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The town of Reading is quite obviously well-known because of the legendary Reading Festival. However, its home-grown bands and artists, such as The Cooper Temple Clause, Does It Offend You, Yeah? and Pete & The Pirates are far from legendary and have all had varying degrees of success.

Kill The Arcade, however, are a Reading-based band that are definitely on the right track to well-deserved success. Having released their second EP, 'An Impostor In The Family', in October 2007 and toured with bands such as Spitalfield, Men, Women and Children and rising stars You Me At Six, the five-piece are stirring up a storm and winning over fans at all of their shows.

Before their final night supporting Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Lee Newell and Frank Colucci sat down with Organised-Sound to discuss the debut album, musical inspirations and what the future holds for the fast-rising quintet. So continue reading to find out more about your new favourite British band...or at least mine.

OS: First of all, how did you come up with the name Kill The Arcade?
Lee Newell [Vocals]: The only answer I ever give to this is that me and Dan [Kingham – Guitar] used to go to college together and on the way we used to see this massive building called the Brunel Arcade. We were just going to call our selves The Arcade, but there was The Arcade Fire and everything, so we just added another word. Pretty random.

OS: What made you want to be in a band?
Lee: I never really specifically wanted to be in a band. Me and Dan would just play music together. I don't know about the other guys, but they were in a band before. But it was just more about a bit of an escape really, playing music. Something to do. I sort of fell in love with music really and wanted to carry it on and make a career out of it.

OS: When did the current line-up of Kill The Arcade form?
Lee: Pretty much about a year ago this month.
Frank Colucci [Drums]: Today.
Lee: Yeah. A year ago today! It sounds better...

OS: So how did you get together? Lee and Dan were at school together...
Lee: Yeah, we were at school together. We used to play in rubbish bands and then we started one and we did alright on a local level. Frank, Chris [Davidson – Bass] and Sam [Jackson – Guitar] were also in a band that did alright on a local level as well. Both bands split up and we just got together.

OS: You've been compared to Thursday and Taking Back Sunday. How would you describe your sound?
Lee: Umm... maybe on the old CD, certainly....Like the EP, I can see why people would...
Frank: We always get compared to Taking Back Sunday. I really don't think we sound like them.
Lee: None of us are massive Taking Back Sunday fans at all.
Frank: I never listen to them.
Lee: I'm quite a big Thursday fan. But I don't think we sound much like them at all.

OS: A review I read said it was because of your backing vocals.
Lee: Yeah, I know. I've read that review as well and I thought it was a bit...I mean, it's cool, and they're good bands, successful bands.

OS: What can someone who's never been to one of your shows expect?
Lee: That's tough... Honest music. Just trying to be honest and enjoying ourselves really. Nothing pretentious or anything. Just a good old bit of honest rock.

OS: Your album's done, but when are you going to release it? Because you don't have a label do you?
Lee: We're unsigned. We left our old label and we're talking to other ones at the moment. It's probably not going to be until September, maybe October, before it's released.

OS: Have you thought about maybe starting your own label or something?
Lee: Yeah, we've thought about it. We're going to release the single on our own, which will be out in July. We don't want to release the album on our own because we just couldn't do it.

OS: How did you find recording the album?
Lee: It was the best thing of my life. I just had the best time. We got to go to this massive studio to do some of it, which was an experience in itself. It wasn't stressful at all actually. It went really well. We were really lucky with the people we were working with. Couldn't be happier with it, honestly.

OS: How long did it take to record?
Lee: All in all, from day one of setting drums up to the final master, probably about four weeks.

OS: How many songs did you write, and how many did you choose for the final album?
Lee: There's 11 songs on the album. And there's an instrumental as well, which is a hidden track.
Frank: We wrote about 12, 13 songs.
Lee: We never really finished the other ones. We didn't really like them.
Frank: The songs that we did choose to put on are not the first versions of those songs. They're like the third altered versions. Every song has changed since we first wrote it.

OS: Will songs from the EP be on the album?
Lee: No. There's none.
Frank: It's all new songs.

OS: The EP was also concept-based wasn't it?
Lee: Yeah, there's none of that. It's much more about personal experiences in the band, or me, about my family. It's dealing with other things rather than making up a story.

[At this point Frank is whisked off to sound check]

OS: What's your favourite track on the album?
Lee: That's tough. Probably... there's a song, which is the second song, called 'Bon Voyage', which is about my dad. It just came really easily that song. I remember writing the lyrics. Sometimes it takes ages to do. I really try and spend as much time as I can on lyrics because I don't play guitar or anything, so that's my role and I want to do it properly. And it was really easy to do for that. It just came straight out and the song feels really natural. It's probably one of the strongest songs on the album I think.

OS: On Wednesday you're posting new tour dates, a new video and new music on MySpace. Who are you playing with on the tour dates?
Lee: We are touring with You Me At Six in June and then we go to Ireland for a couple of days with this band called Steer Clear. I think they're close to selling out already. We've never been to Ireland, so we're really excited about that. We've got a headline show in London at the Barfly on the 28th June, and then we're touring for three weeks with Furthest Drive Home. They're pretty good. They're doing well.

