The Housemartins are 'a stylist's nightmare', but who cares? They're doing just fine. Moira McEnroy eats sweeties with Hull's finest.

The Housemartins are your spotty boys next door. The wimpy looking ones who looked on at school dinner hours while Fonzie types clicked with the girls. The ones who always did their homework and never dyed their hair or pierced their ears. The normal ones. Grown up now, these still pimply youths lark around the backstage at WOMAD playing football with the roadies and making farting noises. Like overgrown schoolboys. They've got about an hour to kill before they go on stage to play to 7,000 or so pilgrims who have made the journey down to Bristol to see them play. Unlikely lads turned popstars.

The audience is a motley crew made up of musos, teenyboppers, scooterists out for the weekend and bedraggled casualties from the Peace Convoy. The Housemartins launch into their first number — a very danceable and boppy instrumental — and despite the heat, half of those at the front are already on the other half's shoulders.

Songs are delivered in rapid fire and if anyone isn't listening to the lyrics, singer Paul Heaton gets his message across inbetween them. "I know this is a bit frank, but Anti-Apartheid are passing a bucket round and if you don't put any money in you're a bastard basically" he says in his matter of fact way.

Stan Cullimore meanwhile gets the crowd to turn round and wave at 'those respected officers of the law' who are overseeing the proceedings from a ringside seat on the hilltop opposite. As we all wave everyone is laughing and the air is thick with irony.

You'd be mistaken to think the Housemartins were wet behind the ears. I asked Stan how important a part politics plays in the band's music. "I would say it was indispensable" he says. "You couldn't dispense with the politics and still have the music. It just wouldn't be the same sound at all we couldn't do it. If you tried to say to Paul that he couldn't discuss politics in his lyrics, he wouldn't know what to write for a start and also without that belief our performance would disappear or change so much that it wouldn't be the same band. It would just be absurd."

"We've discussed this among ourselves", adds Hugh, drummer with the band. "We've come to the conclusion that it's an organic part of the music. Paul writes what he does as naturally as say someone like Al Green would write a love song. Without the politics the music would lose its tone or its meaning."

Paul also finds time in the set to come to the aid of a bootlegger that he spots from the stage, egging the crowd on to shout hello to him 'to make the tape really special'. This proves a rather different approach from Siouxsie Sioux (also on the bill) who has already sent her heavy mob round to the bootleg stall to leave the ominous threat "We'll be in touch."

Heaton's mixture of humility, aggression and joy on stage leaves the crowd transfixed. He has a laugh and a joke with them but his mood can switch instantly. He turns angrily on a security man who is pushing an over-zealous fan off stage; "Oi gently. That's my brother you're pushing" he snaps angrily.

Those same emotions of joy and anger are the power behind Heaton's voice and the Housemartins' music. They are also the reason why their music should be taken seriously. They may have had a top three single in the charts, but there is much greater depth to their music than the beautifully deceptive boppy melody of 'Happy Hour' will tell you.

Right now success is new to the band. The success of their last single and of their debut album, 'London 0 Hull 4' has won them some silver and gold plaques for their front rooms back in their home town of Hull. They are still shaking their heads and laughing when girls ask them for their autographs. Stan (guitar and vocals) is still very excited when, on the way up to WOMAD, we stop at a petrol station and he hears 'Happy Hour' blaring out through someone else's car window. "They've got our record on their tape deck" is his disbelieving cry. Something makes you hope and pray that these boys never lose the thrill of their success. What exactly does this success mean to them?

Stan: At the moment it doesn't mean much really. But at least it's proof to your Mum and Dad that you weren't stupid to sit in your bedroom and play your guitar all day and it's proof that you have at last got a job that means something. Apart from that it means you've changed league. I mean you used to be on a Sunday side and now you're up there with the big boys and you're expected to act like big boys. It's a bit like going from primary school to secondary school when your headmaster says 'you used to be a big fish in a small pond and now you're a small fish in a big pond'. Now we can meet famous people and not have to ask for their autograph anymore."

