DURING an interview with the Bolton Evening News, Kinesis frontman, Conor announced "we're not prepared to sit around and p*** our lives up against the wall."

And they haven't. Neil, aged 17 and drummer with the band, says: "The past year has been mad. We've been so busy and, since we finished school last summer, doing nothing but touring and playing music."

In 2002 the band, who cite Sonic Youth and The Pixies as inspiration, landed a six-figure publishing deal with Ministry of Sound and were the first rock band to put pen to paper with the London-based club's own label.

Now Neil says the lads are "really excited" about playing In The City and hope they can follow in the footsteps of other ITC unsigned successes.

"Muse, Placebo and Oasis were all unsigned when they played In The City," says Neil. "So were Elbow from Bury, so -- who knows -- it might be lucky for us."

Kinesis are Conor, 17, guitar; Michael, 18, vocals; Tom, 19, bass and Neil, 18, drums. They play The King's Arms, Salford on Sunday, September 14.

Nicola Mostyn caught up with Kinesis guitarist Conor McGloin.

A lot of your songs are politically inclined. What do you think about bands who don't use music as a forum?

I think that it is a separate entity to what we are doing. Coming from somewhere like we do, a northern town, to miss out politics, well, you'd be lying to yourself. I think anyone from small towns can relate to what we are talking about. But, you know there is absolutely nothing wrong with writing about personal subject matter. Jeff Buckley did it brilliantly. There are a lot of good bands that do that.

Who writes the lyrics?

Michael, Tom and myself write the lyrics. A lot of the time we aren't obsessed with politics but with cultural aspects like literature and film. I think we sort of devoured any inspiration we could. We want to make people question what they're doing rather than preaching at them and giving them a set of answers. We're trying to create a set of questions and they can find their own answers.

You've been quite vocal about the problem of growing up in a town. Do you think that sometimes the attitudes of a small town can fuel talent as well as suppress it?

Well, it's definitely something to react against, but then some people have cultural instincts but because they're not in a band they have no way of getting out there. In London there are astronomically high prices and it is so business centred, but so multicultural. Nobody looks twice at the Goth walking down the street, or the punk, everyone kind of fits in, where as in any town it is like you are different.

Where do you see yourselves next?

We'd like to get a really good support tour again and then do the festivals. I think we're going to play reading and Leeds.

Have you got a fan base from Bolton?

Yeah, we seem to attract quite obsessive fans from all over. We did a Meet the Fans thing and someone came up from London just to see us. We get a lot of letters from people saying - well quite freaky letters. I've had people turn up at my door aswell. Luckily I wasn't in.

Do you think that's because you put a lot into your lyrics so people think they know you?

Yeah, I can completely appreciate it because I'm quite an obsessive person myself, I was always really obsessive with bands. It's strange, though. There was this girl at a gig in Sheffield who said she'd slit her wrists if I went, and I was like, I've got to go, you know, I don't like it in Sheffield. What can you do?

I suppose the more people that hear of you, the more likely it is you'll get those kind of reactions.

Yeah, well, I think people either completely love us or completely hate us, and that's how we'd rather have it, than have a lot of people who just think we're okay.