'Hey look! Girls with guitars! And they're not very old either!' was how Kenickie were hyped last year, bundled along with Bis into NME's C96 bandwagon. Eighteen months later, they have a debut album, 'At The Club', just released and they're starting to make bigger waves. Not bad for a band who started, in true punk tradition, with 3 chords, and 9 songs.

"Marie [guitar and vocals] knew the 3 chords actually, and then she taught them to Lauren [vocals and guitar]," says bassist Emmy-Kate Montrose, who has known the other two since they were all 11 years old. "Then they were looking for someone else to be in the band and I was just there. They asked me if I wanted to play keyboards, drums or bass. The drums seemed to me to be really hard and I didn't really want to play keyboards, so I chose the bass. We had 2 songs, one of which was 'Walrus' which later became the bside to 'Punka'. Then I went away to America for 2 months to visit my uncle and when I came back, they'd written loads more songs. And they told me I had to learn 19 songs, as we'd got a gig in two weeks! I did it, too! I remember thinking 'Skateboard Song' was the hardest song in the world because it had, like, THREE sections!"

So, punk credentials firmly intact there, then. The lineup is completed by token bloke (and Lauren's brother) Johnny X on drums, whose mysterious moniker stems from the fact that the girls didn't know who was going to fill the vacant drumstool; "We wrote a list, like you do when you start a band. It went 'Lauren - singing and guitar etc.', and when it got to drums, it was just 'drums - X', so we were looking for someone to be X". Inauspicious beginnings, but the rise to the status of press darlings has taken very little time at all. "I suppose it looks really quick from the outside, but we haven't really noticed it," replies Emmy-Kate. "It's only sometimes when you meet someone famous or you're playing on Jools Holland that you think 'fucking hell, it's really weird!'. But it's not really been that quick, we'll've been together 3 years in August. It's not really a surprise how successful we are, because we do think we're the best band in the world - I don't think you should be in a band unless you think you're the best band in the world. That probably sounds arrogant, but it's not, it's self-belief. You've got to know that your band's great".

There certainly doen't seem to be much insecurity in the British music scene at the moment, but for once, Kenickie seem to have good reason for their 'self-belief'. After a couple of limited edition seveninches, including one for überindie Fierce Panda, they were chased by a number of labels before finally signing to EMIdisc Records, the label run by ex-St Etienne other two, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs. "Lawrence from Denim told Bob to buy 'Catsuit City', our first single, and he liked it and asked us to do a one-off single. We were already doing 'Come out 2nite' for Fierce Panda, and then we were going to do one with him. Mother Records and eastwest were chasing us as well, but then Bob and Pete got funding from EMI and decided they wanted to sign us properly. Bob and Pete are really lovely. They've been recording in Sweden, but they came back a couple of weeks ago for Lauren's 19th birthday party".

Yes, you read that right. NINETEEN. Understandably, Kenickie's youth has generated quite a lot of press interest, as have incidents like the Aston University gig, when Marie hurled herself offstage to 'sort out' a heckler. "She was changing guitars," explains Emmy-Kate, "and was suddenly left with nothing in her hands, so she just jumped off and grabbed hold of him, saying 'you, just shut up! I never want to see you at one of our gigs ever again!' She's like Scrappy Doo is Marie, all 'let me at him, let me at him'. Marie's quite good in a fight - I think it's because she's quite short and she has a lower centre of gravity...But we're not noted for our violence or anything!" Ulp. Moving swiftly on, this summer is going to be the acid test for Kenickie. The album is now out, and the promotion slog has already started.They've even started trying to crack America, with dates supporting Dinosaur Jr, although they say they don't want to end up on the clapped-out tourbus to Nowheretown - "we'd rather just be flown over and do a few dates each time". What with festival season approaching, and a point during the summer where Kenickie are playing a different European festival every weekend, it could only be a matter of time before they have the world at their feet.

Emmy-Kate Montrose from Kenickie was talking to Andrew, in June 1997.