Those who already have tickets to tonight’s sold-out Cut Copy show at the Black Cat should definitely come a bit earlier to see their opener Black Kids. Formed in Jacksonville in 2006, the band’s singer Reginald Youngblood (bottom left) takes The Cure’s vocal inflections and applies it to infinitely sunnier songs. “I’m not Going to Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You” (above,) should ring familiar to anyone who’s been rejected for an idiot. It also contains the line “You are the girl that I’ve been dreaming of/ ever since I was a little girl,” which is even more memorable for being sung by a boy. Reginald was nice enough to answer some email questions of mine.

The New Gay: What sets you apart from the seemingly endless number of indie bands in existence today?

Reginald Youngblood: Actually, we’re not quite “indie”. We’re signed to Columbia in the states and somewhat to Mercury in the UK. Do we have indie influences? Certainly. But we have just as many mainstream influences. Really, I can rarely tell the difference. Indie doesn’t necessarily equal good and mainstream doesn’t necessarily equal bad.

TNG: Where does your band’s name come from? People often read it as controversial or incendiary, but that doesn’t fit with your music. Is it just a name, or more?

RY: To be honest, this is a very boring question for us. But I suppose we asked for it when we chose our moniker. Firstly, we like the way “Black Kids” sound. It’s got a certain ring to it, yeah? Also, it does come off as contentious, when in fact, it’s completely innocuous. Like “Sex Pistols”. We liked that at first…We nearly didn’t go with the name, but it just kept popping up in articles, songs, and conversation. So, in a way it chose us.

TNG: In actuality, there aren’t a whole lot of black kids visible on the indie rock scene. Do you or other members ever feel set apart?

RY: Not really.

TNG: Your best known song seems to be about getting dicked over by girls, or playing the nice guy while the assholes won. What was your high school experience like? Have you ever had to teach a guy how to dance with the girl you liked?

RY: My high school years were fairly unremarkable. I wasn’t popular, but I wasn’t invisible. I did not dance. Sadly, I started behaving like a teenager in my mid-twenties. I’m desperately trying to forget that period. It was shameful.

TNG: It would be remiss of me to overlook the fact that you sound a lot like Robert Smith from The Cure. Are you getting tired of the comparisons? Are you ever going to undergo a goth makeover so your look matches him as well?

RY: The comparison is tiresome, but it’ll be dispelled when our record is released. Don’t get me wrong. Mr. Smith has a wonderful voice, but if you were to compare our songs back to back you would find our voices to be disparate. No goth makeover in the foreseeable future.

TNG: Your are already a well-loved band, but haven’t actually put our a record yet. Are you worried that your hype will somehow overshadow your actual product?

RY: No. At the risk of sounding conceited, our record is very, very good.

TNG: Why should Washington DC come out and see you at the Black Cat?

RY: Because I spent my early years in DC. The first time I fell in love was in kindergarten in DC.
Yeah, she broke my heart.