Barry Hyde’s blood does not yet run cold at the mention of Kate Bush – but he can imagine a day when it might.
“We’re still happy to play that song,” says The Futureheads frontman of their biggest hit, a breathless punk-pop cover of Bush’s ‘Hounds Of Love’.” But if, in three or four albums time, people are still coming up to me in the street shouting ‘oh oh oh'” – he croons the chorus – “then it is very possible that I will want to twat them.”
So, no,  The Futureheads aren’t bothered – not too bothered anyway – that most of you know them for just one song, a cover at that.
“Every band has one or two hits that they're known for,” interjects bassist Jaff Craig. ”You don’t get people asking Franz Ferdinand about ‘Van Tango’, do you?”
One might argue, I suggest, that, far from being indebted to Kate Bush, the opposite is true – the success of The Futureheads’ ‘Hounds Of Love’ seems to have given Ms Bush a leg-up. Would her comeback record last year have been so graciously received had The Futureheads not reminded us how great she sounded in her Kook Queen prime?
“Actually, she tried calling us to say she liked our version,” says Craig, who, in striped jumper and baggy sweats, is the only Futurehead not styled to within inches of his life. “She rang the studio where we were working and our manager forwarded the message – but then we deleted it by accident.”
The Futureheads are about to release their second LP, which is perhaps a surprise, given that, a year ago, the Sunderland four-piece were still touring the legs off their debut. While News And Tributes won’t shock fans, it undeniably marks a forward step from The Futureheads: in place of blasts of three chord punk the new record ruminates, in its own good time, over spirituality, politics and the Munich air disaster.
“Being in a band means you’re a bit detached from normality,” Hyde reflects. “It’s harder to write the observational stuff you used to do. With ‘News And Tributes’ (the Munich song), Ross[Millard, second guitarist] approached it as a formal exercise – could he sit down and put together a track about this event without it being trite? He brought it to us and we couldn’t believe what we were hearing –  it was profound but it rocked.”
Some critics have noted that, this time around, The Futureheads are writing fully realised songs and have largely jettisoned the thrash aesthetic of the first record.
“The thing about The Futureheads was that you could only listen to it in certain circumstances – it was loud and angry,” says Craig. “For this one, we were aiming for something with a wider range of moods. I wanted an album that you could put on at night, when you wanted to chill out with a book.”
The past 12 months have seen indie-pop arrive at a strange destination. We’ve had the Pete Doherty circus and witnessed the frontman of the Ordinary Boys become a Heat-sanctioned UK celebrity. Does this change what it means to be in a guitar band?
“Guitar music is a fad now, isn’t it?,” sighs Hyde. “People think that if you’re in a band you must want to be a celebrity. I don’t think that will last. Fashion will move on, and the bands left will be those in it for the long haul.”
The Futureheads don’t regard themselves as famous. In their home town, however, people have different opinions.
“When Sunderland got promoted to the Premiership, we got to play two songs in the centre of the pitch,” Hyde enthuses. “That was surreal on its own, but then the team’s two mascots, Samson and Delilah, started getting really close to us. Before I knew it, one of them – Samson I think – was up on stage, hugging me. I was being mobbed by a six-foot tall cat. That was pretty weird.”