The Vines have already taken the UK by storm. Now it’s America’s turn. Can ‘fragile’ frontman Craig Nicholls take the pressure?

THE 10TH annual KROQ Weenie Roast is one of LA's biggest and most influential festivals. Held at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, deep in the heart of Orange County, the Weenie Roast is a charity event put together by LA’s most listened to radio station. Only a handful of the 10,000 or so tickets can be bought by the general public; the rest are given out by the radio station via radio call-ins and competitions.

The Weenie Roast’s line-up is a barometer of exactly who's hot in America at any given moment. This year’s line-up features System Of A Down, Papa Roach, Jimmy Eat World and The Strokes, among others. Like all shows sponsored by radio stations, it's massively beneficial for bands to be seen here: play a radio show, the reasoning goes, and that radio station will play your records. Coachella — the Californian equivalent of Glastonbury, held in the desert just outside LA — might be cooler, but the Weenie Roast is an infinitely better career move.

In a backstage trailer, the four members of The Vines — vocalist/guitarist Craig Nicholls, bassist Patrick Matthews, guitarist Ryan Griffiths and drummer Hamish Rosser — are applying sunblock and swigging on cold drinks. This is the Australian quartet's most high-profile US show to date, and while they’re hardly buckling under the pressure, the nerves are starting to show. They might be bona fide chart stars in the UK, but over here, The Vines have got it all to prove.

THE RISE and rise of The Vines has, it’s fair to say, been spectacular. In the space of eight months, they've released three singles — two of which went Top 40 in Britain — and one widely acclaimed album. Like The Strokes and The White Stripes before them, the buzz surrounding the band has been deafening.

But it hasn’t come without a price. Craig Nicholls has found life in the media’s spotlight at best uncomfortable, at worst unbearable. Recent stories have portrayed him as a fragile, f**ked-up waif prone to panic attacks and bouts of depression; a tortured artist in the classic Cobain mould (not uncoincidentally, a huge hero of Nicholls’).

The net result of this is that a wall has been thrown up around The Vines. Before we meet them today, we're informed by management that Nicholls had been so upset by previous journalistic inquisitions that certain subjects (panic attacks, the rancorous departure of the band’s original drummer, Dave Olliffe) were off limits, and that he’d only want to talk for 15 minutes or so.

Sitting on a bench in The Vines’ trailer, Craig Nicholls certainly looks tired and wary. Initially, the tousle-haired 22-year-old isn’t the easiest or most comfortable interviewee; he avoids direct eye contact by staring straight ahead, and he answers questions in a monotone rush.

But steer Nicholls onto less personal subject matters — namely songwriting, recording and the power of music, the three things he says are the main interests in his life — and the wariness begins to melt. He raves about Stone Temple Pilots, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, hip-hop crew N*E*R*D and ’90s drone-rockers Swervedriver, and how he wants to work with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich. He’ll enthuse about skateboarding (a major love) and The Kinks (another major love) and how he prefers recording to playing live.

“Being onstage is fun, but it can only mean so much,” he shrugs. “It’s great and then it’s over. I feel at home in the studio. That’s what the band has always been about — moving forward and progressing. Producing good art.”

CRAIG NICHOLLS first began “producing good art” at the age of 15, when he met Patrick Matthews while both were working at McDonald's in Sydney. Recruiting school friend Dave Olliffe to play drums, the trio began laying down a string of lo-fi tunes on a four-track tape recorder. Olliffe named the band Risky Kash, after an Indian retreat visited by The Beatles (together with Nirvana, one of Nicholls’ two main influences).

Nicholls had already been playing the guitar for a few years. His father was a member of '60s garage band The Vynes, and he’d taught his son how to play the guitar in his early teens, but music in general never made much of an impression. It took the combination of Nirvana's ‘Nevermind’ and his dad's old Beatles albums to convince Nicholls that a career in music was worth pursuing.

“I connected with the fact that music could be created by an individual or a group of people and it was so inspiring,” Craig explains. “Then I started writing my own songs and thought, ‘Wow, it’s unlimited, you can create anything you want!’.”

Unsurprisingly, education took a back seat to music. Aside from art, Nicholls found school a waste of time.

“I didn’t like it,” he smiles. “It was just too much information. I did graphic art and fine art, which was totally free, but with music I can have more of these crazy ideas. As soon as I got into music, a lot of things made sense.”

THOSE “CRAZY ideas” have stood The Vines in good stead. In July 2001, Nicholls, Matthews and Olliffe decamped to LA to record their debut album. Nicholls estimates that he had written 40 songs in the 12 months prior to the move.

It was while they were in LA that things slowly began to unravel. Olliffe was struggling with the recording process — rumours have suggested that he would vomit with nerves before laying down his drum tracks and stub cigarettes out on his arms. Eventually, he left the band and returned to Australia (although he recently posted a message on the band’s website stating that he would soon rejoin the band, a claim their management vehemently deny).

Twelve months later, that debut album - titled, like their breakthrough single, ‘Highly Evolved’ — is ready and raring to go. An effortless mix of manic garage-rock (‘Get Free’, ‘Ain’t No Room’, the title-track) and the mellow, dreamy balladry (of which the gorgeous, swooning ‘Autumn Shade’ is the pick of the bunch), it’s one of the best debut albums of recent years. Like all truly great records, it echoes a handful of classic bands without ever replicating them.

“We listen to hard rock 'n’ roll and really punky stuff, but we also listen to The Beach Boys,” says Nicholls of the band’s multi-faceted sound. “I think it’s possible to try anything. I never really think about an audience when I’m writing, cos we haven't had one until now. I hope that people can just open their minds.”

But there’s darkness in there too. ‘She never loved me, how could anyone?’ rasps Nicholls on ‘Get Free’. Do you thrive on negativity?

“There’s truth and there’s fairytale in there,” he explains. “But people focus too much on that negative side. Like with Nirvana, there was more to Kurt's life than pain. It’s not a negative release, it feels good. It’s half abstract, half fictional. It’s like painting a picture.”

CRAIG NICHOLLS isn’t interested in fame or fortune. When he says “I want to be an artist, not a rock star”, you can’t help but believe him.

“I just want to be free to create stuff which keeps my mind occupied. See, it’s the drive that's as important as the actual sound or the lyrics. At the same time, like most people, there’s a part of me which goes, ‘F**k, I just want to sleep’.”

These days, Nicholls lives with his girlfriend in LA. Moving from the suburbs of Sydney is a big move, especially for Nicholls, who hadn’t even been on a plane until last year. Still, he’s being surprisingly pragmatic about it.

“It's just my temporary home,” he laughs, before getting ready to take the stage. “I like the weather, the good food and the skating.”

Today, at least, LA likes The Vines. After an introduction by legendary DJ Rodney Bingenheimer -— “All the way from Australia, they’re really gonna party you out!” yelps the diminutive compére — the foursome hit the stage like a cannonball.

Nicholls screams into ‘Outtathaway!’ with the fury of a banshee. If he’s not leaping in the air, legs akimbo, he’s rolling on his back, letting loose with sharp shards of feedback-strewn noise.

After the show, the frontman looks exhausted but happy. Rock ‘n’ roll’s newest poster boy knows the pressures that come with the music business, and he’s trying to deal with it the best he can.

“At the moment, we’re just trying to chill out, take it easy, play and let people know about the album,” he shrugs. “It freaks me out a bit, but I wanna make music. I figure I can do it for another year, and then I'll go on a health kick. I’m feeling positive.