Hailing from the nondescript burg of Staines in Middlesex, England, alt-rock quartet Hard-Fi became unexpected chart stars at home last year. Thanks to their catchy hit "Cash Machine" and the debut full-length "Stars of CCTV" -- brimming with a mix of danceable post-punk and dub reggae that some critics are calling "diska" (disco + ska, geddit?) -- the foursome is currently repeating the feat on U.S. shores. Drummer Steve Kemp took a few minutes to discuss the band's new single ("Hard to Beat"), recording on the cheap and what lies ahead for Hard-Fi.

MSN Music: You play 5,000-seat venues in England. Meanwhile, in the United States, you're starting at the ground floor again, playing small clubs. How does that feel?

Steve Kemp: It's exciting. The places we're playing in America are the type of places we were playing six months ago in England, and the vibe is similar, too: Most of the crowd has never seen us before, so they're just hanging around, watching ... but by the end of the set, they're jumping up and down. At every little club we play, in every state, we feel like we have to win the crowd over. And we're having a great time doing it.

In a band like yours, where the songs rely very heavily on the groove, a tight rhythm section is essential. Describe your relationship with bassist Kai Stephens.

Me and Kai are the ones in the band who will actually argue the most. We'll wind each other up, in a good way -- we're mates, but we clash a little bit. But when we play, there is no bass player I'd rather be playing with. All that spiky tension between us works really well on stage.

Your album, "Stars of CCTV," went No. 1 in the United Kingdom in January. Did you do anything special to celebrate? Buy a house? A new pair of shoes? Take your mum out to dinner?

If only I could, I would have done all those things. But we were in Chicago, and we had to do a gig that night. We got the news at about 7 o'clock in the morning, and we couldn't start drinking champagne then, because 800 people had paid good money to come see us, and if we came out drunk and disorderly they would have been disappointed. So we had to keep it together and play the show. We had a few drinks after, of course, but we didn't really have a chance to celebrate the way that we wanted to.

You recorded your debut album on a budget of just 300 pounds. Did working so cheaply ultimately make the band more resourceful?

It worked out well in the end. It's not like we're rich kids or rock stars, who decided to make an album on the cheap, just to sound lo-fi and cool. We did it that way because we had to. And if we wanted it to sound as good as it could, we had to go in there and try, and try, and try again. We're not trying to say to anyone, "Look how clever we are, making our album so cheaply." We're saying, "If you have no money, you can do it, too. Just put your heart and soul into it." You just need some good songs and a little bit of talent.

The "Hard to Beat" video takes place primarily in a pub and a nightclub. Are those actual hot spots from your home town, or studio sets?

That was in a pub somewhere in East London, but it was just the kind of regular place we would hang around. The party scene was filmed at a small club in King's Cross. We invited all these fans to come down, off our Web site, and loads of them turned up. So we packed them all in and played in the middle.

Name three albums every Hard-Fi fan should own.

"London Calling" by the Clash. "It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" by Public Enemy. And ... what was that last Gorillaz album called? "Demon Days," they should have that one, too.

What does the future hold for you boys? Any vacation plans?

That's just a pipe dream at the moment. Maybe after we've finished all the promotion for the second album -- which we can't even start making until we finish all this touring. Then we'll have a little holiday in 2008. But not for a long, long time.

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