MIXING thumping rock with girlie pop, West Devon band Kitty and the Lost Boys was recently chosen as Radio One Switch's 'house band of the week'.

The Tavistock-based band, who dubbed themselves the 'Vontrapp's with guitars', are a family group comprising voacalist Kitty, 17, her brother and lead guitarist Jess Austen, 19, and father and rhythm guitarist Blind Johnny, who did not wish to divulge his age. A family friend, Sam Taylor, 20, is the drummer.

After playing plenty of gigs around the South West over the past year, the band entered themselves into the Radio One Switch search for unsigned bands.

Kitty said they were really excited to be chosen as the programme's house band.

'We submitted ourselves online on the BBC Switch website and they rang and said they'd chosen us,' she said.

'We had to record a jingle for them and we did a short phone interview. Since then we've had more than 600 hits on our Myspace page.'

As the house band, Kitty and the Lost Boys were featured on the BBC Switch website for a week with information about the band and a link directing people to their Myspace page.

Kitty said as a family, the band have been playing together for as long as she can remember, but only recently started to play seriously when Sam joined the group a year ago.

'We've played all around Tavistock, played in most of the big venues in Devon and Cornwall and have played a few gigs in London.' said Kitty.

Kitty and the Lost Boys describe their music as an amalgamation of each band members personal music taste —heavy rock backing with girlie vocals.

'We've all got different influences. The drummer is into heavy metal, the two guitarists are into rock and I'm into a bit of everything,' said Kitty.

The band are currently working on their third album, at the Deep Blue Sound recording studio in Plymouth. They believe their third album will be the band's defining moment as it is a more serious album. The first album, Losing the Habit, was recorded in a friend's studio in Sourton, and the second, Neverland, was recorded using the band's home studio in their shed, but these albums were experiments as they were establishing their sound.

Kitty said: 'We will send the album out to as many people as possible. It's about getting ourselves out there and getting people hearing our name. We're now looking for management to help us to get a record deal. We've done everything we can do for ourselves, but we need management to get us to the next level — to get signed.'

Their new single, It's Not OK, was remixed by Mike Chapman — the producer behind Blondie's Parallel Lines album.

'He's into girl-fronted rock and he found us on Myspace.

'He's been interested in us for a while and has been giving us advice.

'He heard our song and said he could do a better mix of it, so he did,' said Kitty.

The single is available to buy on http://www.evildosh.com">www.evildosh.com with all proceeds from the sale of the single from January to March going to the Haiti Appeal.