"we've always believed in our music and we said if we got airplay and the public could make up their own minds, then we'd be very happy. The single was released in the States and got maximum airplay... and the public did make up their own minds and they put it to number one."

Johnnie Christo, bass player with the Escape Club, demonstrates the admirable sense of faith in his band that has, finally, helped them to reap the rewards of a lengthy climb to the top. With 'Wild Wild West' being their first Stateside release, and despite the band not having played in the country prior to that release, the Escape Club have been catapulted to the top of the American charts through the power of the people (via, of course, MTV and the radio stations). And all this without a sniff of success in their home country - which is, naturally, Britain!

The Escape Club are Britain's latest "big-over-there" exports; acts who achieve nationwide recognition in almost every major country around the globe but their home territory.

They aren't a new band by any standard, having been doing the rounds for five years. Recording their first album for EMI, the Club escaped to an American deal with Atlantic Records, and have finally proved that anyone who overlooked them for so long was making a serious mistake.

Johnnie: "We've always walked in the shadows of other bands and never quite got the limelight or the breaks that other bands had - like airplay or exposure. We never got the right tours and things like that."

And yet you've just come up with an American number one?

Johnnie: "Yeah, which was a shock to our system, honestly."

Guitarist John Holliday shares the same sense of bewilderment at the Club's overnight success in the States. "We opened a bottle of Champagne when it went to 97, because that was all we expected, or wanted. We just wanted to get in the Top 100 with the first single. When it went to number one it was a little bit daunting, actually. It was frightening."

Yet however well the single has done in the US, it received little national airplay in Britain and, to all intents and purposes, stiffed immediately.

"Radio 1 played the single probably five times", says Holliday. "I think actually it would have been a hit record if Radio 1 had got behind it - they didn't. I feel a little bit upset about it and being an English band we think it's a bit off. But in a way I'm pleased because if 'Wild Wild West' had been a hit in this country, knowing the way that the industry is, we would have had one hit and then been forgotten about. This way, if we can go everywhere else and become successful, eventually it'll happen over here and it'll be much more long-standing. It'll happen because of word of mouth, and it'll happen because we're doing gigs and because we're building up a following, rather than it being a Bros situation where you live and die on your singles."

A laudable attitude, emphasising that despite the attraction of the big bucks, success in England is still "number one priority" for the Escape Club. They may be doing phenomenally well in the US, with two hit singles in 'Wild Wild West' and 'Shake For The Sheik', and a Top 30 album to add icing to the cake, but money isn't the only reward.

"THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH YOU CAN DO ON GUITAR NOWADAYS. WE'VE HAD 30 YEARS OF ROCK 'N' ROLL NOW; PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE COPYING WITHOUT EVEN REALISING IT."

"I think pride comes into it a hell of a lot", says Johnnie Christo. "We are a London-based band and we want to conquer England. There's nothing worse than having to go to other shores to do it."

John Holliday is quick to refute a parallel with bands like The Fixx and A Flock Of Seagulls, who notched up massive success in the States, but never made any impact on the domestic market. "Those bands sit in America because that's where the money is and they never come to England. They bung out records here but that's about as far as they go. We're going to stay here and we're going to work here."

"We're going to write our songs here", adds Christo for emphasis.

With its flowing vocal style, 'Wild Wild West' has the same structural feel as Bob Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' (as have many other records), but has also faced accusations of sounding not unlike Elvis Costello's 'Pump It Up'. Was this a conscious tribute or an unwitting similarity? Do the Escape Club even accept the similarity?

"Not at all!" asserts Christo.

Holliday: "I think the 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' feel was talked about but not 'Pump It Up'; I don't know where that's come from. I put the record on because people said it and I suppose if people say it then it must sound like it. But I can't see it!"

Christo: "I think it's just the metre of the vocal. I'm sure there are hundreds of bands who have written songs like that. People love to put bands into brackets. Maybe the next time somebody writes a song like that, they'll say it sounds like the Escape Club, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan...

"I think there's only so much you can do in rock 'n' roll on guitar nowadays. We've had 30 years of rock 'n' roll now; surely people are going to be copying without even realising it."

Holliday: "The problem is that there has been so much music before. If you think of people like the Buzzcocks - their best records were their first records because they were naive, they couldn't play more than two or three chords... their records were really good, really concise. And because they had no knowledge of anything that had gone before, they couldn't copy. I think the longer you're a musician and the longer that you're involved in music, and the more music that's gone on before, the more it influences you, gets into your life. You can't help it."

True enough. Music can get you like that.