Splendid: That's really exciting.

Adele Bethel: It was. (Domino Records founder) Laurence Bell is a very good guy and he flew up to see us play a lot. He's been very supportive.

Splendid: Does that mean Ba Da Bing! no longer have distribution in the US?

Adele Bethel: I'm not actually that sure! (laughs) I don't deal with legalities.

Splendid: As long as the record is getting out there...

Adele Bethel: Yeah, that was the main priority.

Splendid: Well, how are you dealing with all of this hype? You guys have been touted as the best British band at the moment in some UK publications.

Adele Bethel: I guess we're pretty wary of all that. Trying to sort of ignore it, to be honest. It just seems really weird -- the fact that Glasgow is really hot at the moment. Franz have a lot to do with it, too. I think it's a good thing that we did the tour (with Franz Ferdinand). It was great, and I think it's good because we don't sound anything like each other. But we're just trying to get on with it. (laughs) Trying not to read to much into (the hype).

Splendid: A lot has been made of your friendship with Franz Ferdinand. How long have you guys been buddies?

Adele Bethel: I've known Alex (Kapranos) for about ten years. I mean, he's not a close... he's just a person I meet at parties occasionally because Glasgow is such a small city. (I've gotten to know him) more over the past few months (than I ever have.)

Splendid: Like you said, you and Franz don't sound anything alike. How was the response from the crowd when you opened for them?

Adele Bethel: It was great. We've been pretty surprised. The audience seemed really open-minded to hear something that wasn't similar musically. I think a lot of the time, especially in Britain, it's an especially young audience -- especially near the front of the stage. And for a lot of kids, it was maybe the first band they'd ever seen, and we were glad to be that band! (laughs) They were so warm and receptive. I think we played a night in Birmingham in England and all the kids had their hands in the air and clapping along and just really getting into it. It was fantastic. And in America, too. We had some really great shows.

Splendid: What have your best crowds been?

Adele Bethel: In America? I think our best crowd was in LA. And Toronto was also really good. It was a great place. I'd never been to Canada, and that was our biggest show of the tour. I think it was 3,000.

Splendid: Sons And Daughters has a sound that's really rooted in traditional American music. It seems like you guys probably know more about traditional American music than a lot of Americans do.

Adele Bethel: (laughs) We listen to quite a lot of it. I think Scott (Paterson -- vocalist/guitarist) knows a lot more about it than I do, to be honest. But I have the Harry Smith Anthology and we listen to that a lot. It's pretty much like the first ever sort of, I guess, folk music to ever be recorded. It's pretty old. I like a lot of British folk music, too. I've always enjoyed... My parents sort of brought me up listening to like Bob Dylan and Fairport Convention and Johnny Cash and bands like that.

Splendid: What attracts you to that music? Is it just stuff from your upbringing, then, that you're revisiting?

Adele Bethel: I guess I started out with a solid base from my parents. But I think that generally, the lyrics are always really interesting. And I like the darkness of the music, too.

Splendid: Yeah, that's what I was going to say. There's an underlying darkness there that is very compelling, but you also wrap it in this... there's a melodic sensibility and driving rhythm section that makes it very accessible.

Adele Bethel: Yeah. We tried... after sort of coming out of the post rock end of music, especially in Glasgow, which I love all those bands. You know, I like Mogwai and Arab Strap and things like that, but we really wanted to do something very different that was based on a pop structure. I think that is probably the only thing we have in common with Franz Ferdinand. (laughs) No guitar solos. Nothing in there that isn't really that necessary to the songs. We try to write as short songs as possible. (laughs)

Splendid: Hey, that's very punk. I read a quote; one of your band members said that you want people to be able to dance to the music even if they don't listen to the lyrics.

Adele Bethel: Yeah! (laughs) I forget who said that, actually. I think it was Dave. Yeah. You can dance to it as long as you don't pay too much attention to the words.

Splendid: I think it's true. If I were to watch you guys live, I can tell I would be totally banging my head. Well, I'm not sure if that's the right word for it...

Adele Bethel: (laughs) Generally, in Glasgow, we have these base audiences because we've been around there for longer. And when you're just starting out and you don't have any money, and you're just going to play in your home town... it's quite often that we get people dancing. We played a show in Brighton and there were some really drunk people and they were breakdancing, which was just the weirdest thing I've ever seen in my life. It was really funny! (laughs)

Splendid: Your Johnny Cash influence becomes really obvious when you put a song on the album called "Johnny Cash". Was that written after his death?

Adele Bethel: It wasn't, actually. It was a working title for the song. Lyrically, you know, the song's not about him or anything, but it was one of the first songs we ever wrote. Probably the oldest song we do... three years old. And basically, the record went to press and he died during the month that they were pressing the copies, which is kind of sad. So it's kind of a tribute, I suppose. We played a show in Glasgow the night he died, and we all wore black armbands.

