Stretching themselves again

In the most recent edition of the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles, there is a list of visual symbols appended as a key to particular music genres. For example, rap has a Nike runner icon, heavy metal a V-shaped guitar, country a ten-gallon hat, dance a happy face, alternative dance an inverted happy face and punk a safety pin. But what of Indie music, that much maligned, poorly perceived branch of shoegazing ne'er do wells? Well, Indie music is denoted by a sad face symbol, as if its entire range consists of minor chords, songs documenting suicidal tendencies and no joy whatsoever. Faced with such a fate, what's a bereft indie band to do? They could either regroup as Britney Spears clones or continue on their doleful path towards redemption. Elastica, you'll be pleased to know, has done neither.

A prominent UK independent band of the early to mid-1990s, Elastica released their eponymous debut album in 1995. Lead singer Justine Frischmann quickly became a reluctant spokesperson for a generation of mixed-up miserabalists, her relationships with Suede's Brett Anderson and Blur's Damon Albarn only adding fuel to the media fire. From February 1994 to February 1995, the band scored three UK Top 20 hits. It seemed as if their journey from indie band to corporate award-winners was merely a contract away, but a series of events prevented this. Five years later (with the band's second album, The Menace, finally released) Justine Frischmann looks back on what she calls "a catalogue of errors" in a semi-resigned, semi-optimistic manner.

"It's hard to imagine how a record could take this long, I agree," she says from her London home in a nail-biting, ever so slightly defensive tone. "It was partly due to the success of the first album being out of all proportion to what even we wildly dreamed of. The huge amount of touring that followed didn't help, either. We were out of the UK for nearly 18 months. We got back and discovered it was hard to feel grounded and stable. We thought we could carry on as if nothing had happened, but we couldn't. We were under a lot of pressure. Something had to give and it did."

The core membership of Elastica was rent apart by the success of the first album. Justine, who was 25 at the time of its release, says she wasn't as affected by a sudden influx of money as other band members (Frischmann's background is distinctly middle-class; her architect father designed London's Centre Point skyscraper and she attended a private school). Nevertheless, she maintains that money and other contributing factors (including pivotal members leaving) sounded a death knell for the band's ongoing commitments.

"It did concern me. The first recording we did for this album was with a different bass player (Sheila Chipperfield), and I don't think it worked. I also didn't know whether I had the hunger for it anymore or whether the chemistry was there. That's why we didn't lash any old album out. I didn't feel the songs were good enough then. The band now has a really good chemistry, and The Menace is setting the seeds for what we can do from now on. It feels like a new band and a fresh start.

"The next album won't take half as long. With the present climate, Elastica will be able to exist in a more underground way. We sound quite odd in this current environment, which is good. I very much doubt we'll be as mainstream as we were, and that's good too, because it means we'll go on to make a third album. The pop music climate is currently very much populated by boy bands. Do I like Boyzone? Not particularly, although Ronan Keating is a lovely man." Ah, bless.

Weary and wary of the way in which she has been perceived by the music media in particular - via not only her previous boyfriends, but also by charges of song similarity from the respective music publishers of The Stranglers and Wire - Justine views the latter as "neither a problem nor an issue, especially in relation to The Menace. I wore our influences on my sleeve very much. I think in dance music it's a lot more acceptable to be obvious about your influences."

As for the former, she is clearly bemused as much as irked by the public's obsession with celebrities. "For me it was quite frustrating," she says, "because it wasn't made too clear that I had met both Brett and Damon before they were famous. I met Brett at University College, London and Damon before Blur had a record deal. Whenever it's mentioned in the press, I get the feeling that something is implied by it. Also, if you're a woman and are in a so-called celebrity relationship, you're seen as the lesser of the two. There's always the implication that the woman is successful because of the man she's with, and not the other way around. I would definitely resent that."

Five years down the road, with stumbles aplenty on the way and the Frischmann/Albarn split made public on Blur's 1999 release 13, is the former Queen of Brit Pop eager to once more enter the fray? "I haven't missed being in the press," she says with heavy understatement, "but I'm glad to be making music and moving forward again after what was such a limbo period. I'm glad to be playing gigs again. It's quite exciting, really."

Is she as much the reluctant pop star as she makes herself out to be? "Yes, I am. I haven't got the blind ambition and egotism that a lot of male pop stars have, the mindset which thinks all press is good press. I'm probably not thick-skinned enough. I get quite upset by things that are written about me. I probably shouldn't. It's not a gender thing, either. Horrible things are written about anyone who dares to get into music or any media spotlight. Some people can handle it better than others."

Elastica play Dublin's Temple Bar Music Centre on May 11th. The Menace was released yesterday by Deceptive Records