Here, we profile some of the newer stars set to shine at this year's festival...

Cage The Elephant

"IF a cow kills the ozone layer, I don't even need to know what an elephant does!"

Who knows, but Cage The Elephant's punky roar is raw enough to scorch the earth around it.

It's a year and more since the Kentucky five-piece, based on brothers Matt and Brad Schultz, released their debut single in the UK, Free Love.

And that title might be just what you expect when three of the band – the Schultzes and bassist Daniel Tichenor – grew up on an alternative religion commune.

Guitarist Brad quickly puts the record straight: "That was really Daniel, my dad worked on this Christian farm and he worked there till I was six-years-old. But me and Matt went to a holy roller, evangelical, Pentecostal church."

There was a lot of music there?

"Yes, there was a lot of music, we had a really musical church with a choir and drums and guitars, but my dad was an old school rock n roller."

The debut album has been quite a long time coming because of song Free Love. They were so pleased with it that though they'd already recorded most of their debut album, they re-recorded the song to add it in too.

And the self-titled album – made about 18 months ago originally – is out on June 23. First up there's a slice of the band's particular brand of spicy American pie with Ain't No Rest For The Wicked. It's worth checking out on their website, as it's a singalong tale about what people have to do to get by and it gives more than a whiff of the rough, full-on power of the band's music.

And it has nothing to do with country. Though Nashville isn't that far from the band's poetically named hometown of Bowling Green, they have no truck with the country.

"We hate country music," , but we pretty much started out in Nashville."

But Brad likes the idea of our own Nessie. Is he a believer?

"I'm going with believer," says Brad.

"I could put a leash out and make it my pet," he laughed. But maybe sensing a shocked silence at the end of the phone, he quickly changes his tune.

"No, I won't do that. It'll be my friend, my soul mate."

Amen, to that.

Does It Offend You Yeah?

IT'S James Rushent's birthday on the day they head up to Rock Ness for their set.

"It's going to be a rowdy van," James said.

He's interrupting work on music to talk, grabbing the chance with a few days off to work on new material.

"When I get some time off, I don't sit about, I put on my earphones and twiddle away."

As well as one of the two originals behind Does It Offend You Yeah?, James and fellow founder Dan Coop have remixed everyone from Muse to Bloc Party.

But with new single Epic Last Song out this week from debut album You Have No Idea What You Are Getting Yourself Into, he talked about the start of DIOYY?

"When we first made the music, we knew it was going to be a different project. The first song was Battle Royale. We'd written it and came back the next day and listened to it and said 'That's rubbish!". But we liked the sounds, so though we changed it all around, we kept the sound."

The title was inspired, or maybe not, by the Japanese movie: "I always think that if you have something else on in the background, it helps writing and the film was on."

But James confessed that he was not always happy with the debut album where Battle Royale is the first track: "I have gone through phases with it.

"People expected us to do a pretty electro album and we didn't want to do that, we wanted to clear the slate, as it were. We set up the band so that no-one knows what they are going to get from us. And we don't want to get bogged down in the electro thing. So we went off and experimented and I think we upset a few people!"

James thinks DIOYY? have been lazily tagged on to the electro band scene: "Suddenly, we're this electro, nu-rave band – whatever that means – and we don't really listen to electro music. It was just one weekend we were bored so we wrote some tracks."

Live, the band's rampaging, dangerous to limb and instrument performance, does sometimes end up creating casualties. This week its Morgan Quaintance.

James said: "Morgan was having problems walking last week, though, he wasn't sure how he did it. But he must have trodden on glass somewhere and there's a splinter he can't get to and he doesn't know what to do. He's going 'Should I go to the doctor or get it out with tweezers?' His main worry is that he doesn't want it to end up in his head!"But I think we've all injured ourselves doing something. I've inflicted some injuries on Dan. We were coming offstage and his face was bleeding from this gash on the forehead. 'How did you do that?' I asked him and he told me I'd whacked him in the face with my bass! We do go a little bit crazy."

Kentucky's Cage The Elephant play the Clash Arena on Saturday.

* DIOYY? play the Skins Live Arena on Sunday.

Hadouken

YES, Hadouken!'s James Smith admits that he spends a lot of time in his bedroom on his laptop and Mac working on music.

"I haven't been near it today, but every other day this week and for the last seven days," he chuckled.

"But it's raining today so I was going to go outside, but now I'm not sure."

Making his second favourite sandwich, tuna and cucumber (his fave is chicken, tomato, cucumber and mayonnaise), James agrees staying in his room so much might be unhealthy.

But there's little danger of him turning into one of those unhealthy, long skinny yellow plants they show you in the school science lab – the ones that never get to see the light.

After Rock Ness Hadouken! are off to Prague and lots more European dates.

Named after the fireball move in computer game Street Fighter, Hadouken! are anything but lazy stay-at-homes.

With their fan group Aerials getting the chance to receive exclusives and extras from the band who don't have much time for official charts and prefer to harness the power of the internet, it comes as no surprise.

James said: "We're quite up for that and we like to give value-for-money to our fans if they're cool enough to purchase our stuff. So we give out freebies all the time, and we did our box set.

"I definitely think we've got a big internet fanbase. It's just the way people communicate these days. It's the easiest way and it's the quickest way, certainly. It's a good media to translate to, and it's into the thousands for us. We gave out free T-shirts and we see them at gigs so we know who's actually in Aerials which is cool, so it's kind of like an exclusive club, really."

But James likes to be able to get closer to the fans than the internet.

"We talk to them and stuff on the internet, but going outside after gigs and chatting to people is probably the best way.

"You can't do it while you're appearing cos it would ruin the gig, but after the gig you can ask them what they like about the band and what are their favourite songs and you get an idea of where we should take it next."

And it couldn't be a better time for that. After debut album, Music For An Accelerated Culture, work's already started on the follow-up.

"We're writing the second album at the moment and it's starting to take shape," James revealed. "It's quite dance-orientated and we're looking forward to it. We all work on the music, but I write the lyrics, so that is the hardest part for me."

First though, there's the escape to Rock Ness.

"We just want to get up and play the tent. It's got a really good line-up if I remember correctly. And we're looking forward to rocking out and seeing Loch Ness."

Mystery Jets

THE last time The Mystery Jets were in the Highlands, they were floating down Loch Ness playing a very exclusive acoustic gig for a handful of lucky punters.

Now their second album Twenty One is out, and single Two Doors Down came out on Monday.

Bassist Kai said: "We felt there was so much more we could do with the second album, and we're pleased with it, definitely. We didn't feel the first one achieved everything we could have done. We went into the studio with our producer Erol Alkan and he encouraged us to dress them up and just explore them. So we think it's ended up 100% Mystery Jets only better!"

There was also a decision for singer Blaine Harrison's dad Henry, a member of the band since the start, to take more of a back seat.

"It was a mutual decision and Henry is still involved with writing. For us, it's not really a change, though it is for the public. But after two years turning, we wanted to change, really. We were no longer teenagers and we wanted to feel that we were standing on our own feet. There were so many gimmicks that the press found in the band that we felt the music was being overlooked.."

Looks like there's a change of image for Mystery Jets too, thanks to their video for Two Doors Down.

"We wanted to make it a real pastiche of the 80s. So we've got these pastel suits, dancing girls and now our plan is to wear the suits to some festivals, so we may well bring them up for Rock Ness.

* Catch them at Clash Arena, Saturday.

m.chrystall@highland-news.co.uk

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