Fame is not like a commuter train – it seldom chugs around one of the bends in your life according to a pre-determined schedule.
For The Automatic, a ragamuffin Britrock quartet with a line in boozy arena sing-alongs, the opportunity to take their career to the next level arrived in pretty much the usual fashion: out of the blue and to the strains of a household pop star puking his guts out.
“Keane were supposed to be on Later With Jools Holland but the singer came down with food poisoning that morning and they needed a replacement in a hurry,” explains Rob Hawkins, The Automatic’s chipper and – so an office colleague insists – prenaturally hunky frontman.
“At the time the call came through we were in a studio in the back end of Wales, working on B-sides. Obviously, we said yes straight away. That was before we realised we had to make it to London in under five hours. We reached the train with 10 minutes to spare. A bit scary that.”
Their breakneck dash was to prove a fruitful inconvenience. Post-Jools Holland, the South Wales band have prospered. With new single, ‘Monster’, crashing the UK top five, summer festival season sees The Automatic on the brink of the Britrock A-list . And to think – were it not for Keane singer Tom Chaplin’s dicky tummy it might never have happened. Have The Automatic got around to sending flowers and a thank you note?
Hawkins pauses and licks his lips. His next words seem carefully chosen : “The funny thing is – and I hope I’m not being too unpleasant – I don’t actually have much time for Keane’s music. They’re smashing blokes though.”
Not that you could guess from the rather hokey sci-fi lyrics, but ‘Monster’ apparently chronicles a post-pub ruck between several band members and a bunch of Cardiff rugby louts. Are we to conclude that The Automatic are partial to the occasional late night fisticuffs?
“I think everyone has found themselves in a situation where they’ve been over doing it drink-wise and they kind of go a little crazy,” Hawkins reflects. “'Monster' is about what can happen when you get to that stage. Do we go out every weekend looking for a fight? Come on, we’re not Oasis!”
Soft-spoken and engaging, Hawkins exhibits an unexpected bitchy streak as the conversation turns towards fellow rising stars The Kooks, whom The Automatic recently supported. Reportedly the headliners, Sloane-y pastoral revivalists who fell together at drama school, were more than slightly stand-offish.
“We’ve heard they’re a bit posh and that did come across,” confesses Hawkins. “We found them quite difficult to warm to. But apparently we’re going on the road with them again at the end of the year, so I better not say too much!”
Raucously anthemic and not particularly given to subtlety, The Automatic are most frequently likened to Kaiser Chiefs, the Leeds band whose broad pop shapes have appeared, often, to verge on vaudeville. The comparison is ironic – The Automatic roadied for the Kaisers 12 months ago.
“It’s a great story but the truth is that we didn’t really have a lot of contact with them,” recalls Hawkins. “They seemed okay blokes and we’ve spoken to them a few times since. But they were playing on an NME bill with several other bands, so it’s not as if we had a lot of time to get to know them or anything.”
Pop folklore tells us that bands from rural Wales should grow up at once resentful of and deeply affectionate towards their homeland. Nothing, according to received wisdom, stokes a songwriter’s embers quite like formative years spent amid the picturesque poverty of the valleys.
Yet Hawkins, more middle-class than his band’s lairy image might suggest, displays no discernible nostalgia towards his hometown of Cowbridge. Those seeking a tale of human dignity triumphing in the face of parochial adversity had best move along. Joining The Automatic did not offer the band an escape route from a life of grim under-achievement. Under different circumstances, he says, they’d probably have all ended up enrolling in a business studies course somewhere.
“Where we come come from , which is about 13 miles outside of Cardiff, there’s an expectation that you’ll knuckle down and go to university and become an accountant or whatever. Our song ‘Raoul’ is about exactly that, a bloke who settles for college and never realises what he might have missed out on. Being in The Automatic spared us years of student drudgery.”