A review of Wilco's Summerteeth, when it was released earlier this year, called it "this year's Deserter's Songs" - to which the band replied, quite smartly, that "Deserter's Songs is last year's Summerteeth". It's not that the band particularly resent being lumped in with the new breed of Americana acts, it's just that they don't go for this alt.country thing at all. "I just can't understand it," says Wilco's Jay Bennett. "When we put our first record out, we were told we were going to be the next Hootie and the Blowfish . . . there's always been a perception problem there."

It may be convenient to speak of Wilco in the same tumbleweed breath as The Pernice Brothers, Smog, Bonnie "Prince" Billy or even some of the older, No Depression-style bands but the band do not like that.

"We get this category problem all the time in the US, and it drives us crazy," says Bennett, "it's one of the reasons we don't get much radio play. We don't fit on the country stations, we don't fit on the rock stations and the only real play we seem to get is on the College Radio circuit. "We've actually got e-mail from people saying `you guys are supposed to sound like Gram Parsons - what the hell is this?' Which in a way is kind of gratifying, because if people read about us being a country-rock band and then they go out and buy Summerteeth, I can't imagine them not being confused."

Just for the record, then, Wilco are not a country-rock act and never pretended they were. When they first splashed with Being There (named after the Peter Sellers film and containing a song which, lyrically, bore a frightening resemblance to The Smiths' Paint A Vulgar Picture) they were saddled up and prodded into a scene that was not of their own making.

It was the same sort of mistake that is perpetuated in the new editions of the Guinness Book Of Hit Records, where a symbol beside each band's entry is supposed to enlighten you as to their style of music - thus indie bands get a glum face symbol and country-rock bands get a stetson. Pretty dumb all round. Oddly enough, the reason Jay Bennett is glad that the band are kicking off an extended European tour in Dublin tomorrow night, is because he feels European audiences are more open-minded and willing to accept genre-bending: "It really is exponentially better for us in Ireland, Britain and the continent. I think people over there have more of a sense of the history of American music, and more of an appreciation of just what The Beatles and The Stones were trying to do with their music."

Named after the two-way radio abbreviation for "I will comply", the Chicago-based quartet almost manage the impossible with the current Summerteeth, by combining some heavy-duty, introspective lyrics with the sort of (at times) jaunty music that normally goes on heavy radio rotation. "Don't talk to me about radio," says Bennett. "People sometimes say it's the record company that interferes most in a band's music, but in the US now it's the radio stations. You actually have programmers telling bands and labels what is and isn't acceptable on radio. There's an incredibly narrow width of musical styles that gets played these days, and the policy is very short-sighted."

Neither is he particularly enamoured of the radio promotional interview: "You would think that a situation like that could be liberating, being able to work with just a microphone and a voice. But the DJs just don't take advantage of it - they only want to know how we got on with Billy Bragg."

So there's Wilco, the band who defy description. "I suppose people are confused," says Bennett. "Maybe it would be better for people to be confused to the extent that they just accepted everything for what it was and just listen to the music. That's all."

Wilco play The Olympia, Dublin tomorrow night at 8 p.m., and are supported by new Island signing, Witness. Summerteeth is on the Warner label.