For a band once described by the NME as sounding like 'a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs', Idlewild's Roddy is strangely reserved. Maybe it's the tour. "Yeah, well, the first few nights were a bit weird cos Glasgow's got a real big hip hop scene and there was a lot of people to see UNKLE and it wasn't that busy. Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield have been brilliant..they've all been sold out...it's definitely picking up..there's a good atmosphere." The tour, of course being the NME Brat effort which this year chucks Llama Farmers, Delakota, UNKLE and Idlewild together in one big noisy rattlebag.

Live, Idlewild are on deeply solid ground. They are exalted before the hoardes who seem to think they're the best thing since er, Green Day. So, does Roddy have Big Plans for the band, and more specifically the next well-aired single 'When I Argue (I see Shapes)'? "I don't really have any hopes for the single. I remember when Film for The Future came out last year. We'd done like three 7 inches, limited edition things on wee labels and suddenly there was like this pressure. And I never once in my life ever thought about charts and stuff like that and suddenly I was like worried about where we would go in the charts so after that I decided not to think about it." So it's presumably not world domination Roddy seeks, unless he's keeping it rather well hidden.

It will certainly be interesting to see if Idlewild will have chart success. To be honest I don't think it will change them. Listen: "We don't try to be anything we're not ..when we started our songs used to be really dreadful. The lyrics were crap and the music was really unimaginative. I don't think we've ever pretended to be something we're not. We've always said that we're just beginning. We never claimed to be the greatest band in the world." Oh but why not Roddy? Come on, think about it, who are the people who do make such a claim? Oasis? Embrace? Rialto?! And, pray tell, how much more deserving are bands like these than your particular gaggle of potential God-likes? It seems honesty, as much as hope, Is Important for Idlewild: "I don't write about anything I don't know about. Just songs about experiences I've had or things I think about. The music...it's not flashy. It's pretty sort of basic. So we're quite an honest sounding band I suppose."

So just how far do Roddy's sensibility's stretch? He cites Minor Threat, Bad Brains, The Minute Men, Fugazi, Shellac and REM as some of his big guys, though claims he doesn't listen to the old stuff quite as "religiously" as he used to. I am intrigued to know what he thinks of the whole straight-edge kind of outlook: "I think when it started, it wasn't negative at all, it was a positive thing. But nowadays, it's a skinhed rightwing straight edge movement in like, Utah. It's a bit dodgy anyway. If you don't want to smoke or drink then it's fair enough. I have a mate in Glasgow who's straight edge. Real positive about it, he just doesn't want to do things like that. He gets pissed when people think like there are some sort of Fascist undertones." Okay, then.....

Roddy seems really only to care about his friends, or at least 'people he knows'. He really likes Mogwai and thinks they're one of the best British bands at the moment, and he's mates with Stuart from the band. He hangs out at places in Glasgow with, or at least at the same time as the boys from Arab Strap but doesn't feel like he's part of the whole Scottish bands thing, partly because they are mostly from Glasgow and not Edinburgh and partly because the band got signed to a major quicker than you can say 'Chemikal Underground'. He says he's never really met anyone really famous that he's been awe-struck by, apart from Superchunk of all people - okay, not really famous - but hey. He thinks Brian from Placebo is 'really friendly' which is good because Idlewild are touring in Ireland with them next month.

Ah yes, the future...Roddy says some of the new songs are "not as shouty and fast," and would really like to have a musician he respects helping produce their next album: "Maybe John Cale or Bob Mould American producers like Bob Weston who did June of '44, Rachels, Shellac stuff like that. He did a few Sebadoh albums as well." Sounds promising I think. But for now Roddy seems quite content to not think about how his new single will do - "maybe people will buy it" - , to let people get on with it and to spend time with people he you know, really likes.

Idlewild were talking to Nina Power, in January 1999.