Fast forward 35 years and while The Undertones are no longer teenagers, they are certainly still getting their kicks. Matt Westcott talks to bassist Michael Bradley ahead of the band’s anniversary tour.

THE dulcet Northern Irish tones coming down the telephone are a world away from those of the stereotypical punk rocker. Warm, friendly, even jovial, my initial thought was that the intervening years, fatherhood, the ageing process and the like had dulled Michael Bradley’s rebellious nature.

After all, wasn’t that what the movement that he, John and Damian O’Neill, Feargal Sharkey and Billy Doherty, aka The Undertones, were all about?

“We never really rebelled,” says Bradley, with a laugh. “All we did was sit in John and Damian’s front room and listen to records and learn tunes.

“That was the Daily Mirror version of it,” he adds, in reference to the anarchy, spitting and obscene hand gestures that appeared symbolic of the era.

“The real truth was that it was a really democratic way of making records. Suddenly, you didn’t have to be a great musician. You didn’t have to have contacts in the music industry, you didn’t have to go through a talent show. All you had to do was go out there and lug your equipment along to a local pub and get up and play.”

Two years and many pubs later, The Undertones recorded a demo that would change their lives. Featuring the song Teenage Kicks, it was rejected by numerous record companies, but picked up by a certain John Peel. The rest, as they say, is history.

Success, if hardly overnight, was not something Bradley had planned for.

“I remember getting a leather jacket when we were playing in pubs and clubs in Derry and thinking that’s a good buy because when the band is finished in three years and I am looking for a job on a building site that will do me,” he says “That’s how long-term I was thinking.”

A quick Google of Teenage Kicks reveals that at least 25 bands have covered the song. Given that its popularity could be viewed as both a blessing and a curse, it would be understandable if Bradley et al had decided to retire it.

Instead, however, he is more than happy to champion a song that has become an anthem for generations of young people.

“I enjoy playing it because I appreciate now, better than I did at the time, how great a record it is,”

says Bradley.

“It is great to have at least one song that is basically a classic. It transcends everything, transcends the band, transcends punk almost. It is one of those great records that almost everyone has heard or appreciates.

“My kids are 14, 15 and last year we went to see Green Day. One of the songs they played was Teenage Kicks and I was like ‘wow’. My chest visibly swelled.

“That a band in 2010 would still play Teenage Kicks as a encore is great.”

Bradley equates The Undertones touring in 2011 to The Glenn Miller Band still taking to the stage in 1976. So why doesn’t he just relax and live off the royalties from their most famous song?

“John O’Neill, was the songwriter and I think he does put his feet up,” he says jokingly. “It’s great that he has had the recognition and the reward for the work that he did in writing the songs.

“I am waiting for Take That to record My Perfect Cousin. Myself and Damian can then put our feet up.”

Paul McLoone has replaced Sharkey in the only change to the original line-up, but while the latter was the face of The Undertones, Bradley says the band was, and is, bigger than any one man.

“We did find ourselves analysing it whenever we got back together. ‘Is it right to do this without Feargal?’,”

he says. “But the fact that four of us wrote songs and Feargal didn’t kind of makes you think that actually it wouldn’t be the band without (main songwriter) John.”

The Undertones play Fibbers in York on Saturday and will perform their eponymous album in its entirety.

“We have never tried that before so it could be a car crash, but I am sure it will be great,” Bradley says. “It’s just fast guitar songs, played loud. I have rarely come across a show that I have never enjoyed.

Even if they are slow to build up, if the crowd’s a wee bit quiet, by the time we have played our 25th song the night’s fantastic, so I am looking forward to it.”

• A new double CD True Confessions: As + Bs marking the anniversary is released on Monday