Do you recognise this man? No, he's not as famous as the Kaiser Chiefs' high-jumping frontman, Ricky Wilson, but drummer Nick Hodgson is the band's key songwriter, who breaks the stereotype of the 'thick sticksman'. He talks to Kevin Courtneyabout the Chiefs' new album

OR such a famously crowd-pleasing combo, Kaiser Chiefs seem to have an obsession with baying, bloodthirsty hordes. Having predicted a riot on their debut album, Employment (and pretty much causing a riot in the pop world), the Leeds lads are back in the thick of it with Yours Truly, Angry Mob.

Maybe it's a clever statement about armchair anarchy, or perhaps it's an expression of an anxiety that said mob will hear the new album, deem it unworthy, and proceed to tear the band limb from limb - pausing only to write them a polite but firm letter explaining why they must take such drastic, dismembering action.

But if Kaiser Chiefs have felt any pressure to follow up their hugely successful debut, drummer Nick Hodgson for one isn't showing it. In Dublin to unveil the band's new single, Ruby, at the Meteor Music Awards, Hodgson does not cut a worried figure. As one of the band's main songwriters, he knows with all the certainty of Noel Gallager circa 1995 that the new album has at least half-a-dozen hits on it. So far, the reaction to Ruby, a radiant anthem to a pearl of a girl, has justified his quiet confidence.

What's immediately apparent about the new single is the absence of the familiar la-la-las that have been a staple of KC songs, and which have kept the crowds happily singing along from Glastonbury to Punchestown. And they've eschewed the trademark crescendos that climaxed such hits as I Predict a Riot and Oh My God, and which were guaranteed to get the mob going absolutely bonkers.

For the Kaisers, this could be considered a brave departure.

"When we wrote the first album we were unsigned," says Hodgson. "We always knew we would get signed, but it wasn't looking that good. So, by writing those songs, we never thought we'd have people commenting on them, and never in such great detail. We were just doing stuff that we thought was fine, sounded good, let's do it. And obviously now, having a lot more success and knowing that a lot of people are going to hear it, we went: right, well, we're not ever gonna do one of those build-ups with the whoahs, because if we do, everyone will just go, right, heard it."

Hodgson certainly doesn't fit the image of the thick sticksman who has to have the beat punched into him by the rest of the band. He's the ideas guy, bringing the bare bones of songs into the rehearsal room and letting the rest of the band toss them round till they come up with a tune that's festival fit.

"It's what works in the rehearsal room as well," he insists. "I mean, there's no shyness from any members of the band, which is a good thing, because when you get a band that has this lead singer who's also the songwriter and the guitarist, and who's also the egomaniac up front, then the bass player and the drummer go 'ohhh, I don't like this but I can't really say anything'."

The process usually begins with Hodgson singing and strumming a guitar while lead singer Ricky Wilson taps out a beat on the drumkit. The songs "grow very naturally in the room," says Hodgson, and they're usually binned if they take more than two hours to knock into shape. The rehearsal room is the laboratory where the Kaisers put together songs that will create the right chemistry between them and their fans - and hopefully head straight into the Top 10.

"We love hits, and we love all the benefits that come with having a hit. Hits are brilliant. We didn't want any songs on the album that weren't good, which happens so often. So we were lean, and we wanted to make sure that every detail on the album has its place.

"I don't know what it is, there's something about the completion of a song, how satisfied you are by the end of it, where you've gone in a whole circle and you end it, and bang, and there's no more to come and you can't imagine putting any more in or taking any more out. When it's nailed, you know it. It's brilliant.

"Anyone can write shit songs, and we have written them. And maybe people would think we're dead cool, but no one would hear it."

If Kaiser Chiefs did write any "shit songs" for their debut album, they certainly didn't make it onto the final cut, and though the subject matter of Employment may have inadvertently reflected the vacuous nature of modern life in the UK, its content was eagerly embraced by stupidly grinning mobs from Leeds to LA.

From the first incarnation of the band all of 10 years ago, Hodgson and his bandmates - singer Ricky Wilson, guitarist Andrew "Whitey" White, bassist Simon Rix and keyboard player Nick "Peanut" Baines - dreamed of having hit records, but now that the dream has become a reality, the lads are careful to keep their feet on the ground, and cautious about the dangers of turning into rich rock'n' roll nobs.

"Friendships are good, because you can't do what we've done without that. We feel like a gang, really. Not a gang, cos everyone's a gang, aren't they? We feel like a team. We've all got better cars - except Whitey, he doesn't drive, and Ricky's car is not that good. But you can't do stuff like that, you'd be embarrassed.

"We were in New York doing this promo trip last week, and Peanut came down to reception in a new coat. Not a fancy coat, just a new coat. And I said to him, that's a nice coat, were you nervous when you came down? And he said, yeah."

Yours Truly, Angry Mob is out next Friday

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ANDY STURMER:The skin-basher is the creative force behind LA psychedelic combo Jellyfish, whose album, Bellybutton, is a cult classic.

DON HENLEY:Country-rockers The Eagles shared vocal and songwriting duties. Now they all use separate Learjets.

ECHO:Ian McCullough and Will Sergeant nicknamed their drum machine Echo; when it was replaced by real drummer Pete de Freitas, it lived on in the band's name, Echo & the Bunnymen.

MICKEY DOLENZ:Davy Jones may have been the pretty boy up front, but the best Monkee was the guy behind the kit who sang lead vocals on the bulk of their greatest hits.

NEIL PEART:The drummer in Canadian prog-rock trio Rush has another pivotal role in the band: writing lyrics for such epics as 2112, Subdivisions and By-Tor and the Snow Dog.

BILLY COBHAM:He played with Miles Davis and John McLaughlin, and wrote the seriously complex music on his own albums. That's him sampled on Massive Attack's Safe from Harm.

PHIL COLLINS:(OK, stop there)