Exclusive I discovered Teenbeat entirely by accident, which is what makes it all the more special. I write to Graham Shaw from Sick Happy Idle fanzine and he mentioned that I may like his brother's band and passed my address to him. Before long I received a package from Ade, singer with said band, including one of his infamous letters (gloriously decorated with his drawings...) and a tape of some of his band's songs. I put the tape in the player, expecting something good as he had name checked K Records stars Beat Happening, but I was not expecting the fantastic sound that came out. The closest I could possibly describe it would be John Shuttleworth singing songs written by Jerry Sadowitz in the style of Half Man Half Biscuit, released on K Records. Yes, that good. I decided I needed to hear more and more so I got more tapes and more tapes and still the same genius sound was there, it wasn't a one off. This band were special and their lo-fi, beautiful songs put a smile on my face, even when they were singing about women who work in Aldi or walking disasters or going to Scarborough in Ade's dulcet Yorkshire tones. I really think that everyone should hear the music made by Teenbeat and I'm going to do my best to make sure I can help. I was going to give you a potted history of the band in this introduction but why not let Ade (vocals, guitar) do it himself.

Ade Me and Kev met as students in a big house on Silverdale Road, Birkenhead, where we wrote some songs and then looked very hard for a "Nico" (I never intended to sing) but instead we found Lee at a club where I used to compere and it was love at first sight. We've had loads of members drifting in and out (probably over 30); they turn up now and again. Neil stepped in to play guitar and now our line up is complete with Ned on keyboards and Phil on harmonica.

Exclusive What were your original intentions for Teenbeat? How have you changed musically or otherwise since you started?

Ade Like all youth bands we had world domination first and foremost in our minds but a few years down the well trodden path towards fame and fortune our feet got snared in the thousands of snapped guitar strings and I've realised it's never going to happen. Brancusi, the sculptor, travelling as a youth thought he had stunned a cow into rapture with his beautiful pipe music, only to realise that the cow was just urinating. "What is fame?" he asked, "As you can see, cow piss, that's all." These days I'm suicidal most of the time so I don't think too much about the future. It's always going to be a minority audience; we've accepted that. We're hoping to get a mail order thing going to generate some income. The Teenbeat dream is to have a house in Birkenhead converted to a studio and flats so we can carry on playing and recording songs forever.

Exclusive With most bands I find that I can put some sort of reference point to them to describe what they sound like but with Teenbeat I found it extremely difficult. People have asked me what Teenbeat sound like and I just give them the description in the intro and they're none the wiser so I asked Ade how he would describe their music.

Ade Someone once said our music was "uncannily familiar yet like nothing you've ever heard" and somebody else said, "George Formby meets the Velvets" - I'm happy with that. Soussion vivant dans mes pantelons, zeut alors! A tout a l'heure, je vais trouver une femme (excuse my French).

Exclusive When I was reading the free Teenbeat fanzine 'Doorstep' I kept reading about a happening at "Simon's Kitchen" every week, what was/is that? have you played many gigs?

Ade We did a lot of gigs in early 1998 in Liverpool and London but then I moved to sunny Surbiton and things got a bit more complicated. I've done quite a few solo gigs down here, mainly at the Bull & Gate. We played the 12 bar in Soho and we're playing in a charity shop in Birkenhead (we turned down HMV at Piccadilly), strangely enough across from where Simon our keyboard player used to live. He left to live in an Irish commune. We practised in his kitchen for a while and we got a scene going in his house every Wednesday night. When it got too busy we moved it a pub backroom and then to the cellar of a club in Liverpool. It was just word of mouth, clandestine meetings really.

Exclusive I was also reading about 'The Teenbeat shrine', can you explain it's relevance and how people can get to it to visit it?

Ade The Teenbeat isn't just a band, it's a religion. It has its own intricate belief system. Lee Bailey is our spiritual guide. People have come in and out of home but once you've been with us, you are always part of us and will live on in the myth - like Marcel and his red pullover. One day when we were all out in the wood we found a tree and decided that this should be our shrine. The local copse is very important to us, it's a place of deep spiritual significance, a holy place. We love nature - we visit the shrine. This pilgrimage is an important post-practice ritual. People send us personal artefacts and we place them at the shrine - call the copse! If you go down to the woods today, you're gonna get a big surprise. You'll find the teenbeat - bring the Eiffel tower and a pigeon feather, Septemember member member weather, bring a Rubik's cube cause we're clever, bring two door handles and an Aldi bag.

