He's called Ken but he had a friend called Brian who knew everything - so BRIAN it was. Now he's the sweetest sound on Setanta, singing of love and loneliness over the same four chords in a home studio that could just as well be his bedroom. IAN McCANN knows the feeling...

There are maybe 20 people in the station booking hall, as usual. Some are just keeping dry, another is on the phone asking about a room to let, a couple look at the clock nervously, maybe wondering if they really are being stood up this time.

Ken Sweeney's slim figure is easy to pick out; he holds a large guitar in a soft, black case. But if he wasn't would I choose him rather the nervy man or the home hunting guy? And what if the time we'd chosen clashed with a charismatic Christians rally? Would I know Ken Sweeney from 19 blokes with acoustic guitars? You can bet that most could be mistaken for the leader of Brian. But that is to be expected: Brian are not rock'n'roll animals, and Ken is hardly Bobby Gillespie.

Brian a name of resonance, as Ken explains. Brian Clough . Brian Moore. " All Brian, wash'n'iron" (Ian Dury reference - Non-cockney Ed). A ridiculous name: like my own, but with a shiver at the front. Ken says there was once a Brian in his life, a teenage influence. A Brian with all the right books and clothes, who could play you records you'd only dreamt of. A Brian who was somehow superior to the Kens of the world, a David Watts sort of Brian. And, perhaps as both a tribute and catharsis, Ken Sweeney called his band Brian. " Here I am" , the name confirms " I made it to Brianhood" .

We walk awhile through the rain. Above us, planes fail dismally to stack up. as would be appropriate, instead droning lazily towards Docklands airport . The Amsterdam crash is 24 hours away and, to us, planes are still a sad, romantic image. We arrive at a home studio in downtown Ilford where Ken Sweeney drinks tea and hears different versions of 'So Sad About Us' which is a clue to everyone at the stain looks more like him the he does. Another clue is in you own prejudices.

Brian's records are tiny epics of isolation. whispering private wistful thoughts in you ear. Ken's singing voice is soft and untutored, and hid guitars unfold somewhere between Husker Du and the Byrds. In the developing tray of your mind a picture materialises an unkempt, lank haired, tall, home counties lad, lost in his own anxieties. But unlike a camera your mind tells lies. Ken is Irish, outgoing - even if he rarely looks you in the eye as he speaks - and is probably a mod, if you can use the term nowadays without it being a slap in the face. He wears a button-collar shirt, discreet black shoes and narrow black jeans that roll up at the bottom. His hair is neatly shorn and his face clean-shaven, He's also as warm and sincere as his records, ready to smile, but seemingly faintly troubled . This might be shyness: he's not a pop star yet.

Let's discount a few more prejudices before we rejoin him . He's from Dublin, but that doesn't make him Big Paddy Pop, the sound that costs the social service budget for a major European budget . Ken is no fan of U2. He might have mod tendencies , but I suppose he's post-mod-ist: he adores '60s Kinks records but loathes Paul Weller, and lists The Go-Betweens and REM among his influences and describes his appearance thus: " I think you get to 17, decide what you like to wear and then more less stick with it."

He's on Setanta, but Brian are hardly a 'Setanta Band', and they're guaranteed to bewilder those who buy everything in the label before they've heard it. Much has been made of the fact that the Brian LP. 'Understand', was recorded for £100, giving rise to the idea that Ken is the ultimate bedroom angst songwriter. That's not quite true: he has a broader exile to contemplate than that which occurs just by slamming your bedroom door. And the LP , as we shall see. cost slightly more than #100, and the new EP, 'Planes', considerably more than that . In short, Ken is Ken Brian is Brian, Ken is Brian and neither Brian nor Ken are anyone else, least of all a stained sheets and peeling wallpaper Smiths, as is often assumed.

" I was in bands when I was about 17 or 18, " he says, his face gradually becoming more illuminated by the monitor screen of a sequencer as the afternoon darkens. He's 26 now ." They were more youthful, punky bands, I was writing songs then, but I gave up the guitar for a while and started again when I was maybe 20. Whatever had happened in between, at 20 I was able to connect up something that I couldn't do when I was younger" .

Ken began auditioning singers, " We got all these guys in red leather trousers: I couldn't find anyone else in Dublin that wanted to do what I wanted. I couldn't see why guys sitting on their hands in Dublin pubs should decide whether or not I'd get an album out, so I did my own. Brian, the band , and is a band, was originally another guy, Niall, and me. We came over here (to London) together like there was a sadness in the songs that was effecting his outlook on life." Ken chuckles" He didn't like London either and moved back. I decided I'd keep going."

