LET US write the histories of pop music (the plural has a certain importance). A history at once oral/aural but not linear or progressive. A history that snakes and twists and turns back on itself, a history of ruptures and wrong-turnings. But let us not start with THE BEATLES.

 Let us not speak their name.

 There is a traditional historiography of popular music which in some way or another always seems to come back to THE BEATLES; and Lonnie Donegan who begat THE BEATLES, and Elvis who begat Lonnie Donegan; John Lee Hooker who begat Elvis and Robert Johnson who begat John Lee Hooker etc etc. But that is not what we are interested in here.

 We don't love you (yeah, yeah, yeah).
 We don't want to hold your hand.

 So let us start in the year Phil Spector aged wrote and produced his first hit, "To know him is to love him", taking the title from his father's epitaph. Phil Spector, the first Tycoon of Teen, the first Pop Genius, the first person making this crazy new music who was actually of the age of its audience, the first guy with any power in the music industry who actually liked this stuff.

 Spector wasn't trying to bolster his label's back catalogue with a few easy money spinners in order to create the capital to record and release the Real music, the great classics that he Really cared about. Much like punk rock, pop music was developed and incubated in quite a cynical and pedestrian fashion.

 It was often those who came just a little later, those who almost missed the boat, like the Pop Group, DNA, SONIC YOUTH, who took the promise of punk rock at face value and got excited about it and tore it apart in ways their progenitors could never have imagined; they made punk great and significant and important.

 Spector took the promise of rock'n'roll and the new socioeconomic class of the 'teenager' at face value and ran with it. This was the real music that was important and valuable and serious and worth caring about. And anything was possible.

 So let's draw on the magic and the energy of this period that we might almost think of as a golden age: the Spector years, the Brill building, Joe Meek's Triumph recordings in England and beyond that Motown, Stax, Studio One.

 Let us make this our starting point and start here to tell our story, from whence we shall move both backwards and forwards (in historical terms, the two are never easy to separate anyway).

 Already the astute amongst you may have started to notice a broader spectrum creeping in; shades of Philly soul, of afrobeat, disco, glam rock, riot grrrl, dance pop, R'n'B and, in the other direction, of doo wop, Broadway, the radio hits of the thirties and forties, music hall, the European folk tradition...

 Let us continue to expand our temporal and spatial borders in this fashion and let us do so using the tools at hand. Like a bricoleur we shall construct our histories from what we already have around us, what is available to us immediately and what we already know: guitars, drums, percussion, a Philicorda organ, a saxophone, our own voices. But we will never be limited by our own boundaries, never hypostatized into a bind from which we cannot move. We must grow and at all times be reaching out, through the personal relations we already have and that we constantly create and develop on a daily basis. Art, according to John Cage, is not a thing made by someone but a process through which everyone involved learns and experiences new things.

 So let us draw towards us our friends, our enemies and our casual acquaintances, without regard for their talent, their ability or their experience and lets see what we can learn together through the action of simple, practical music making.

 Let's see what new histories we can write together.

 Rose kindly answered our questions while they were they in the studio recording their debut album...

1. Who are THE PIPETTES? when was the band born? who plays each instrument in the band?
 THE PIPETTES are RiotBecki, Gwenno and Rosay who are supported by our backing band THE CASSETES, who are Monster Booby on guitar, Robin of Loxely on drums and the Falcone brothers, Jonny on bass and Sebastian on keys. The band came about in september 2003 in a pub in Brighton after Monster Bobby propositioned us all with the idea of being in a girl band. Of course we all said yes please!

2. Why the name of THE PIPETTES?
 The name was part of the original plan, to combine the idea of a science experiment (we have always seen the band in this way to a degree) with the sound of girls groups from the fifties and sixties like THE RONETTES, etc...

3. Which things make you write those beautiful songs? What are the lyrics about?
 We're mainly just singing about things that we have experienced, people we know, relationships we've had or little simple things we've seen. That’s what attracted me to the idea of being in this band, because there aren't really that many women singing about things that i can relate to, and i think that that is really important for girls, to have someone singing about things that actually happen. They may not be the most profound or poetic, but they are important because they are real.

