Slouching on the verge of stardom

Another Friday night. Another Top Of The Pops, and another stream of boybands, "gurrl powaah" poppets and r 'n' b lightweights. Halfway through the hit parade of empty entertainment, Scottish sex kitten Gail Porter introduces a new group from Dublin.

What follows is three minutes of raw, searing, brain-shredding emotion, as three Irish teenagers shake the BBC studios to their foundations, using thundering drums, booming bass, ripchord guitars and tortured vocals to deliver the doomed, romantic message of Oxygen.

They are not miming, and they are definitely not fooling around. Mark Greaney, Hillary Woods and Fergal Matthews, the teen trio who comprise JJ72, are out for your blood, sweat and tears, and they don't care how many boybands they have to drown out to get them.

When the last, strangled chord of Oxygen dies down, a crackle of electricity buzzes through the studio - or maybe it's just Mark's guitar feedback dying down. Doesn't matter: it feels as if JJ72 have opened a window on the cosy corporate world of pop - and let a horde of shrieking demons in.

Oxygen only went to Number 23 in the UK charts, so Louis Walsh won't be losing any hair over the threat of JJ72. In the year since the band's first single, October Swimmer, came out, Westlife have had around five Number One hits, The Corrs have gone to Number One in 13 countries, Samantha Mumba has become the Irish Britney Spears, and Ronan Keating has been crowned the Elvis of Teen-pop. Kinda makes you want to howl, dunnit?

JJ72, however, are the street fighters in the Irish pack, and it would be a foolish gambler who would bet against them eventually KO-ing Keating from the top spot. Their debut album, JJ72, has gone into the UK Top 20, and their live gigs are attracting a formidable following. In just 12 months, they've made a lot of people sit up and take notice of their angry, charged alt. rock.

Mark, Fergal and Hillary are waiting to go on stage at a sold-out gig in London. They are reflecting on the seismic changes since the release of their debut single. Staring at the band from across the patio is a bearded and bedraggled character - a homeless person taking shelter, or a hippie who took a wrong turn on his way to a Levellers gig? He is, in fact, an obsessive JJ72 fan from San Franscisco who has been following the band ever since they began making waves.

"You know, when you start a band, and you have fans like that, it's actually quite rewarding," says Fergal, JJ72's drummer. "It's a bit scary, but in a way it's rewarding, 'cos he's listening to our songs and really, really getting something out of them."

Songwriter, singer and guitarist Mark Greaney has invested much of his own pent-up passion in the band's music. Presumably he feels a warm glow when the fans react with equal passion? "It's good in one way, but then you start worrying, well, what are they taking from this? I don't see how anyone is going to get the songs 100 per cent, because I'm a bit confused about them myself. Having said that, it is sort of down to us in a way. We've released records, we've talked to the fans, so it's our responsibility to see it as it is - that we're noone special."

Try telling that to the 600 fans who are waiting downstairs in Dingwalls, and who will hang on to Mark's every tortured line, absorbing the music like salvation, and singing the songs back to him like newly-baptised disciples. Greaney, however, is determined not to let anyone hang Thom Yorke's rock guru millstone around his young neck.

"There was one journalist asking me how I got this scar on my arm, and I thought, `whoa, get back there now'. That sort of thing worries me a little. But we're only starting to get a name for ourselves now, so it's not really a problem. But it could become a problem."

Talk turns to the music business, and it appears that, though the members of JJ72 are young, they're certainly not naive about the music industry.

"We're not stupid - we know what game we're playing here," says Mark. "And unfortunately, a huge amount of it is down to business. And I think for a band to go into that blind, and leave the business to someone else, it's not going to happen. I think, because we're such a new band, we have to do it now. If we're going to achieve what we want to achieve, which is to have a very big audience - not for ego purposes, but because we believe we're doing something that's worth listening to, and is going to make a difference to people's lives - it's worth doing the odd shitty interview here and there to make an actual impact.

"I'd prefer a million people to hear our stuff, and 999,000 of them to hate us, but there's a small portion there who really get it. That's all. It's not like I want us to take over the world, or want everyone to like us. But I know that there's something in what we're doing that will connect to people and will enhance someone's life."

Mark's attitude is at odds with the usual Irish pop business plan, which calls for total market saturation, maximum sponsorship and ubiquitous media presence. It also bucks the prevailing Irish rock philosophy, which is driven not by love of music or a desire to communicate with people, but by a base, utterly craven need for attention and worship.

JJ72 have been hailed as the new Radiohead, but Greaney's explosive passion is far removed from Thom Yorke's tired existentialism. JJ72, asserts Greaney, are definitely not complaint rock.

"If you have to call it a business, then ultimately we're in the business of human emotions. We're a romantic band, and to me the songs on this album are romantic notions of the way things should be, the way things are, and how valuable mundane things are. And you build up the smallest thing to make it seem really special. One of the reasons I write songs is that I can't get over the effect some things have on me, which to other people may seem very ordinary."

If you want to know what Mark is on about, check out Snow, one of the more majestic tracks on JJ72, and marvel at how he can turn something potentially slushy into a thing of icy beauty. The album has been rightly praised for its balanced mix of adolescent anger and mature melancholia; looking at these three earnest, fresh-faced young adults, slouching on the verge of superstardom, it's hard not to hope that JJ72 may yet save Irish pop from the curse of the clone.

Later, JJ72 deliver a short, sharp, three-pronged burst of youthful energy, verve and vitriol. The crowd goes mad for it, yelping in recognition when Hillary hits the opening bassline of their favourite tune or when Mark starts the crunchy riff of another cherished number. It's a small victory in the war against Westlife, but - as Westlife's lyric writer would know - it's the small things that grow into big, nasty, guitar-wielding, boyband-stomping monster rock phenomena.

"The whole buzz is, we're just going to try to do better and make people listen," concludes Mark. "If we can make one person turn his head around and go, `there was something good there . . . ' He doesn't have to think the whole set was brilliant, he doesn't have to love the whole album. It could be just a moment. If someone goes away from our gig, and they remember just one moment, and say, `I'll never forget that', then that's fine. It's just about moments."

JJ72's debut album, JJ72 , is out now on Lakota Records.