By Brittney Barrett  |  Send to Friend

Loading their equipment into Transit, the boys of Late of the Pier look just like most of the skinny jeaned gang that will be crawling in after they finish their sound check. They're all slight and none of them particularly tall, with smooth faces any teenage girl's knees would buckle for. When they step on stage though it's a whole different story. Their sound is huge. A practiced manic full of screaming synthesizer, brilliantly executed Brit-punk vocals and a bass line that resonates to the bone. And while they have owned the teen scene, surely their visages are no stranger to the inside of lockers across their native country of England, their appeal is more far reaching than that.

Transit's security is having a celebration to a soundtrack of their hyperactive brand of synth-pop and they're not stopping until the sound and aesthetics are just right. The boys, art school drop outs turned musicians, have been mastering their stage show since debuting in 2004 and have been touring around Europe ever since. Their Philadelphia date marks their second day in America, ever, and they're eating their first authentic hamburgers at Silk City when they begin discussing the route they took to get here and where they're headed next.

"I was listening to Japan at age 12," lead singer Sam Eastgate shares over fries, insisting his proclivity for music took hold at an early age. The rest of the band, who spent their younger years listening to equally obscure tunes and "lazing around the country side" in their native Castle Donington, England were equally impassioned, although it took dropping out of art school to pursue music full time.

"I met Ross and we started writing angsty kinds of songs," ranging from several that were just prank phone calls set to music and others like the track "piss dog," which, though intended to be a joke nearly made their Australian EP.

The boys nixed the idea, insisting they had better material but admit that "piss dog," remains a favorite of many of their more die hard fans. It's not too much of a surprise either, as much of the band success has been mostly reliant on happy accidents. This trend even includes the addition of their keyboardist, Potter who joined the clan after he was asked to play a single note on repeat and ended up getting the crowd into a frenzy. At Making Time, he stole the show again, chopping the keys of the synthesizer like a leather clad samurai.

Off the cuff artistry isn't limited to Potter as much as it is shared between the band mates, who claim to have taken their art school educations on the road. "We have an artistic eye for our live shows," Eastman reveals, though perhaps in the name of modesty questions whether their creative efforts, which have included framing the stage in branches found outside a location, are even noticed by the crowd.

If they haven't yet, they will be soon, as the way things are headed the have the resources to pursue such flare on a grander scale. Having just completed a seven- month tour and ten dates with Soul Wax, touted by Eastman and drummer, Ross Dawson as "the best band we've ever toured with," and with another album on the way, things are looking up for Late of the Pier. In March they'll be headed back to the states on another tour where chances are they'll have the resources to experiment with stage design beyond what they can scrounge up outside a concert hall.