Splendid: When I first got your new album, I popped it in without looking at the song titles. And when "Johnny Cash" came on I went "Wow, this has kind of a Johnny Cash thing going on." Just that kind of a feel.

Adele Bethel: Yeah, it just seems to have that kind of a feel about it. It was a working title, and we just decided to keep it.

Splendid: Are you guys fans of Cash's stuff from his later years?

Adele Bethel: Yeah, I actually think its some of his best. It's weird because I'm a really massive Nick Cave fan and I actually like his version of "The Mercy Seat" more than I like the Nick Cave version. I think every cover version he does is just amazing. The Depeche Mode song, "Personal Jesus", is unbelievable. He's just this old guy and he sings these new covers... it's great.

Splendid: Yeah, the way he reinterprets those songs is sublime...

Adele Bethel: There's something about his voice. It has so much depth. You really believe it when he's singing.

Splendid: You also mentioned Bob Dylan being an influence. It's said that the name of the band came from some lyrics to one of his tunes. In a dream?

Adele Bethel: It was me. I feel really silly telling people about it because it sounds made up, but it did actually happen. Years and years ago, I used to be in another band called Arab Strap and I'd always wanted to start my own band. I'd been thinking of a name for a really long time, and I had a dream. You know when you have a dream close to waking up and you can remember it really vividly? It was one of those kind of dreams. He was playing as a young man in my parents' back garden... to no one. (laughs) I don't know, maybe that was a bad thing. And he was singing "The Times They Are A Changin'" and I remember thinking of the lyrics "Your sons and daughters are beyond your command" when I woke up that day. And that's actually where it came from. It's kind of cheesy, I know, but...

Splendid: No, I think it's great. It's kind of funny that some people thought it was from a soap opera.

Adele Bethel: Yeah! Did you guys get that?

Splendid: I'd never heard of the soap before, but I guess it's big enough to mention. It's in your press kit, at least.

Adele Bethel: Well, I don't really remember it because I was a kid when it was broadcast. It was from the '70s. I don't remember much about it apart from the theme song was "Sons and daughters, love and laughter, tears of sadness and happiness." That's all I can remember. It's really funny because it's being rerun in the UK at the moment, like really late at night.

Splendid: You're a victim of the timing, I suppose. I also wanted to ask where the title of the album came from.

Adele Bethel: Scott actually came up with it. It was from two separate songs, where in each song both singers were singing "Love the cup". One of them was on the last Johnny Cash record, I think -- When The Man Comes Around.

Splendid: Okay, I wasn't sure if it was a reference to soccer or drinking... When you were in Arab Strap, did the bands ever overlap at any point?

Adele Bethel: Whenever I was on tour with Arab Strap, we'd go away for a month. And I was really trying to write songs, because I had an acoustic guitar with me at the time. I sort of wrote a few early Sons And Daughters songs while I was on the tour bus, the last Arab Strap tour that I did with Bright Eyes supporting. There was a slight overlap because the band was just starting to get together at that point.

Splendid: I remember Arab Strap coming through my area not too long ago.

Adele Bethel: Where are you based?

Splendid: I'm close to Baltimore. I remember Arab Strap playing at the Otto Bar.

Adele Bethel: We played there actually last month, or a couple months ago... with The Oranges Band? It was cool. I like Baltimore. It seems like a nice place. I never actually did any American tours with Arab Strap due to sort of financial sort of things. I came to New York with them a couple of times but I never actually went on any American tours. I only ever did the European dates with them. I always wanted to come. There was not enough money. (laughs) It wasn't that justifiable to have me along for two songs.

Splendid: Is that what your contribution was with Arab Strap? A few songs here and there?

Adele Bethel: Yeah, I pretty much did about two or three songs per record. Sometime just backing vocals. Yeah, I had a really great time with that band.

Splendid: Was that your first taste of touring?

Adele Bethel: Yeah, it sets you up for what to expect. It was great. They're great guys. I had some of the best times of my life on those tours. It was really fun.

Splendid: Are you a fan of Smog, at all?

Adele Bethel: I absolutely love them. Yeah, I've been a fan of Smog for quite a few years. They're one of the bands where once you hear one record, you buy everything. I've been quite obsessed with collecting Smog records for a long time. We actually played with them last year. A couple of dates in Glasgow and that was amazing. It was fantastic.

Splendid: I thought that your music would probably cross over to their fans.

Adele Bethel: Yeah, yeah. Those shows had done really well. It's also good to be on the same label as Smog. When we were signed to Domino, we were like "You don't have to give us any records of your catalog. We pretty much have them all!" (laughs)

Splendid: I'm sure they liked to hear that.

Adele Bethel: They were pretty pleased with that. They always joke about it when they give us a free promo CD, like the last Palace one.

Splendid: Domino is a good label to be on. People trust their instincts.

Adele Bethel: I was a fan of the label for a long time. You know they're going to deliver. They seem to be that kind of label, so we are so honored to be on the label along with so many other great bands. I would just buy new Domino records because they're that kind of label. You just kind of trust their judgement.