Any artist who has enjoyed mainstream success knows that suspicion and accusations of selling out go with the territory. Kyo, who now have a mantelpiece of "Victoire de la musique" trophies and a lorryload of NRJ Awards – not to mention sales figures ending in six zeroes – could never have hoped to escape from that rule. And the phenomenal sales of the band’s new album, 300 Lésions (which went gold just four days after its release) have only added to the problem.

However, Kyo’s guitarist Florian Dubos declares that the band "knew we had this coming!" "No-one talked about us when we released our first album," (the eponymous Kyo, which was totally overlooked by the media and the record-buying public), "So when the second album started to take off big time, we were prepared for the fact that people’d talk about it because they thought it was doing too well. We knew some people would start trying to draw conclusions about how stupid the youth of today are!"

Kyo have been accused of being too youth-orientated, too commercial and decidedly not cutting-edge enough. Indeed, the band’s detractors claim that the handsome young foursome from the Yvelines region are little more than a well-oiled hit machine, churning out throwaway songs made according to a "Kyo formula" (think naive lyrics and electric-guitar energy) that appears to have gone into overdrive on the band’s new offering, 300 Lésions.

Florian Dubos – aka Flo – admits that "Worrying people won’t like our new songs because we’ve suffered from overexposure is the downside of this whole adventure." But he finds the accusations of commercialism all the more unfair as he claims, "We’re actually not the last guys on earth to get into something because it’s a bit underground!" In Kyo’s defence, Flo points to the fact that the band continue to receive countless mailbags of letters from fans and get consistently positive feedback on tour – and he proudly announces that a number of their songs have actually penetrated the hallowed lecture halls of the Sorbonne. "Our songs are analysed sociologically as being representative of the attitude and feelings of young people today," he says.

This is not enough to stop Kyo’s critics from baying for blood, however. "People seem to feel this constant need to analyse our success," Flo complains, "But we’re not actually bothered about the whys and wherefores. We’re just happy when concert venues are packed out and the crowd are yelling their heads off, singing along with the songs." But brash success stories are not to everyone’s liking, especially when the group in question has been hailed as the bright young hope of French rock. Kyo’s elevation to this status has acted like a red rag to a bull, rock purists claiming this is the ultimate heresy. How, they ask, could blond, baby-faced lead singer Ben Poher and his cleancut sidekicks – who all come from nice middle-class families – possibly represent the hard-drinking, hard-talking, drug-taking world of rock?

Kyo’s hair-gel model looks and trendy togs does not necessarily make them a New Age boys’ band, however. And, as Flo matter-of-factly points out, "You can’t please all of the people all of the time!" and all the more so as "we never actively set out to please anyone in the first place." Adopting a philosophical stance, the band’s guitarist muses that "You’re always going to have some guy who’s supposedly more hardcore than hardcore who’s going to come along and complain that what you’re doing isn’t real rock. But we’ve never gone round claiming that anyway! I can’t say we actually spend too much time even bothering about things like that. I think the good thing is that at least we provoke a reaction – people either love us or hate us and that’s that!"

Flo is sceptical when it comes to the concept of genuine rock, however. "I don’t think real "rock" bands exist any more," he says, "In a way, rap’s come along and taken over rock’s role now, but the problem is that rap doesn’t defend anti-capitalist values at all. It promotes quite the opposite values, in fact. You want to know what a real rock band would be today? The guy who’s offered a recording contract and who turns round and laughs in the record company director’s face because all he wants is to go on playing down the pub with his mates. And, believe me, no-one thinks like that any more! Anyway, we’ve never gone round claiming to be THE indie rock band who’s going to rise up and overthrow the government or anything. I think people have got us a little wrong somewhere!"

Rock purists will no doubt continue to complain about Kyo’s ongoing success and turn up their hardcore noses at the band’s latest offering despite having its fair share of wailing riffs and raging guitars. No matter! Kyo appear to be sufficiently sincere in their motivation and sufficiently set on their mission to become the voice of popular rock. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, this young four-piece are definitely here to stay!