4. Any plans to release an album?
 We are actually right in the middle of recording our album and plan to have it out in june, which is very exciting!

5. How are your gigs? You were playing last summer in one of my favourite festivals, the Emmaboda Festival, in Sweden, where I was also playing with my band in 2004, how was the experience there? Was that your first time in Sweden? What about the audience?
 Performing live is what we love the most, and one of the highlights of last year was Emmaboda Festival. It was our first time in sweden, and also one of the first times we'd played outside of the uk, and we had an amazing time. Not only was the festival brilliant, with loads of great bands and lovely beautiful people, but the response we had was fantastic. We had no idea how we'd go down, but we ended up having 1500 people there, and some of them knew the words, which was bizarre! Since then we've toured around Sweden and had an equally great time. They just seem to understand where we're coming from and they all like dancing, just like us!

6. Do any of you come from other bands or have played in other bands before or plays now?
 Most of us had been involved in music before the band. Our guitarist has his own solo project, MONSTER BOBBY, lovely electro guitar pop songs. I used to be in little bands and sang with different poeple, Gwenno had her own solo project in Wales, and our bass player is in a band called THE BLIND COWBOYS with Tom from THE ELECTRIC SOFT PARADE. Coming from Brighton it’s quite hard to escape these blasted musicians!

7. Why do you insist so much in what you’t don’t seem to like, this is, THE BEATLES, would not be more practical to focus on what you really love?
 The whole BEATLES thing has actually been taken completely out of context by journalists, because for some reason it seems so shocking for the music press to hear any band say that they're not actually that interested in the BEATLES' legacy. All we're talking about is looking at different musical histories; what if THE BEATLES hadn't existed? They weren't the beginning of pop music and actually there were some amazing things happening before THE BEATLES came along. They gave rise to a whole load of boring male guitar bands over the last forty years, and we have just got a bit bored. We are certainly about celebrating the things we love in music, but i think it is important to have clear opinions about where you're coming from.

8. Can you name your favourite band from the 50’s, from the 60’s,... well, from each decade? (yes, you can name 2 or 3 if you want  ;-))
 Best of the 50’s: Obviously there is ELVIS, and i love singers like PEGGY LEE, ELLA FITZGERALD, etc... this is such a horrible question, how the hell am i supposed to name 1 or two!
 Best of the 60’s: THE SHANGRI-LAS, THE SHIRELLES, THE CHANTELLES, THE RONETTES, REV-LONS, bla bla bla...
 Best of the 70’s: ABBA...
 Best of the 80’s: BANANARAMA, COCTEAU TWINS,...
 Best of the 90’s: PULP, SLEATER KINNEY, AAAAHHHH!!
 Best of today’s: Today is probably the hardest, really liked KANYE’S WESTS' last album, AMERIE's first single, i'm sure the rest of the band will be screaming at me for not mentioning someone, i really liked BROADCAST’S last album, but to be honest there hasn't been anything that has made me think Oh my god! for a while....

9. As almost no-one lives on music nowadays, what do you usually do in a normal day? which are your hobbies?
 We all make money in our own ways, but our time is being increasingly devoted to the band, which is great. We might be able to live and do it full time soon hopefully!!!

10. The ‘books’ section of the shop in your website is empty, are any of you writing a book now?
 Haha, not as far as i know, but everyone has a novel inside them as they say! i certainly wouldn't put it past Monster Bobby...

11. Which is that amazing record that you are listening to lately and can´t stop listening to it?
 I was given a record called 'Boy trouble - garplex girls' for christmas with a load of 60's girl bands produced by Gary S Paxton, which is just amazing. It has songs with titles such as 'Boy you
better watch it girl', 'Plain simple ordinary wonderful guy' and ‘Dutch treat' (??). You can't go wrong with that, not to mention the incredible melodies and arrangements...

12. Do you know any labels or bands from Spain? Which ones?
 I'm afraid i'm rather ignorant of spainish music which is a bit embarrasing, but i did go to the Benicassim Festival a couple of years ago which was brilliant, and i heard some great stuff there, but i can't remember any names.. it was that kind of weekend...

13. When will you come to tour Spain?
 We haven't any plans to as yet, but we hope to be touring all over this summer and we would love to come and play if you'd have us!!