For the uninitiated, could you please tell us a little about I Was A Cub Scout?

We are a two-piece electronic art-emo band. We’re from near Nottingham. We’ve been going for about a year and a half.

How did you get started with the band?

Me and Todd [Marriott, vocals/guitar/keyboard] were in other bands before and we played some shows together. We jammed and did some shows and it just progressed from there.

You have been called an “emo” band, what is your attitude towards this tag?

A lot of people see “emo” as a bad thing, but a lot of the bands we enjoy and have enjoyed from an early age have been emo bands. What we call “emo” is different from what’s being categorised as it now… the Panic! At The Discos and all that kind of stuff… that’s not what we call emo. The kind of emo we like is more the Jimmy Eat World type stuff.

To what extent has coming from a small town influence the lyrics and the themes of your songs?

I don’t know if it does really. I think even if we grew up somewhere else completely it would still be quite similar. I guess we started playing music seriously because there isn’t much to do in our villages. We all got into bands as a hobby because there’s nowhere to go on a Saturday or anything like that. It was just a normal thing to do… all our friends are doing it too, and we enjoy music so much, that’s why we’re in bands. I guess practicing and becoming better at what we do and things like that are all because we are from a small place.

Both yourself and Todd are very young. Are you still in full-time education?

We had to leave our education – our schedule was getting quite hectic and we enjoy this more than our education. We’re still full-time with the band, which is cool… it’s better than most of our friends’ jobs – they’re all in Sainsbury’s and stuff like that, while we get to tracel around.

What have your experiences of touring been like so far?

Really positive. We booked a tour ourselves over the summer holiday (in 2006). We didn’t get much sleep… but obviously by the end of the week and a half we were absolutely exhausted. When we do tours now booked by agent, if we know we have something to do the next day we might have an early night. But [touring’s] been really positive. We met so many cool people and been to so many great places already, even just around the UK. It’s a really good way – when you’re coming from a small place – to get to scout out new cities and new people. And the responses have always been good, the majority of them have been a lot better than we expected.

Have you experienced any difficulties because of your ages?

We haven’t had too much difficulty with it. When we made the jump to full-time we didn’t have to think about paying the rent or anything like that because we live at home. So I think it was probably easier that we were younger.

If we’re honest, ‘Pink Squaes’ is by far your best song to date. What are the challenges you are facing so as not to go down in history as “one hit wonders”?

I think, to be honest, it’s great that people even know any of our songs. We’ve never before had this experience of people knowing words of songs. We haven’t even got an album out yet. When the album’s out it’d be more accessible for people to get their hands on. Our last single was just a two or four thousand release, it’s quite hard to get your hands on that.

Tell us about your new single ‘Our Smallest Adventures’.

It was recorded in late June. It’s got a couple of b-sides, including a remix by GoodBooks. I guess it’s a kind of change from the single before that [‘I Hate Nightclubs’]. I think it’s a good indication of where our stuff’s going with new material, and the feel of it.

I understand you are currently in the studio working on your debut album. How are the sessions going? When can we expect the record to be out?

It’s going very well at the moment, we’re just sat outside the studio now. All the music’s done, it’s just the editing that needs to be done now. We should hopefully be done with that by the end of next week [mid-August]. It should be out in late January next year I think.

Can you highlight some of the key tracks on the album?

A lot of songs on there are kind of a different approach, a lot mellower [than earlier material]. It’s a very different record to anything we’ve done before, but we’re very happy with the way it sounds.

Did you re-record any of the singles for the album?

’Our Smallest Adventures’ and ‘Pink Squares’ are both on the labum.

Did you use to frequent Reading or Leeds as punters? What does it mean to you to be playing the festival?

I did. I went for I think 4 years, and then I didn’t go last year. Obviously this year we’re playing… It’s really cool. It’s the festival we always went to when we were in school, we’ll always meet up there. So to be actually on the stage is a great thing.

Who are you looking forward to seeing at the festival?

Jimmy Eat World, Brand New, Manchester Orchestra, The Shins – I’m not sure we are on that day but if we are we’re very excited about that. And the band that we really want to see but can’t is Battles – but we’re travelling on the day they’re playing.

Finally, no interview would be complete without a silly question, so… who would win in a fight between a tiger and a bear?

God, that’s a good question! You see… if one was running after the other I think the tiger would definitely get the bear. But if it was like a fist fight I think the bear would get the tiger. So in an all-around competition… I really don’t know… I think the bear has got a little more weight behind him, so I’m gonna say the bear.

Thanks to Will for taking the time to speak to us.
The picture is taken from I Was A Cub Scout's MySpace page.