James Daly caught up with Philip Jenkins from Kids In Glass Houses before they took to the stage to close Merthyr Rock festival to talk about the success of their third studio album 'In Gold Blood', plans for the future and much more.

You are headlining Merthyr Rock tonight, how does it feel to be closing such an exciting new festival?
It’s a big honour for us; it’s cool because it’s kind of a local show for us. None of us are from here but we played here loads of times when we were starting out so it’s great to end our summer in at a kind of hometown show.

What can we expect from your set?
When you play a festival you need to accommodate the festival goers in the sense that you can’t really play too many album tracks and instead concentrate on the singles. You want it to be fun and you want the crowd to enjoy it and not walk away. We just want to keep people entertained.

Have you managed to check any bands out at the festival yet?
Yeah so far we’ve seen our friends in Straight Lines and then I caught a band called Marmozets, who I heard a lot about and I was really impressed.

Your latest album ‘In Gold Blood’ has been out for just over a year now are you happy with how it has gone down with your fans and the press?
We knew it was going to be a departure from what we’ve done before and we knew it would probably get some mixed reviews but, I think it was something that we needed to do as a band. We took that conscious decision and we’ve felt the effect of that but it’s been either well received or badly received but as I say it’s something that we wanted to do.

When can we expect you to start working on your next studio album? And do you know what direction you want to go in this time around?
We’ve been busy with festivals this summer but we’ve been working on it in between. We’re quite far into the writing process but we want to take our time to do something fresh again. We’re playing a new song tonight actually so that will be a good indication of the direction that we want to go in.

What would you say your main high and low points as a band have been so far?
When you start out you’re kind of in owe of everything you do but when you get more into it you don’t take it for granted but you get more use to everything. The first time we played Reading was amazing but when you see the progress of climbing up to bigger stages than I think that’s more amazing. Being in a band you get to experience so many amazing things so it’s hard to just pick out one. As for lows, they aren’t really that memorable.

What’s your opinion on the whole anti piracy laws going on at the moment and how it will affect the music industry?
It’s kind of sad when buying music has kind of been written off but, I think it’s something that people just have to accept and adapt to. I think its narrow minded to just look at sales figures and say “why aren’t people buying music”. There is obviously a big reason and you just have to adapt to that and find another avenue. I also think that live music is as strong as it has ever been so that’s the positive side to it.

Where do you hope to see Kids In Glass Houses in a year’s time?
Personally I just want us to write our fourth album and be completely proud of it.

One last random question that we ask every band, if you could be an animal out of a zebra or Giraffe which one would you be and why?
I’d have to say a Giraffe because the way they fight is amazing.

Thanks for your time is there a message for your fans reading this?
Thanks if you like us, thank you if you don’t and oh well (laughter).

Interview by James Daly