Sugan'n'spice and all things nice

that's not what Daphne and Celeste are made of. The manufactured pop duo tell Ben Thompson about dodging a gutted rabbit and bottles of urine

ELVIS had The Ed Sullivan Show and The Sex Pistols had the Silver Jubilee boat trip. For acid-tongued trans-Atlantic playground pop sensations Daphne and Celeste, the springboard to rock'n'roll immortality was a Sunday afternoon slot at this year's Reading Festival. Taking to the main stage in front of 30,000 fans of the mask-wearing shock-metal band Slipknot, these two plucky New Jersey 17-year-olds found themselves the target of a hail of foul-mouthed vituperation.

Did they turn on their heels and flounce off the stage? Certainly not. They continued to perform their subversive skipping rhymes - holding up a mirror to the unwashed hordes with the infectious refrain "U.G.L.Y./ You ain't got no alibi!" - as a barrage of abuse, bottles full of urine, bags of meat, pasta and at one point a gutted rabbit, rained down.

"People were asking how could we not have gotten hit," remembers Celeste, "but when you see one coming, you just hop out of the way."

"Actually, they validated us," adds Daphne. "Running to the front of the stage and throwing all of their possessions at us was pretty much a way of saying, 'Hi, you're making an impression.'"

Ever since they burst onto the British music scene earlier this year with a debut hit single Ooh Stick You in the Top 10, Daphne and Celeste have never been far from controversy. Though it's sometimes hard to tell whether it's the old or the young that their addictive brand of bubblegum subversion is designed to corrupt, anything that's this much fun must surely be harmful to somebody.

What do Daphne and Celeste suppose it is about them that upsets their own detractors so much? "I think," Daphne ponders, "it's our very existence." The truth is that in a pop landscape largely peopled by contrived Lolitas without an opinion in their heads and Identikit boybands, Daphne and Celeste supply a welcome gust of perspective. "We accept we sound like a cat being strangled and we embrace it," they told Smash Hits. "If you don't like the single, you don't have to buy it: there's no gun to your head."

Their speaking voices may be pitched several octaves below the chipmunk-like squeaks that characterise their hilarious album We Didn't Say That, but Daphne and Celeste do not disappoint.

Flicking through a pile of magazines, the flower of British womanhood is picked apart. "Why is Louise, like, so beloved here?" demands Daphne. "I hate Tara Palmer-Tomkinson," Celeste proclaims grandly. Why? "Because she's nothing."

When briefly separated, both admit that the music released under their name is "not really their kind of thing". This would seem to support the theory that they are merely pop soldiers of fortune, fighting under a flag of convenience, but there is actually something rather inspiring about the way this most unrepentantly manufactured of pop duos was put together.

They are managed by former drum'n'bass producer Howard Toshman, and the songs are written by Michele Chiavarini, an enigmatic Italian with a classical pedigree; for several years he worked in Milan doing string arrangements with Ennio Morricone.

"They said they wanted a couple of American girls to record some songs in England," remembers Daphne, "and we'd have to live there for a while."

"Michele told us he had a vision and we were it," adds a slightly mystified Celeste. At their audition, they "danced around like complete idiots" to an instrumental version of the song that became their debut hit, the immortal Ooh Stick You. They got the job.

While their previous showbiz experience might not seem to have prepared them for the pressures of UK pop success (at the age of 11, Daphne "played the part of a flower" in an educational video about Lyme Disease), they've taken to it like ducks to water. Appearing on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, where the usual role of female contestants is to be slavered over and condescended to in equal measure by ageing would-be lotharios, their tireless ebullience had Mark Lamarr begging for mercy.

So what might the future hold for these precocious 17-year-olds: a clothing line? A free jazz concept album? A hit in their home country (where they are currently unknown)? "Pop isn't a long-term thing," Daphne observes. "You're lucky if you stick around for, like, a year."

"We'll be launching our new sexy image soon," adds Celeste, with a hint of menace. "It'll be similar to B*Witched."

The single P.A.R.T.Y. (Universal) is released on December 11 www.daphneandceleste.com

Copyright 2000
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