OS: Will it be songs from the album that you're adding to MySpace?
Lee: Yeah, we're posting a new video up. We shot a new video. I'm seeing the final edit of that tomorrow, which I'm quite excited about.

OS: So what's the next single going to be?
Lee: That's 'Bon Voyage'. So I got my own way with that one.

OS: How has it been touring with Red Jumpsuit Apparatus?
Lee: It's been great! It's one of my favourite tours so far, because every night's been sold out. We've had the opportunity to play in front of hundreds and hundreds of people. They're really nice, really genuine and care a lot about their music. Same with Sherwood as well. They're really nice guys. Nothing but nice things to say really.

OS: And you've also toured with Spitalfield and Men, Women and Children.
Lee: Yeah, playing with Spitalfield was amazing. When I was growing up they were one of my favourite bands. That was more of a personal thing, rather than 'good for our band'. Not that many people were at the shows, but it was still amazing.

OS: The London show was sold out though wasn't it?
Lee: Yeah, it was, but we were on quite early, so we only played to a half packed room or something. But it was still fun. I wouldn't change it.

OS: You said you're going to Ireland. Have you toured abroad anywhere else?
Lee: No, that'll be the first time we'll have been on a plane or anything together. The furthest we've been is Aberdeen or something.

OS: So when do you think you'll maybe tour Europe or somewhere else?
Lee: We're just talking to a Japanese label at the moment about maybe going over there by the end of the year, so maybe... I've never been to Japan, so I'd love to go there. But it depends really. They're quite positive about the album, so it's just a matter of pushing it.

OS: What's the best show you've ever played?
Lee: Best show I've ever played... God, I'm not sure really... We played the Barfly with The Secret Handshake last year. That was oversold by 80 people. It was just crazy, crowd-surfers and stuff. I've never really experienced that before, and having all those people in front of you, that really do give a shit as well, is really cool. It wasn't massive, there wasn't that many people there...about 300 people... which is quite a lot really, but it wasn't like 10,000 people. That was probably my favourite.

OS: And what about the worst show? If there have been any...
Lee: So many. The worst one that I could think of recently was when we played Norwich at this place called the Queen Charlotte, which is quite a cool venue. Two people turned up...

OS: No way.
Lee: That was pretty good.

OS: Was it a headline? Or were you supporting someone?
Lee: It was a headline one. But, the thing is, we found out when we got there that the venue had been closed for like two weeks. So, everyone thought it was closed. People had been calling about the show, but no one came. We played to two people.

OS: What was that like?
Lee: We played two songs and just fucked around, did covers. We're really good friends with this band called Jaimison and they played there as well, so we just messed around and did a Limp Bizkit cover... it was quite funny.

OS: Who's the best band you've toured with?
Lee: In terms of musical ability, Men, Women and Children were unreal. They're all so good on their instruments, and to play with Todd, who used to be in Glassjaw as well, and to meet him was a bit of a thing for me. Musically, those guys. But I love just touring with anyone really, as long as they're in it for the right reasons and all that.

OS: Who are your influences and favourite bands and artists?
Lee: They've changed a lot, even since a year ago. So right now, massive influences... The Smiths are a huge one. The Get Up Kids are a big band for me. Saves The Day and Weezer, I love them. There's other stuff like REM – love them. Just anything really. I love watching throwaway pop bands, pop punk bands, stuff like that. They're quite good. But, yeah, I'd say The Smiths are a massive one.

OS: If there was any band or artist, alive or dead that you could work with, who would you choose?
Lee: Probably Joe Strummer from The Clash. He was just really influential and a really weird person. I'd just want to meet him. Or maybe David Bowie. I'm just not worthy of him. What's the point in playing music when he's done everything ten times better than I ever will?

OS: But just imagine working with him.
Lee: Yeah, it'd be crazy, just to see how his mind works. And Morrissey too.

OS: What do you think of the current British music scene?
Lee: To me there's two different ones. There's bands like You Me At Six, Tonight Is Goodbye and all of those bands, which we get grouped with, which is fine because we sort of grew up together I guess. And there's bands like Mystery Jets and those sort of bands, on a much bigger level, but sort of NME bands.

OS: Yeah, Mystery Jets are one of my favourite bands and they're just so different.
Lee: Yeah, exactly. They're English and they're being themselves. I think it is quite strong. Things have changed. Tonight Is Goodbye have put some new music up actually, and it's a lot more English and I think they're doing the right thing. It's good.

OS: Yeah, like when you sing, you actually sing with an English accent.
Lee: Yeah, but I didn't use to. But then I thought 'I am English so I might as well stop putting on an accent.'

OS: What do you hope to achieve as a band by the end of 2008?
Lee: Have the album out by the end of the year, shit loads more touring, and just open more doors and try and get our name out there a bit more, be that through magazines or TV, or whatever. Just really tour. I just love playing.

OS: What would you like to achieve years into your career?
Lee: I'd like to have a long career and just be respected as a good band. Try and get that respect off people, which is quite hard now because there are so many bands. I'm just one of a million people saying the same thing.

You can catch Kill The Arcade on tour with You Me At Six later this month!

Also, a huge thank you goes out to Jack Margerison, who provided us with several photos for the interview. Check out his other work at his myspace.