’v just brought it back down, so if you bring the dynamics right down, it hits you in a different way. Because if you just keep on pounding it just gets one dimensional" the bassist gets all musoy on me.

So how important is commercial success to the band?

"It just comes with whatever" drawls Nick, "it’s not important to us from the onset. We do what we do and some songs turn out a bit more radio friendly than others." "But it’s all natural, nothing’s contrived, if we get commercial success - great, if we don’t then we don’t. We would certainly not start changing ourselves" reckons Anet. Mark has his say, "We’re not twisted enough to deliberately rebel against it".

The band, as I said, are supporting 3 Colours Red, who it sounds are now undertaking the soundcheck, and Anet is receiving phone calls on the mobile, so I guess it’s time to bring things to a close. Just time to ask about the tour. To me at least, it seems a strange combination, maybe straining at crossing audiences which are deemed closer than they actually are. But how do the band feel it’s going.

"It’s an excellent tour" is Toms’ opinion. "It’s a great opportunity for us, and we’re different bands." "But we’re still in the same league" adds Anet before Tom continues. "When we rock you can see them enjoy it and I think for us to have that opportunity to play to as many people, I think it’s a brilliant opportunity. And to be honest with you, I don’t think we could’ve been matched better in a way." "It’s still only been a year for us and to come on tour with a band as solid as this, very professional and nice guys, it’s a great opportunity." "I know what you’re saying though" adds Anet, "if we were on a tour with say Sonic Youth we’d probably pull 200 fans in one night instead of maybe 50."

And with the band getting ready to rock at Rock City?!?, it’s time to take my leave. Of course, the album is now out. Personally I’m still unconvinced, but that’s just me. But maybe there’s a hint in the Cay story that bands can push their way through the shit. Yeah, some cynics might say that Cay play a style of music that currently appeals, straddling the indie and rock crowds, but hey, you can’t be a cynic all the time. Can you?