He arrived in London in 1989. finding a job at the BBC film library -Ken is a cineaste- and rooms in Ealing. Somewhere along the way he ran into Keith Cullen , the pocket dynamo behind Setanta, and played him some songs cut on a friend's eight recorder. Cullen was intrigued enough to want an LP and promised Ken the #100 it would cost to record. Cullen wasn't joking ." He decided he'd teach me a lesson about advance" smiles Ken" . The album came out a 110 quid, but Ken kept his tenner."

Ken and Keith Cullen are good mates. When Keith has been out on the piss, he sometimes rings Ken and sings Brian sings down the line to him. When either party is short of the rent money, the other fishes in their pocket for a sub. I warn Ken that one day he'll arrive at Canberwell HQ to find Cullen soaping his new Mercedes outside, but Ken just laughs. He's not much cop at the artist-versus-label hype, hoping that 'Planes' does well so that Setanta can sign more bands. Strange, but true.

'Understand' drew respectful-to-ecstatic reviews in March of this year, and sold respectably. A few writers pointed out the anomaly between its gentleness and the Setanta house style. " I just thought Setanta was putting out the best Irish records, doing something totally different, and I thought, God if I could put something different on that label. That was probably going through Keith's head too. Brian isn't about an ambitious young Irish band with a big headed lead singer who loves the sound of his own voice . It's not a career thing I just wanted to make records."

Records like...?
" When I was 15 or 16 , I heard 'You say you Don't Love Me' by the Buzzcocks. It's been in my head ever since. I never heard anything I identified with as strongly, and that's what I try and do with 'Understand ' and 'You Don't Want A Boyfriend'. I don't claim to be a great songwriter, but the feeling that's in those songs or 'Planes Stack Up' ....I know that feeling and I can do it. And that's about as big headed as I get."

The reviews for Understand which suggested that the minuscule budget was as important as the songs, also worried Ken. There's no mistaking its home-made feel, and it seems natural to interview Ken in a home studio. But Brian have stepped beyond the bedroom with 'Planes' being cut the sort of place you might make a posh demo . The difference is noticeable, but it's Setanta's policy not to rush a highly-technical big-sounding Brian on an unsuspecting public. Brain are being allowed to develop. The fact that Ken did all the first LP himself, and the band is only starting to form for live dates. is neither here or there.

Another reason why Brian is no longer a bedroom band becomes clear on 'Planes Stack Up', the title track of the LP. " When I first moved to Ealing from Ireland, one of the neighbours showed me these planes in a line at night. It's just like a natural phenomenon in West London which no-one really questions . Being over from Ireland with wide-open eyes, I thought it was amazing, these planes stacking up waiting to get a call to land. I just wanted to write about it. Half the music I write is about Ireland, and half the music is about being misplaced."

Misplaced? As in moving leaving roots to wither. Ken remembers walking into Dublin on Thursday to buy NME when he was a kid. When he returned there recently he took the same walk and found that the newsagent had being demolished. You have a fixed map of a place in your mind, but when you return everything has changed. The same thing applies to people " there are thousands of Irish people in London who don't want to be there but have no choice, and some of them identify with songs like 'Big Green Eyes' and 'Understand'"

Ken says that the departure tax of #5 levied when you leave is a bargain. There's an attitude in Ireland that alienates people like me although we are Irish. The people that leave Ireland tend to be liberal, leaving behind right-wing people or those willing to put up with it. At the moment there are students going to jail for giving out information on abortion clinics in England. It really shocks me , and ...society where that can happen doesn't deserve to takes its place in Europe. I might write personal songs, but it doesn't shut me off from the realities of life."

This is Brain as 'Irish Band' even if they don't follow the usual print. But you don't have to be an Irish exile to understand them: the songs carry an air of regret, off awareness. That's why 'Understand' had kids on its cover; to provide a sad, wry contrast between there optimistic looks and Ken's songs, which are fully aware that life isn't as wonderful as he once thought it might be.

Who hasn't broken off relationships before they really wanted them to end? Who hasn't been a shit and then regretted it? Brian are human , and this is what justifies Setanta's decision not to push them into bigger and better studios before they're ready . The frailties of the production matches the frailties of the songs.

Soon Ken Sweeney won't be so familiar with home studios, but he says he has " No interest in being a big headed, loud-mouthed group." The path from exile to tax exile isn't for him. Brian are changing from being the private thoughts of Ken Sweeney to a 'proper' band., from a bedroom to the stage.

I walk back to the station, where another 20 ordinary people are using the phone, waiting to be stood up, or just letting the rain drip from their clothes . Brian exits for them, if they didn't know it; a little band with a name to match, and songs about small things that effect everyone. It might not be big self-important pop, but there's stacks of that already.

Small is beautiful: just ask Ken Sweeney.