We present The Young Knives, complete with nice suits, spectacles and an assortment of colourful names. Examples: a band title based on misreading ‘young knaves’ and thinking the mistake sounded cooler, a bassist called House Of Lords because he’s big and decisions go through him.

After years of toiling around nowhere, slowly, thanks to fear of phones and being terrible at promoting themselves (listen to next week’s Q podcast for more on that), the band got their big break when they won the 2005 Road To V competition - won this year by Keith and Bombay Bicycle Club - which let them open the festival and play their jaunty indie to thousands.

“That was quite daunting playing V,” says singer and guitarist Henry Dartnall, hidden behind an impressive pair of plastic glasses and a tie with horses on it. “There was quite a big crowd and a big stage, but I think we always wanted to do it so we just did get on with it and then do high-fives afterwards.”

The idea of a competition for music befuddled them somewhat. “That’s not what music’s about really, it’s about whether you like it or not. So, we were a bit wary of it, and luckily we won, otherwise we’d have been even more annoyed that we’d done it.”

Despite the fact they’re now plastered all over XFM and the festival roster, it’s been important for them to not take the whole thing too seriously. “We got chosen (for Road To V) at the last minute because someone dropped out, so we weren’t even in the competition really,” says Henry. “I don’t think people should get too strung up on doing it. A lot of people think it’s like their big break. It has helped us, but if we’d have lost it we’d hopefully have carried on and done the same sort of things.”

”There’s a lot of people who took it very seriously the year that we did it actually,” adds drummer Oliver Askew with a frown. “And this year in fact…trying far too hard. Don’t think it looks very good. We didn’t try at all hard. And we won it!”

”Well, we did our best for the performance but we didn’t think ‘Oh, we’re in with a chance’ so it was a bit of a laugh,” says Henry. “It’s a chance to get on telly, a chance to play a gig and that was a good way to approach it I think.

Yeah, how about the gigs?

“It’s the first year we’ve played loads of festivals, and they’re kind of different to doing normal gigs so there’s something definitely about playing to 8000 people that I quite like.”

“Is it showing off in front of 8000 people which is really good fun?” asks Oliver, deadpan.

“Yeah, there’s more people watching me show off, therefore I get a bigger buzz.” Buzz away Young Knives, preferably in the direction of these, our five Questivals.

Best?

H “Been to or played at?”

AF: "Either."

O: “Electric Gardens was good.”

H: “Yeah, I like the little ones. Things like Truck Festival I really enjoy. And (this was) the first year they’d done this Electric Gardens festival over in Kent, and it was a great atmosphere, lovely day, everybody  really positive even before you go on, none of that standing there all cross-armed and waiting for you to impress them. They wanted everyone to be good because they wanted to get mutual enjoyment out of the day.”

Worst?

HOL: “That one in France wasn’t a barrel of laughs was it?”

H: “Oh yeah, Furia. The problem with it was it was all outside on these little grass slops which formed a natural amphitheatre, and when it rained it just became mud slides. Unless you were drunk and then you could play in the mud, but for watching music it was kind of rubbish really.”

Weirdest?

H: “I’m just thinking about the Cuban Brothers’s stage show, that’s pretty weird. I mean, sliding along the floor completely butt naked in some water that you’ve just squirted down and that’s your stage show. Wiggling your nob around in a circle and jumping around. That just surprised me a little bit. But it’s all weird and wonderful at festivals.”

Essential?

HOL: “Beer.”

O: “Bar of soap.”

H: “Plastic bags for my socks.”

O: “Good one.”

Best festival band?

H: “I don’t know, I like being surprised at festivals really. I remember one year, years and years ago we went to go and see Moloko and never heard of them. They came on when they’d done their first album and although I can’t say I’m a particularly big fan of Moloko now, at the time it was something a bit new which was really cool and quite exciting.”

O: “Cuban Brothers.”

HOL: “Cos they get naked.”

H: “Things like the Pogues and Proclaimers are really good at festivals, but some bands don’t translate particularly well because they’ve got to entertain quite a lot of people. It’s quite hard work, with an audience in a field, making sure you’re involving everybody especially when they’re all just eating burgers, drinking beer and chatting.”