Athlete: On their marks

The Deptford foursome Athlete began their career with a false start. Now they're back with a cracking debut album - and this time there's no stopping them. Alexia Loundras meets them

Flanked by his three bandmates, Athlete's front man, Joel Pott, sits at a table in a quiet south-London pub. His brow is furrowed, but his eyes are plaintive and sincere. "I really wanted to be together for ages – I wanted that kind of commitment," he says passionately, ignoring the room's eggy stench. "It's a step of faith you take and from there on in, making it work is really rewarding." The 25-year-old is explaining why, over two years ago, he got married. But he could just as easily be talking about his band.

That's because Athlete's story is one of solid commitment, driving passion and good old-fashioned love. On Monday they finally released their excellent debut album, Vehicles & Animals – the result of four year's worth of tenacious perseverance. At the start of 1999, the Deptford lads, then a three-piece called Cub, were on the cusp of being signed. But instead of feeling excited, the prospect of that all-elusive record deal left them uneasy. Something jarred.

"What we were producing – our music, our baby – just didn't seem right. It was just what other bands were doing at the time: Britpop-y drums, bass, guitar indie," says Pott in his London drawl. "When we first started, as 18-year-olds, that's what we were into. But by this time we were being inspired by bands like Pavement and Grandaddy and we wanted to make music that was just as creative. We wanted to play around with sounds."

Feeling trapped by the pressure to deliver something that was no longer them, Pott, the drummer, Steve Roberts, and the bass-player, Carey Willetts, cancelled all gigs, said "no thanks" to the suits and scrapped every song they had written.

They sacrificed everything they had achieved to start again, but this time they were going to put their hearts into it: "We weren't looking for something that'd get us signed – we wanted to find music we could enjoy playing," Pott remembers.

They bought a modest 12-track recorder and, while working dead-end jobs, started from scratch. When their childhood friend Tim Wanstall returned from university armed with some old keyboards and infinite wide-eyed enthusiasm, Athlete were finally born – even if the sound that they aspired to was still just a twinkle in their eye.

The band's music manifesto was simple, if a little vague: each song needed a strong melody or at least a catchy hook to draw the listener in, but it also had to be challenging. "We didn't want to write songs that were straight down the line, verse, chorus, blah, blah, blah. We wanted something that went off on a tangent," says Pott, animated.

It took over a year of experimentation before the band found the precise combination of classic songwriting and instrumental ingenuity that they sought. Writing "Westside" – a gently lolloping acoustic tune, interwoven with sweet keyboards, that flips its tempo and bursts open into a mammoth chorus – was the catalyst. From then on, says Pott, everything clicked, and not just creatively.

A demo of the song found its way to Radio 1 and became Jo Whiley's record of the week, while another copy earned the unsigned band a performance session on the London station, Xfm. The airplay sparked a bidding war and this time Athlete were ready to sign a deal. They accepted Regal's offer to release the song as an EP, but the band were holding out for one label in particular. "Parlophone were at the top of our list. We knew our sound would fit right in there, and when they showed interest, it was just surreal!" says Pott. Late in 2001, with just three songs to their name, Athlete signed to their first choice, becoming Coldplay's label mates.

Despite their potentially problematic song deficit, Athlete weren't about to compromise themselves by releasing a hastily cobbled-together debut album. Their record was supposed to be labour of love, not a marketing tool rushed out prematurely to capitalise on a smidgen of hype. Fortunately, the label agreed. Allowing Athlete the time to perfect their new songs, they stoked interest in the band by releasing three interim singles (all of which were top 40 hits). It was another 14 months (and two recording sessions) before the album was ready. So what exactly took so long?

"We all write the songs together, so the whole process takes a lot longer than if you have only one singer-songwriter person," says Pott wounded by the implication that they were dawdling. Willetts springs to his defence. "Every idea, every line, every lyric has to get past three other people before it gets on to the track – there's a whole vetting process naturally in place," he assures me, before sheepishly confessing that they do occasionally resolve tied disputes with a coin-toss.

Vehicles & Animals has definitely been worth the wait. It's a charming and witty, wonderfully consistent album that's as thought-provoking as it is fun; as uplifting as it is melancholy. As you might expect from lads who've written to their MP (about the political situation in Zimbabwe), their intelligent lyrics don't balk at making statements. Instead, their songs' subject matter veers from wry prods at the music industry to commenting on the bristling effects that the Oldham riots had on their multicultural community.

The album has also clearly benefited from the band's sharp quality control. Without it, it could have been cluttered. The songs hang on a simple skeleton of Bacharach-esque melodies and glimmering guitar hooks. But what marks Athlete out is the way that each tune – embellished with just the right amount of jagged beats and Casio quirkiness – jack-knifes between styles. Tracks seamlessly flit from fragile pianos to pounding drum and bass ("One Million"); blissful harmonies to squalling feedback ("Beautiful") and lazy rhythms to blistering rock ("New Project"). But like the Welsh sonic chameleons Super Furry Animals, the Deptford Four always strike a balance between innovation and tunefulness.

Athlete's music is consequently hard to place, and they're often compared to bands as diverse as the slick Steely Dan and ethereal Flaming Lips. Fresh from building a windmill with the condiments in front of him, Wanstall gives his tuppenceworth: "People have cited lots of different things they hear in our sound so there must be an integrity about us – we're not just reflecting someone else's hard work."

"It's more of a mindset that we feel we fit into, rather than a particular scene," adds Pott, linking Athlete to bands such as the psychedelic experimentalists Simian and the folk-turned-electro king, Erlend Oye. "It's the way we construct our music that's important; the way we mess things up."

Although firmly committed to each other, Athlete's members are not without regrets – namely the odd dodgy haircut and Pott's garish purple-and-green shell-suit. But the decision to kill Cub is not one of them. It was the best thing they'd done, and the four friends still talk about the period's subsequent "we can do whatever we like" musical soul-searching with the joyous amazement of an eight-year-old granted free run of Hamleys.

"It's wicked," gushes Pott, fists clenched in delight. "I'm really enjoying it. And even now, it still feels like there's a lot more we can discover and explore." His brow is furrowed, but his eyes are plaintive and sincere. He could be talking about his marriage. But he's not.

'Vehicles & Animals' is out on Monday on Parlophone