Last November, indie-retro-pop-rock-harmonisers Little Red found themselves placed peculiarly alongside homemade toffee and scone stalls, on stage at the East Ivanhoe Primary School fete. Flanked by Wilbur Wilde (saxophonist of Hey Hey It’s Saturday fame and Ivanhoe East resident), the five young Melbourne lads rocked the schoolyard with trademark grins and enthusiasm.

“We never turned down a gig,” says singer-bassist Quang Dinh, describing the band’s difficult climb up the lower rungs of the city’s crammed music scene. It’s an approach that has earned the group a big thumbs up from the alt-music community, though Dinh assures me Little Red’s fresh brand of up-beat doo-wop was also a hit with the school mums.

It’s plain to see why. On stage the boys deck themselves out in collars, suits and spiffy shoes, oozing scruffy schoolboy charm. Add four-way harmonies, punchy bass lines and light, catchy guitar jingles, and you’ve got a recipe for timeless fun.

The fete gig was actually more than a kooky experiment. Months earlier the boys had approached Wilde (a regular at singer-guitarist Adrian Beltridge’s video store), and asked for a helping hand on a then upcoming long player. The local music veteran agreed, and asked Little Red to play the fete in return.

“We had this song (Jackie Cooper) and it was kinda missing something,” recalls Dinh. “We imagined a little sax solo or something. So Adrian just asked Willie if he wanted to be on the CD - we gave him a copy of the song, and he loved it.

“He pretty much came into the studio, had a yarn for about half an hour - which ate into our studio time, but his stories were good so it didn’t matter - and kicked out the solo in under a quarter-of-an-hour.”

Time was tight because the band had essentially begged and borrowed its way through the recording process, with no real budget to speak of. The studio and producer (Steven Schram) were wrangled free for three days only, and there were 16 songs to power through.

“We recorded it bare boned,” the bassist says. “We just set up the equipment, got the levels and the sound right, and hit record. We did have to do some over-dubs, but 90 per cent of it’s live. That’s how we wanted it to sound.

“It was a bit harder, just because we’re usually drunk when we play live. And we’re usually excited and nervous. But in the studio we were completely sober, still trying to groove, and get the same kind of rawness in.

“In some areas, in terms of musicianship, we didn’t have time to get it all right. But we’ve never been a band that’s been about musicianship, I don’t think. It’s pretty much about song writing. We’ve got three very talented song writers.”

The critics wholeheartedly agree. The product that emerged from the hectic studio sessions, Listen to Little Red, hit the shelves a couple of weeks ago (read Laneway’s thoughts here) and propelled the fellas to indie-rock posterboy status. You can’t flick through more than a couple of pages of a newspaper or magazine without stumbling on a spectacularly adoring Little Red review, or ‘next big thing’ prediction.

For those who prefer numerics, the album debuted 29th on the national ARIA chart, and came in at number 13 in terms of Victorian sales. “We’ve done the hard yards here, so we’ve got as many fans in Melbourne as we have in the rest of the country,” says Dinh.

“Melbourne’s absolutely tops for us; it’s the best place in Australia for musicians to be. There were so many venues for us to try out our stuff in.

“We started out at the Tote and Barbukka. Some of our best gigs have been at the Old Bar though. That was back in the day, when we played there and it was like our drinking hole as well.

“Because it’s so small, it looks like there’s just a flood of people in there. On stage as well, it’s so crowded. It’s just a really good vibe at that place.”

But with Listen to Little Red making glorious sound waves nationwide, bigger gigs await. First the band hits Byron Bay’s iconic Splendour in the Grass festival, followed by a support tour with Vampire Weekend. Then they take to the road for a month-long, five-state headline tour.

“We’re probably going to have to hire some kind of Tarago, which is annoying because we all love to drink,” Dinh says, disappointed. “I’m not sure what’s been arranged, but whenever we have to drive there’s always problems with the four of us being too drunk, and somehow having to squirm out of the venue and get home.”

Once the tour hangover dies down, the band plans to start demoing material for album number two, slated for release in under a year. They are already rehearsing new material.

“Gigs are so much fun, but they’re not as permanent as recording something. A gig is like a fun moment in time. It just happens, and it’s awesome, but the reason it’s so good, in a way, is that you do forget it - you’re just living in the moment. But a record is more what we’re aiming at.

“One of the reasons we wanted to go independent was so that we could just release records whenever we want. We want to record as much as we can and get things sounding as great as possible. That’s not to say that we don’t like gigging - we love gigging - but recording is a lot more important for us.”

“We’re really just looking forward to the next thing. I don’t think its good to just kind of rest on what you’ve done.”