NME ON BAND ARTICLE [February 1998]

Unleash the bats! For there Is an album currently available which goes by the eponymous title of '..And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead' - it features such choice lyrical excerpts as, "And l can feel your demon burning In me/Little chief, pull out your teeth and scream". And it was made in the American Midwest. Which means we are surely talking about macabre post-Marilyn 'Mazza' Manson musical frottages, yes? Nope.

"I don't think there was much logic behind the name, other than the fact that at the time it made us laugh a lot," admits Jason Reese. "But when we were coming up with band names we didn't have much concept of what kind of band we'd be."

Darned right he is, too. . And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead are in fact four young men (Jason, guitar and drums, Conrad Keely, guitar and drums, Kevin Allen, guitar and drums - kerazy guys! - and Neil Busch, bass guitar and keyboards) who make like Sonic Youth having a food fight with Afghan Whigs, ie fantastic and not goth-mungous at all.

Conrad and Jason met in high school in Hawaii. Then they left. Wasn't it a wrench?
"You can only leave Hawaii," they tut.
"Have you ever heard of island fever? There's not much of a nightlife..."

So the duo ended up in Olympia in America's vibrant Northwest, and witnessed Nirvana's early shows whilst feeling the cool vibes from Bikini Kill and Beat Happening. Then they got bored.
"It fell into a rut," they sigh. We saw people rotting away from the inside."

So they ended up In Austin, Texas, met Neil and Kevin ('They were the glue that bonded us together") and embarked upon a series of chaotic, confrontational live shows which saw them being banned from various venues.
"If you didn't put us in the correct context we could be seen as being rather violent," they say, thoughtfully.
Uh-huh. And your show consists of?
"Ummm-.. Random smashing of each other and everything else. Put it down to bountiful enthusiasm!"
Yummy! As yet, . ..AYWKUBTTOD have no plans to terrorise Camden, although they are vividly aware that, as Austin is surrounded by desert,
"Lots of good bands never get outside of the city."
Logic dictates that this mod-haired bunch of desperadoes would breezily hook up to the whole ferocious Interpreters/Dandy Warhols live axis, if only by virtue of their sharp crew cuts and Their shrapnel-ridden gigs. Mind you, logic also dictates that the foursome won't comprehend what the bally hell we're burbling on about: "We couldn't really understand the NME review of our album. It was a bit British..."

Fortuitously, it was also a mite frothy, raving heartily about the Trailies' mixture of melody and menace and generally swooning over the fact that ...AYWKUBTTOD sound as gloriously frazzled as a rat in a microwave. Anyway. Any other little factettes with which to convince The Kids that you do not sleep upside down in caves and eat spiders?
"Jason saw Spice World recently," deadpans Conrad.
"It's a real five-star movie," nods Jason. "A great piece of cinematography!"
Not Cradle of Filth, then.