!!!: The band with an unpronounceable moniker

Asking !!!'s singer Nic Offer and guitarist Mario Andreoni about their choice of unpronounceable band name at the end of our meeting at a north London pub prompts a barrage of agonised groaning.

"As much as I hate explaining what it is, I still can't think of a better name," Offer asserts. "And I challenge every journalist to give me a better name." Leaving no time for a response, they chime triumphantly: "We win!" They chose their name - your choice of any three repetitive sounds - to stand out from the crowd, but paradoxically it has made them the hardest band name to find in a record store and impossible to Google.

"Hence the 'chk chk chk', which I despise," Andreoni says, his voice tinged with acrimony. "The people in the corporations decided to channel us into this... thing."

It is this "channeling" that the band fight hard to avoid. Deliberately leaving their name open to the individual's interpretation symbolises the band's philosophy: the refusal to adhere to rules and their resolve to push boundaries; everything goes. When the seven members (now eight) formed 10 years ago, they were united by the desire to break free from the punk and ska scene of their hometown Sacramento, California, and create something new. In the face of ridicule from their peers, their dynamic post-punk funk, incorporating elements of disco, Krautrock, techno, hip-hop and rock, was born.

Offer recalls: "We were laughed at and looked at like dumb kids. We were doing something that wasn't cool.

"All the great things that I've got in my life came from me making a very brave decision. Even deciding to play this kind of music - at the time we decided to play it there was nobody else doing it and everyone was like 'You're going to play funk?'

"Even when we started incorporating elements of disco, disco was still totally a dirty word."

Offer unashamedly cites his favourite disco soul artists: Norman Whitfield and Grace Jones' collaborations with Sly and Robbie. Andreoni, who grew up listening to the Bee Gees, KC and The Sunshine Band and his older brothers' Led Zeppelin records, chooses "Give Me Your Love" by the Sisters Love for being "a disco song for all intents and purposes", while simultaneously being one of the songs he finds most deeply affecting. Offer's starting point was the Bee Gees' greatest hits. Alongside the disco artists, both musicians are keen to emphasise their love of Neil Young.

Andreoni explains: "In this band we never saw those lines. That's what brought us together. When we decided to pursue this kind of music it excited us about playing together. We were invigorated."

New album Myth Takes is just as invigorating, building on the political themes of their 2004 album Louden Up Now. Using the overriding theme of "myth" to make their anti-war and anti-corporation statements, there is a complex ideological and thematic depth to their compelling high-octane punk-funk. In "All My Heroes Are Weirdos" they use the 2,000-year-old story of Nero to represent their views on the current political climate. Offer explains: "Trying to say Bush is bad and he's this and that is somewhat ineffective so we tried to connect it to this myth. Maybe by making it a story it would wake people up to the reality of the situation.

"The song is not only a critique of Bush but it's a critique of the Democratic party. They didn't put a hero up. The song calls for someone who says something different."

"I'm passionate against this institutionalised politics. Democracy really isn't alive. I think that's a myth," Andreoni adds, following with a disenchanted diatribe against Bush, ex-president Reagan and aggressive parking attendants. Suddenly self-aware, he pauses and says: "This just got really heavy all of a sudden. I apologise. I just drank a lot of coffee."

It's the day after they supported Warp label-mates Maximo Park, and !!! speak with the intense energy of their characteristically visceral performances - sometimes for several minutes of unbroken speech. Offer's excited fervour is synonymous with New York where he now lives. While most of the members moved to Brooklyn, Andreoni and Allan Wilson live on the opposite side of America, in California and Portland respectively. The distance may have made rehearsing difficult, but they have developed their approach to song writing which used to revolve purely around jamming. Now they start off with specific ideas brought by the individual for the band to work on during a focused two or three week session, creating newfound discipline in their work.

Living in New York was also the inspiration behind the theme of Myth Takes. The title track - a lesson to those who seek the trappings of being in a famous rock band - illustrates people moving to the Big Apple to chase the rock 'n' roll myth of "New York discos and cocaine" and wanting to be the Rolling Stones.

Offer explains: "It's just a story of what we saw in New York. It ties in with the Icarus myth, where you ultimately end up falling on your face. "Everyone knows that the cocaine and the egos are ultimately what brings you down and that the money is what kills you and everyone still goes for it. It's a rock 'n' roll myth, everyone's chasing it.

"It only takes a little bit of a glimmer. There's really not that much that separates you from Mick Jagger at the end of the day. So it's that fine line between a myth take, like with a legend, and a mistake."

The myth analogy stems from the rock 'n' roll songs and musical heroes who inspired Offer as he grew up and the assertion "All of My Heroes Are Weirdos" was meant wholeheartedly. Offer claims Prince, Iggy, Sonic Youth and The Beatles as his rock 'n' roll heroes, and elevates Morrissey as his "single biggest hero" while calling him "the ultimate weirdo". Offer says: "Morrissey was the one who made you realise that it was ok to be weird. If you don't want to play football you're weird. It was ok to not be like the other guys."

But do they still feel the same all these years later?

Offer admits: "I definitely feel like just another dumb kid who's looked at as something different. You realise that all rock 'n' rollers are really just dorks. You have to be a dork if you're going to spend that much time on music. If you're going to spend enough time on it to be any good you're a dork. So you spend enough time being a dork then eventually you get to this other level where then they let you be the coolest person ever." So which level have they reached?

"The coolest person ever..." they mumble, laughing off the suggestion. But perhaps, in pushing the boundaries and not being afraid to do their own thing, they really are.

They may have been together 10 years, but things keep progressing. Last year they toured with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, playing to stadium crowds of 20,000 people. Now they have embarked on their biggest tour yet.

"We just hope we can keep taking steps up and keep making relevant records," Offer says.

Andreoni adds: "I don't know whether it's naïve, but as artists you feel that you're going to be onto something that's going to be the next thing. I think that's exciting."

!!!'s album 'Myth Takes' is out now on Warp Records

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