Music Goes On spoke to Crackout's Jack Dunkley who plays bass in the three-piece consisting of drummer Nicholas Millard and singer/guitarist Steven Eagles.

Crackout — who signed to Virgin's Hut Recordings earlier this year — are releasing their debut album This Is Really Neat on 22 October. Jack told Music Goes On that the album is a collection of what the band have been doing over the last two years. "We've collected it all down and put it on disc," he says. "I think we've done well in capturing our live sound." He described it as a "presentation of who we are".

The band are due to play an acoustic session for Radio One's Jo Whiley soon. Jack spent yesterday (9 October) practising, by himself, which he claims he doesn't do very often. "I've been playing around with my new acoustic which is very nice."

Last night Jack could be found in a pub. The night was originally to be spent watching a film, but that was cancelled due to some sort of problems with the projection "or something". So, he decided to go down the pub instead.

Onto more serious questions, Music Goes On asked Jack about his feelings for controversial file sharing application Napster. He told me that he thought Napster was "excellent, really excellent". "If I wanna go out and buy an album, there is nothing in the world which will stop me buying the album," he said. "But before that I need to hear it and Napster's an excellent way of doing that."

Jack did say it was a shame that Napster was being abused though. Music Goes On then asked him what could be done to stop it being abused. Off the top of his head he came up with: "A limited amount of downloads a day or week or something, but I think Napster's a fantastic idea."

Jack, who lives in the countryside, said that it was difficult for him to see bands. "If you haven't got Sky or MTV2 you can't hear new bands." He continued: "Napster's excellent, it really is excellent. It's free which is nice but you can't have everything for free." He said that it was an "excellent way of promoting new music".

Music Goes On asked the bassist how he would feel if his record sales were lowered because of Napster. He replied: "My priority is letting people hear our music, spread the music, get more people to our live shows." He does not think Napster would make a drastic difference. "It's swings and roundabouts, I agree with Napster but my records are on it."

This led onto the next question: "What's more important to you? Fame and money or musical integrity?" Jack replied saying that fame and money was not a priority. "I think musical integrity is important, I don't like the phrase 'musical integrity' though."

Jack continued: "We were asked the other day: 'would it ruin your reputation if you were asked to go on Live & Kicking or Ant & Dec?' It's one thing having musical integrity but another being so arrogant you can't take part. Just never make a monkey out of yourself."

Music Goes On asked Jack what he thought of the music media; papers like the New Musical Express for example. "I think it's great for a lot of people," he replied. "NME's got a reputation for being quite blunt, Kerrang as well. They used to be quite soft." He sees NME reviews as a "blessing". "If you're good enough for the NME to review you in the first place then that's a blessing."

Jack continued: "A journalist can put their mark out of ten on a band but that's only that person's opinion. No one says 'that journalist says they're shit so I'm not gonna listen to them'."

Jack told Music Goes On that the band had been lucky with the people they had played live with. Jimmy Eat World are his favourite band at the moment. He is also a fan of Weezer.

"Elvis Presley on vocals, Jimi Hendrix on guitar, Jack Bruce on bass and Travis Barker on drums." That would be Jack's ideal band line-up. "I'd like to see what they come up with, that'll be interesting."

Music Goes On then asked the bassist if he thought bands should have a political agenda. He said that he thought it was dangerous for bands to have a political agenda. "A political agenda is an individual's opinion," he says, "music is not a medium of imposing your opinions on other people."

He gave Rage Against The Machine as an example. "I've never paid attention to their politics, I just like the music. Now their politics have got them artistically into trouble." He believes that it is important to have values but it is "dangerous to impose them on other people through any form of art. It's not wrong, it's just a dangerous thing to do."

Jack's elder brother is a sound-engineer at a local venue so Jack sees a lot of live music. He says that Jimmy Eat World are "fantastic live and on record". He said that they had "a lot of soul".

Jack also saw Kid Galahad at Northampton's Roadmender venue the other day. He described them as having a "trip hoppy groove that rocks". He added that the vocals were "great".

The Crackout bass-player completed the interview by saying: "If you like what you hear then make sure you get to our gigs, that's the most important thing to us."

Crackout's excellent debut album, This Is Really Neat, will be released through Hut Recordings on 22 October. Their Radio One session will be broadcast on 29 October on Jo Whiley's show.

For more information on the band visit either their official website or the Raft.