'We'll give fans a night to remember' The Enemy are ready to rock thousands of fans at the Ricoh Arena following a record-breaking run at London's Astoria.

GLANCE upwards as you drive around Coventry's ring-road these days and you'll see a huge picture of Enemy singer Tom Clarke staring down from one of the flyover bridges.

The advert for www.visitcoventry.co.uk is an eye-catching symbol of the impact the trio of Cov Kids have had in the past few months - putting the city back on the national rock map for the first time since the 2-Tone revolution over a quarter of a century ago.

And, admits drummer Liam Watts, they are still getting their heads around all the attention.

"It's quite weird when you see yourself on a big poster," he says, "and often we'll take a sly little picture of it - something to remember!

"It's something you have to get used to, learn how to take it in your stride, because we're still the same lads we always were, it's just that people's perception of us has changed.

"If we all go out together it can get a bit heavy at times. That's not really a problem because we want to meet our fans, to talk to them, but when I come home I like to see my mum and dad and my girlfriend and nip down to Tesco to get a few bits in.

"Most of the time I'm in my own little world, and if you keep your head down people tend to ignore you."

Liam's supermarket expertise came in handy last month when he, Andy and Tom appeared on the BBC's Something for the Weekend show and helped celebrity chef Simon Rimmer rustle up a lemon meringue pie.

It wasn't a standard PR outing for a hot young indie band, but the trio weren't remotely worried that the Sunday morning stint might damage their street credibility.

"Tim Lovejoy, who's the host, used to be on Soccer AM which is a programme we all enjoyed," he explains, "so we were happy to do it. It was something different and it made a change from the music questions that usually get thrown at us - 'what do you think of this band or that band?' "They were asking us what we like for breakfast and stuff like that, and it was a chance for people to get to know us a bit.

"A lot of people who saw it said that we came across as three ordinary lads and that made us really happy; it's nice to know that people warmed to us.

"We enjoyed doing it, so we're not really worried about whether it was cool or not."

The trio showed the same refreshing attitude earlier this week when they took time out from their six-night stint at the London Astoria to plant some trees (right) in an inner-city estate as part of a project designed to get young people involved in helping their communities.

"It was nice to be asked," says Liam. "We get so many ideas thrown at us and it doesn't take that much time out of our day to do something that might just help to make a difference.

"A lot of people don't seem to think that way when they get a bit of limelight; they think they can just do whatever they want and don't have to care about any issues.

"But we've been given a voice so if there's any little thing we can do to promote good causes we're always up for it.

"When you think of how many people have sat in their bedrooms thinking 'I'd love to be in a band, I'd love to be on stage' the odds are probably the same as winning the lottery.

"That's how we see it; it is literally a dream come true. A lot of people have had that same dream so we know how lucky we are to be given this opportunity to show what we can do. That's why we're determined not to waste it, not to take it for granted."

Liam admits that the band have been amazed by the pace of their career over the past year.

"It's been unbelievable," he says, "but I think we're a lot more settled into it than we were six months ago. You've got to be - you can't walk around with your head up in the clouds, you've got to be focused.

"Right from the start we knew what we wanted to do, we wanted to take it seriously, and we'll always do that, especially at live shows which are the most important thing for us.

"The last thing we would ever want to do is go out there and disrespect however many thousand people are in the room by not giving it 100 per cent.

"They've spent their hard-earned money to come and see us perform and they deserve the best we've got."