Envelopes are fascinating. Surely a contradiction in terms? But, no. Envelopes are cool again. Fronted by a French Woman, backed by a bunch of Swedish blokes, Envelopes transform their varied background into music. Music that's easy and fun to listen to, music that enthuses you, music that makes you want to dance. It's proper pop music and it's perfect. So, before they played a splendidly pop-tastic set to Newcastle's club NME crowd, we caught up with them over a few poppadoms and a garlic naan bread.

So what made you decide upon "Envelopes"?

I think you always have to be called an object or a thing when you are a band because it's always like The Beatles or whatever and Envelopes was a flat meaningless object that didn't have any connotation. It's a nice word. When you say it, it's kind of beautiful. We were actually The Envelopes for, maybe, two weeks or something but then we were Envelopes, just Envelopes. I never really thought about the actual object because I like the verb as well. I think it has deep and interesting connotations about how you can be inside something. Not because it's a grey paper thing but more because it can describe some situations. You can be enveloped in the music, for example! There you go, that's a good one. If you want to find us on the internet, however, you always have to put the band name and the name of one of our songs otherwise you get to, like, Christmas cards. It's horrible.

So at this moment in time, where the band is at the minute, do you like it this way, or would you like to progress further or maybe bring something back from the things you've done in the past?

I think I would like a mix of both. Right now, it's not perfect and it's not very comfortable or secure. You are kind of feeling a little chased around and we have been able to set some terms like we have an excited record label and stuff like this but we are still in a frame work that we can't do anything about. The thing is, I want it to go further. I want to tour more. If we tour more I think it will be nicer. We will have nicer hotels and a nicer van. But, at the same time I think what I would like to have back is the will of not caring about what you are doing and not thinking, like, oh, is it going to sell any records. I think that's very very difficult. For me, at the minute, we're almost at the start where good things happen. I'm starting to look at things from this other perspective, you know. At the start, we only because it was funny to write crazy pop songs so, for me, this kind of thing is really hard to tackle. It will be great if we sell records because it's kind of a funny life, you get to travel. I want to do good. It's not like I would want to do bad.

Do you think that coming to the UK has helped you?

Not really, because we don't really have an audience yet. However, it helped us a lot in the way that, here, you can play a lot as a band where as, before, we were living apart in different countries so we could never be together and play. We didn't exist at all for other people. We were playing a small group of indie-pop people in Paris. There were not many, but they knew about us. But then, like, the label helped us to start working so now we have a very small but loyal fan base. We have 1300 myspace friends, we've sold a couple of thousand records. To me, it feels like that's kind of big. We didn't invite any people on myspace. Well, maybe about 3 because one of us wanted to invite Britney Spears. But now, I feel things would have gone a lot faster because, if we'd invited people then we'd have, like, connection points.

Do you think it's helped your music in the way that other bands in England have influenced you?

No. Although now we have this song that, when I sing it live I'm copying Barry, the lead singer of Clor but that was an accident because of the way we made the song. It has only helped in the way that we have never played live so much. Now, we really kick ass live! That's the whole country, by being what it is, having so many venues and having so many people interested in going to gigs. And, also, MTV2 and the radio liked us.

You've mentioned two bands that you've toured with; The Young Knives and Clor. You do seem to always be playing with decent bands. Do you have any say in this? Are there any bands that you wouldn't tour with?

Clor picked us because we supported Tom Vek with them and they really liked us and they wanted us to support them on their tour. We were impressed really that they were allowed to pick their support. We were never allowed, except for one gig and we haven't been able to choose any other. As for the Young Knives, they were also playing with Clor but they're good. I don't know whether there's any band I wouldn't really want to support. It's fun when we play with really good bands and when you play with bad bands it's kind of funny because you can show the audience that you're much better. You can smash it totally when you play with someone though because it's so disparate and the whole feeling gets ruined. The last thing Pixies did before breaking up was to support U2.

Are the Pixies a massive influence on you all?

Yeah, they're massive. I (Henrik) was listening a lot, for about a year. They were something my friends were listening to for a long time but I discovered them when I was about 17. It then came to the stage, for all of us, that you know you have listened to them for so long because you can say that Trompe Le Monde is their best record because those who have just heard them a little would never pick it. (Audrey) They have been a part of my life for so long. I've been learning so much stuff from listening to them. I built all my personality on my life.

In terms of your music, your sound is quite individual, especially when you compare it with a lot of the bands that are around in Britain at the minute. Is that a conscious decision, to try and be individual or is it just a sign of your creativeness?

It is a conscious decision to try and be individual but it's not a conscious decision to try and not sound like anything else. What I have always tried to do is to try and get as much in there as possible and try and make the songs as interesting as possible but it's very hard to that if you have the same band, playing the same songs all the way through. I wanted to have a lot of stuff happening all the time. We're different people so, of course, when you put us together, it doesn't sound like anything else. We have two very individual voices and totally different guitar players. I always have this condition when I'm writing a new song that it shouldn't sound like any other song we do.

And that appears to be the ethos that Envelopes build themselves upon. It's different, but it's authentic pop music played the way pop music should be by some of the nicest, most genuine musicians you'll ever get the chance to see or listen to.

http://www.envelopes.se/
www.myspace.com/envelopes