Exclusive How on earth do you write Teenbeat songs?

Ade We all get pissed and boxed and then jam out for about 10 hours. I slip into a trance and mumble any old shit, then we listen back to our ropy 4-tracks and try and salvage something from the wreckage. Most of the stuff we churn out on CD is never gonna be repeated - some of the stuff that is more "songlike" becomes a "song" which we can repeat more than once. Songs are useful for doing gigs though live we sometimes jam and i make some new words up off the top of my head - if I've seen some jelly babies stuck on the tube train window, or if Neil's been sacked again, or if Tim's been punched in the chip shop. For example.

Exclusive I was just going to mention that actually, what influences your lyrics? There seems to be a recurring them of the sea and northern seaside towns.

Ade Birkenhead, chips, beer, pizzas, sour relationships, sour grapes, council houses, Scarborough, women's tits and vaginas (lovely - ed), loopholes in the law, spiders, Dennis Law, Robin Hood's Bay, Lee Bailey, Marcel, Barnsley, muckstacks, shop assistants (mainly in pizza parlours and Aldi shops), blonde hair, going home, leaving home, thinking of how happy I once was when I was up a tree looking at my friend's mother getting showered, how it all went wrong, 15 years of depression and misery, trying to find love, trying to make sense of a meaningless world, eating Neil's soup, buying second hand trousers, laughing at myself, loving Bromborough, anything northern, anything to do with the ocean, not being able to feel my arms, eating Ned's flapjack, listening to water dripping off a broken drain, Radio 4, Radio 2, wanting to feel wanted, crying a lot, drawing stylised sexual organs, playing the organ, singing, talking, holding hands with my special friends, listening to the sad sounds of aeroplanes way up on high, the early morning rain, my pockets full of sand, etc. etc.

Exclusive What do you think of the current music "scene"? are there any other bands you're into?

Ade Since I moved down here I've seen a lot of live bands. The ones that most impressed me were Ricky Spontane, Baxendale, Brain Of Morbius, Ben (Country Teasers/Male Nurse) and the top of the tree has to be Billy Childish and his Headcoats - it doesn't come much better than this. Seeing stuff live is my only contact with contemporary music. Have the Bootleg Beatles split up yet? But if somebody can make a few quid out of being in a band, it doesn't matter what it is, it saves them having to do some shitty job, then good luck to them I say. If you don't like it, you don't have to listen to it. It's like the difference between buying beans or spaghetti hoops, it's whatever your trip is. I mean major record business isn't very interesting at the moment but that's the way big business is - Coca Cola's not an interesting drink, it's just another product. Products have to be homogenised, this didn't happen so much in the early days in the 60s as the record business wasn't as sophisticated. It doesn't mean to say that interesting things still aren't going on, check out past the N.M.E. scene down to the local level and there's still some mad shit going on, like in Birkenhead there's plenty of mad shit going on. Don't worry about whether Oasis are any good or not, it's irrelevant. Today we can choose any particular genre of music from 60s garage to free form jazz, see it live or buy it from hmv. Today these are irrelevant questions, you can see whatever you want.

Exclusive Whenever I mention you to people they always think that I'm referring to the label of the same name, is there any connection?

Ade Since we've been "online" as they say, I've become aware of other Teenbeats that crop up when you do a search but no, we've never heard of the label - maybe we should send a demo. We named the band after an old 60s pop album I picked up in a Birkonian charity shop - it was full of bands from a time when bands were bands.

Exclusive Someone I know described your sound as being similar to John Shuttleworth - do you take it as a compliment?

Ade Definitely a compliment. Mr. Shuttleworth makes me laugh, I can understand the comparison - we do veer into self-parody now and again and what with my dulcet norethern tones. Ned recently bought a fancy Casio and I found myself singing along to elaborate backing music. As I caught my reflection in the window sitting there at the keyboard for a second, just a tiny second, I saw the future - the pigeons are in flight.

Exclusive Okay, I think that Ade has said everything there. The Teenbeat write original, funny lo-fi tunes that deserve to be heard by everyone. I mean everyone. Their songs get into your head and stay there, you can't help but let them into your hearts. They are truly magnificent and they excite me greatly. Contact them and enter the land of Teenbeat where Scarborough is the only place to be and flapjacks are beautiful.