'Scenes don't really exist any more,' says 21-year-old Sam Potter, a tiny-framed electronics wizard. Cowering from the biting wind, he and his bandmates are setting up shop for today's photoshoot in the hills of Leicestershire a spitting distance from their native Castle Donington. 'Kids are caring less and less about genres, styles and trends these days and more about whether it's good or not.'
Recently discotheques have turned into havens for increasingly bizarre concoctions of genres - speed garage one second, indie the next - and have become breeding grounds for ever-evolving hybrids. Formed three years ago, Late of the Pier embody the anything-goes party spirit characteristic of the post-MySpace generation.
'We're confrontational pop music,' insists 20-year-old pin-up frontman Sam Eastgate in the band's shared broad Midlands twang. 'These days if music doesn't feel right as well as sound right, it just doesn't cut it.'
Judging by the scenes of bedlam that have been following Late of the Pier up and down the country, at scores of under-18s and nightclub shows, feeling is something they've got down to an artform. They have found a fitting Svengali figure in producer Erol Alkan, the genre-bending DJ famed for teaching indie kids how to dance and clubbers how to rock. It's under his watchful eye that the band have been refining their explosion of synths and guitars, one that bears as much likeness to Sam's dad's early Eighties post-punk collection as to the latest in dance music.
There is, however, one ingredient to Late of the Pier that overpowers everything else - fun. 'Being in a band is the most fun you can have, and that definitely shines through in our songs,' grins 20-year-old flame-haired drummer Ross Dawson. He's right - it's the theatrical glee with which the band approach songs that makes their unconventional arrangements so palatable.
'We grew up with only each other for influences,' explains 20-year-old Andrew Faley, the group's rocker-looking bassist. The band's story is archetypal - four boys who don't fit any of the playground cliques bond while skiving off class, write songs in each other's attics, and try to inject something fantastical into their slice of humdrum. And now as the four best friends cluster around their trusty, futuristic-looking Citroen AX, exchanging wisecracks, it feels as if they're about to begin a new chapter together.
'Leaving school to be in a band is a ridiculous thing to do,' chuckles Eastgate. 'If you don't have that magic touch you're going to end up looking really silly; it's quite scary.'
· Late of the Pier's single 'Bathroom Gurgle' is out now on Moshi Moshi