With their debut album Not Accepted Anywhere at number three in the charts and their hit single Monster in the top ten, it kind of seems like The Automatic have come out of nowhere.

While most of us hadn't heard a peep from the band before the relentless Monster, the boys from Wales say it's been a hard slog behind the scenes.

"We've been working towards this for a long time, but it just crept up on us," says drummer Iwan Griffiths. "We just got a lot bigger than we ever expected.

"Although it seems like we've suddenly come from nowhere we have been working on this since we left school."

Now all aged 20 (apart from guitarist James Frost, who is just about to shuffle off his teenage years) the band were signed last year by label B-Unique (home to the Kaiser Chiefs) without stepping foot outside of Wales.

Last year they told Radio One DJ Zane Lowe during a chance meeting they were going to be the biggest band of 2006 ("Well, it's what everyone else was saying," says Iwan) and it seems like they might be right.

They've already toured with Hard-Fi and The Ordinary Boys and last month they played the Jools Holland show.

"We were only called in at the last minute because Keane got food poisoning, but it was still amazing," says Iwan. "It was so weird because Later With Jools Holland was something I'd always watch and think, 'I really wish I could do that', and then I'm there joining in with the jam at the beginning of the show."

All in all it's not bad going for a band who decided to "give it a go" during a gap year.

"We decided to take a chance before going to university and took a gap year to try and make it work," says Iwan.

"We sent our demo with Monster on it to 15 labels. They all said they'd come to our gig at the Barfly in Cardiff, but only B-Unique showed, and they signed us."

Iwan says he was more than happy to leave "the worst job in the world" behind - he lifted compost for old people at a garden centre - and forgo getting drunk and in debt at university for getting drunk and being in a band.

While The Automatic's first two releases Raoul and Recover barely rippled the water, Monster, an infectiously raucous punk lite affair, has shot them to stardom. While some hate it (one reviewer said it made her want to projectile vomit) many obviously love it.

But even the band are looking forward to moving on to their next single - the re-release of Recover.

"We're always joking that it's going to turn into another Creep," says Iwan. "You know how everyone associated Radiohead with Creep and now we've got Monster.

"I'm really chuffed with it, but I am looking forward to moving on. People start to think you're onehit wonders when a song's so popular - but I want to prove we're not."

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