Circa 1984, source unknown

One of the great advantages of spinning the discs in a nightclub is that you can always force the punters to listen to your own personal faves. A chap called Bernhard, one third of Germany's latest pop import Alphaville, decided to take this process one step further and make the poor locals of Ecker listen to nothing but the output of his very own band. The crowd loved it, Alphaville grew in confidence, and two years later they are sitting pretty in the British Top 10. Simple, eh?

"We were quite surprised at how easy it was to make our own music and for people to like it," says singer Marian, the one with the near impeccable English lingo. "It seems as if Europe is especially good for us, and there was one week when we had two top ten hits in Holland. We are also quite popular in Germany, though maybe not quite on the same scale as Nena, Kraftwerk, or Peter Schilling." (Who he?)

Talk of Nena leads young Marian into defining exactly what he and his other Alphavilles are up to. "It is pop music, and this is quite natural for us because all we listened to when we were growing up was English and American pop." Ah, the usual Bowie, T. Rex, Sweet, that sort of stuff? "No, the people I liked were Brian Protheroe, Jobraith, Van Dyke Parks, and especially Peter Skellern."

The name Big in Japan doesn't appear to feature in this rather bizarre selection, so what's that all about?

"The song is about two lovers who I knew in Berlin. Their love for each other was strong, but the greater drug for them both was heroin. They lived in a fantasy place and for me that was Japan. Plus, I really liked the name of the group. My other favourite at the moment is Depeche Mode."

Unlike the Basildon boys, however, Marian is quick to admit that neither he nor his fellow artists can actually play. With an album all set for release, however, and a big European tour line up using guest musicians, this small piece of information should not cause him too many sleepless nights. Even the Bay City Rollers were big in Japan.