HOW TO BE POP STARS BY MISTAKE...

1. Call yourselves the Age Of Chance
2. Go down the disco and listen to "Kiss" by Prince
3. Buy a copy of Smash Hits and learn off the "lyrics"
4. Make a birrova racket
5. Talk to Chris Heath on the phone
6. Bingo!(?)

"l like Prince. He's great. He's a bit short though."
"I think his trousers are morally unacceptable."
"I think he's out of his tree."
"He's off his trolley."
"He's a few bob short of the full shilling."
"His lift stops a few floors short of the top."
"He's not got enough oil in his lamp."

This is Age of Chance blabbering down the telephone about Prince, whose "Kiss" they've just released as a single in a rather peculiar and twisted form. It's a bit difficult to tell precisely who is blabbering what- Geoff (bass guitar), Neil (guitar) and Steve (singing) all talk at once and their blunt northern voices are virtually indistinguishable- the only member who doesn't say anything at all is drummer Jan, mainly because she's out shopping - apparently for some industrial drums to make some more of the very "sensitive" percussion sounds she specialises in. The three others meanwhile are busy explaining exactly why they decided to record such an eccentric version of "Kiss".

"We heard it down the disco." says one mystery voice, "and we all dance with extreme prejudice so rather than having Prince doing his polite wine bar Hollywood version we thought we'd do a kind of industrial version i.e. a lot harder with a lot of metal sounds. Basically we just take a song and Age 0f Chance it."
"I.e. totally ruin it," pipes another mystery voice.

So did they pop out and buy a record to copy from? No they ruddy well didn't, Rumour has it they just stole the words from Smash Hits...

"We didn't steal them exactly," objects one of them. "First we worked out the music because we all knew the record and then we kind of decided that the best way to work out what the lyrics were was to read Smash Hits. I think you could take that as some sort of endorsement."

"No," snaps another voice "jokingly", "we get paid for endorsements. "

"Yes, ' agrees the first voice, "speak to our lawyer about that."

These days Age Of Chance joke about "speaking to lawyers" and "making money" rather a lot, probably because after recording three independent singles (two of their own songs, "Motor City" and "Bible Of The Beats", and then "Kiss") they've just got themselves a big fat record contract, though they're rather coy about the details.

We want to be like Michael Jackson- start keeping llamas in our bathroom and have our eyelids tattooed," says one of them. And on they go…

"I want to put a deposit on the Indian Ocean."
"I'm buying Manhattan."
"I'm buying Lancashire."
"I've got my name down for a hovercraft. "
"I'm getting a chopper with ballast wheels."
"I'm getting a silver invalid car."
"We're kind of grubby rich," they chortle.
"When we've become millionaires overnight we always become light-headed."

Quite. It's quite hard getting them to be serious even for a moment. But what are they really like?
"Nasty pieces of work," sniggers one.
"That'll do," agrees another.
"Hard but fair," says the third.
"We've all plopped out of the same jelly mould," muses one of them philosophically.
"Yeah, we've all been hewn from the same granite," agrees another. "Only Geoff actually looks like it."

"Are we the most important group ever?" they debate.
"Of course we are."
"We get on a lot of people's nerves but that's good."
"We're not very nice people so we're bound to get some stick."

And so on. In between they explain that they come from Leeds and have been together for two years, that they used a lot of noises from the iron foundry beneath the recording studio when they made "Kiss" but they won't say exactly what.

"It's like you can never find the ingredient X that makes Coca Cola or Kentucky Fried Chicken or Cadbury's Chocolate. We're like those only a bit nicer. Like Uncle Joe's mintballs - what makes them so minty?"

Quite. And with that they criticise Smash Hits for a bit ("it should be more messy- we want our photo really blotchy"), murmur something about actually being very serious and rather left wing, then they burst into giggles again and demand to be asked "something really stupid". But of course…

Have you ever thought you were a city centre?
"Er. . .that's really deep."
"I'm more a pedestrian precinct."
"I'm an office block."
"I'm an invalid toilet."

Do you do your own hoovering?
"We haven't got a floor."
"We live in the streets."
"I like to Shake 'n’ Vac a bit."

Have you ever been abseiling with Gyles Brandreth?
"I'd like to put that man on a guillotine."
"I hate that man's glasses."

Anything else?
"Er… I don't think we're going to do a phone interview again."