Viva Glasvegas!

"It's a friend from my old work - apparently Radio 1's Jo Whiley just said we're ones to watch in 2008." Her statement is met with looks of surprise and bewilderment from bandmates James Allan, Rab Allan and Paul Donahue.

Wiley's backing is just the latest high profile endorsement for the East End quartet who have been lauded by the NME, hailed by former Creation Records boss Alan McGee as the country's best band in 20 years, backed the Dirty Pretty Things, The Charlatans and Ian Brown, and found their music played almost non stop on XFM Scotland.

Currently on their first headline tour of the UK, Glasvegas possess a sound, style and set-up that makes them stand out from other bands.

There's professional footballer turned singer-songwriter James Allan, who encouraged pal Caroline - then working in King Street vintage emporium Mr Ben - to pick up the drumsticks.

It was while listening to doo-wop and barbershop music in Caroline's flat with James' cousin Rab and his Eastbank Academy schoolmate Paul, that the four-piece began to work on James' self-penned lyrics and melodies. Those musical sketches would become the basis for their first six tracks.

After releasing a self-financed double-A sided single - a copy of which recently sold for £100 on Ebay - the band played their first gig, at Rockers on Midland Street.

But it's their more recent tracks - Daddy's Gone and the forthcoming single It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry - that have created an industry storm. Even though they sound pretty homemade, they have real power.

"Most of the stuff I've done at home," admits James, 28, supping on an orange juice in the Winter Gardens of the People's Palace.

"But for the last two - the demo singles that we brought out - my home computer was hanging together by a thread so I had to go into a studio. I produced it with an engineer in Central Sound Studios."

As yet unsigned, Glasvegas plan on waiting until the end of their current tour - and their triumphant homecoming gig at Barrowland on February 21 - to decide which label to sign to.

So, if they have no label backing, how do they keep on the road?

"As of now, everything is self-financed," says manager Dean Cunning.

"The set-up is probably about as glamorous as you'd imagine at the moment," says James. "But maybe it will get better."

You can bet on that if their celebrity fans are anything to go by. Lisa Marie Presley - daughter of Elvis - was so impressed with Daddy's Gone (an ode James wrote about his absent father) that she made a trip to Edinburgh especially to meet the band.

Since forming in 2004, Glasvegas have wowed audiences at venues across Scotland, from the cavernous reaches of the Carling Academy, to a 100-strong crowd in the chapel at Barlinnie Prison.

The praise they're received has been fulsome. There's comparisons to a young Joe Strummer for James, to Bobby Gillespie's school of stand-up, pared-down drumming for Caroline, and the band's recorded sound has been likened to that of 1960s studio maestro Phil Spector.

The emotion ploughed into the vocals on the Cheating Heart single - on sale on Valentine's Day - makes it sound like frontman James really is ripping his heart out with regret and guilt.

"All I've ever been trying to do is make something as soulful as I can make it," he explains.

"We are trying to express ourselves with a bit of sincerity."

Compared with the terse rock-star attitude of some bands, Glasvegas are a good-natured bunch and very entertaining interviewees.

They laughingly want to see some "Evening Times dollar" before they'll even let us look at footage of them boating in Hyde Park with former Libertines man Carl Barat.

The photo session with them on Glasgow Green dissolves into hysterics as Rab bares more than absolutely necessary, and they all try to rub away their "red Scottish nose-thing".

And when mention is made of John Barnes and Kevin Keegan making football-music crossovers, Rab is quick to jokingly declare a management huddle to pinpoint exactly "where this interview is going".

"I was always going to my bed and dreaming about being a football player when I was a wee boy," says James.

"Through the years that just changed. Music has taken over."

"It's something that's come about through friendship," adds drummer Caroline, 34, who previously worked in theatre education as well as in Mr Ben, where she first met James.

"I'd never drummed and had no aspirations to be in a band - ever.

"Basically James would teach me something and I would learn it.

"It's been difficult but it's fun because we've all been doing it together."

The band has been a learning curve for everyone.

Bassist Paul - a former tiler from Tollcross - started playing guitar at school, while cousins James and Rab - who both still live in Shettleston - picked up guitars at around the same time, and performed their first gig in front of their mums.

"That was the toughest gig we've ever played," says James. "It was about as important to me as any gig I've played."

The first song the band recall playing together was Flowers & Football Tops, inspired by the murder of Pollokshields teenager Kriss Donald.

Its poignant lyrics were about James, who signed for Falkirk FC and played for Queen's Park, Gretna, Stirling Albion and Dumbarton, imagining a parent's reaction to losing a child.

"At the beginning I didn't know if the band were going to like the songs I'd written, but they did and thought it was brilliant," he says.

"I remember the first time that we heard Cheating Heart," adds Rab. "James played it in the motor driving to rehearsals and I thought it was one of the best things that I've ever heard.

"It was like good boy," he says, patting James' back. "Good us, times two!" Glasvegas play the NME Shockwave Awards tour at the Barrowland on February 21.

Tickets £13.60. Their new single, It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry, is released on Valentine's Day.