IN our New Year's list of guitar bands to watch for in 2002, Haven's name sits proudly alongside the likes of The Music, The Coral and Blackburn's The 'Burn.

And even before the festivities have faded, they're preparing to make their mark, with a timeless new single, album and UK tour to boot.

Lead singer Gary Briggs talks to PULSE, about his band's story so far, and how the man who found The Smith's saved them from the backwaters of Cornwall.

We've all been there. Agonising over that record in some dusty second-hand record shop, toying with your bus fare, and the thought of a long walk home. After all it could be gone next week and you might never see it again.

Call it fate then, that Gary Briggs and Nat Watson walked into the same shop in Penzance, on exactly the same day some five years ago. Spotted the same 'Quicksilver Messenger Service' album and got talking about how neither of them could afford it.

Call it extraordinary fate, that as they talked, Nat realised that this was the Gary, with the stunning voice he'd head about. And that equally Gary twigged this was Nat, the guitarist of the voiceless band he'd been told to hunt down.

They went halves on the album -- although Nat still thinks it belongs to him -- and retired to the pub. Soon they were writing together and with Iwan Gronow and original drummer Tom Lewis providing the rhythm section, Haven were born.

Reflecting Gary said: "The name started as a bit of joke, but we really did seek refuge in our music and the band became our haven."

With a solid reputation and following a tip-off, Joe Moss -- The original manager of The Smiths and Marion -- interrupted his holiday to check out the band. In a shack on a cliff edge, they played music, hung out and drunk loads of red wine. Convinced the quartet had a future, Joe insisted the lads headed North to continue their progress.

Relocating to Manchester brought sessions with former Smith's guitarist Johnny Marr, a weekly residency at the Night and Day Cafe, a shared home and arguments over the washing-up.

Gary said: "It was us against the world. In Cornwall it was dead hard, 'cos you'd nothing to test yourself against. But going to Manchester was like sitting with the bright kids."

All collar-length hair and good clobber, sumptuous harmonies and sharp guitars, they found a formula to distil the best of the North-West England and West Coast America.

And once Radiate, had won the record label race for the band, it wasn't long before Johnny Marr was brought in to produce their work.

New album, 'Between The Senses', is a record born out of the last two and a half years, and their split relationship between town and country. Half country groove and half the urban inspiration of Manchester, it's a collection of 12 smouldering guitar anthems.

Their songs are about questioning, yearning and searching for, rather than finding the answers. New single 'Say Something' is about not living up to expectations within a relationship, the pretence and pressure.

Of the track Gary said: "You're with someone and after a while, you just can't keep this image up anymore. It's that moment of honesty. I'm not trying to be clever, I'm literally talking like we are now."

But explaining the essence of his work doesn't sit well on the shoulders of this young man.

He continued: "Essentially, the songs are what you make them. I hate the idea of lyrics being printed, it's enough that you get the title of the song. You see great works of art, and printing the lyrics is almost like writing an essay underneath it, explaining what you were thinking about. I like the idea that you can hear the track and get what you want from it."

His normadic teens inspired the songs that search restlessly for some sort of truth -- and in turn, they're the same songs that are about to send his band jet-setting across the globe.

"It'd be nice, strolling around Guatemala and hearing your record playing" he pondered: "That'd be good".

But before spreading their messages to the world's warmer climates the lads follow the single and album with another month on the roads of the UK.