Yet to most record companies, The Housemartins would be someone to pass on. Great songs, but look at them! Spotty and scruffy — a stylist's nightmare. Thank the Lord then that there are still a few people in the music business who can tell a good thing when they see it. Andy MacDonald, who runs the 'successfully independent' label of Go! Discs (which also houses Billy Bragg and His Latest Flame) seems to be one of those people. Under his auspices the 'Martins have not been forced into a musical or aesthetic compromise, the band have been left to their own devices and their undoubted talent has shone brightly through. What made them sign to Go! Discs?

Stan: "We signed to Go! Discs because we liked them basically. Once people started getting interested in us, out of all the people we met who talked to us after the gigs and came up with these wild and wacky offers Andy MacDonald was the one we seemed to have the same ideas as us so we signed to him.

But wasn't the lure of major record company advances tempting for them?

Hugh: No, on the contrary. We deal directly with Go! and that way we can keep control. Large advances can put tremendous pressure on a band to come up with the goods — and the right sort of goods as the record company sees it. So living on a sort of household budget actually attracted us in that way."

But initial success has not come particularly easily to them. Just as well then they share relentless enthusiasm for their medium and had performed countless times before there was any record company interest. All are also confirmed believers in live music.

Hugh: Playing in front of audiences has been really important to us. If I think about it, it's on stage where we've really grown and developed as a band."

It is Stan Cullimore and Paul Heaton who are the songwriters of the band and their love of soul music and gospel lead them to produce the acappellas which have now become an indispensable part of their set. They have also recorded acappella sessions for John Peel and have even performed on a couple of occasions under the alias of the Fish City Five and without the aid of instruments.

Stan: We used to hire this really cheap two seater van to take us to gigs and on long journeys it was really tiring on our voices to try and have a conversation over the noise of the engine. So we used to sing instead, just to pass the time really and because it was easier on our voices. Singing without accompaniment is just so enjoyable. Instruments on their own can often become a bit mechanical and sometimes you don't really feel like you're getting anything across. But it's different when all you use is just four human voices. It's a bit like campfire singing in a way — everyone really likes it secretly. Eventually we introduced an acappella into our set and the audience really seemed to like it so we worked out some more. Now it's got to the stage where when we've finished the actual gig — and we quite often finish it with a Stevie Wonder cover that we do in acappella and at the end we stick on these Amens. And often we'll go to the dressing room and we'll sit there for about five minutes and just sing Amen. There's something about group singing that really calms you down.'

The Housemartins share a passion for gospel music, but their flirtation with Christianity in this respect, goes beyond music. They describe themselves as Christian Socialists though Hugh for one claims that he doesn't believe God — though he 'believes in the sentiments' and the idea that 'Jesus was a good socialist.' Stan elaborates: 'It's different for me personally than other individuals in the band but I would say that religious belief and believing in socialism is similar in that you have got to have faith. You have got to believe that people can be nice and aren't all selfish grabbing bastards. I would see Jesus as a sort of all round good bloke that you could go for a drink with and get drunk with and watch a football match with and take to a gig. But he'd be a good bloke in that he'd think about other people's feelings and he wouldn't have little lazy patches where he's horrible or dismissive or reactionary in his views. Like a sort of perfect big brother. Someone you could admire and infinitely look up to — I don't know about worship but admire him and definitely admit that he's a better bloke than anyone else. As a band, we all like the power and the emotion that religion can engender sometimes. It's very attractive.'

I left the Housemartins as two of them were discussing the finer points of gospel music while the other two threw over-ripe peaches out of the car window to watch them splat on the tarmac. These boys may act silly but they have got their heads screwed on. They may be able to whip off a poppy chart tune, but the depth and the power of their music can also take your breath away at times. And whilst none of them are naive about the ways of the world, or the music industry, their enthusiasm for their music and their belief in their fellow man is refreshing and inspiring. In a music world that thinks it's clever to be tired and cynical, this band are making tarnished ideas new again and giving accepted formulas for popular music a much needed overhaul. The Housemartins have made it and I'm glad.