Nothing could be more awkward than your teenage years; this I was convinced of as I began the process of telephoning the Teenagers lead singer Quentin Delafon at his home in London.

"Hello? Is this Quentin?"
Dot Matrix printer noises.
"Hi Quentin it's Mike at ChalkedUp in Vancouver, how's it going?"

I presume here that Quentin is explaining to me how it's going for him.

We struggle on for another minute or two before I give up. Deeply angry at my 20/20 ("Canada's favorite") calling card, I plug numbers into my phone for another fifteen minutes before getting through to Quentin again. This time the connection is a little better, but the quality of the signal is bad enough that if I hope to carry on any semblance of a conversation, recording the conversation is still entirely out of the question.

The ensuing conversation helps me to understand that there are, in fact, things that are more awkward than ones teenage years. And as I strain to hear Quentin as he speaks to me from his home in London while I furiously scribble his answers onto some scrap paper, I can't stop thinking about how impossible it will be to try and put Quentin's responses back together.

What began as a Myspace joke band for members Michael Szpiner, Dorian Dumont and Quentin Delafon has now flowered into a full-time job for all it's members. But even in it's formation the band, like any good teenager, understood the importance of looks. Quentin highlighted how the band stressed it's visual identity and the creation of the "Teenagers Universe" (a necessity considering that the band didn't really have any songs when it first came into being).

Since then the Teenagers have released two singles for Merok records, who have handled material by 2007 best-of-list highlights Crystal Castles and the Klaxons. The first, "Homecoming", (which would later be re-released on Kitsune Records) is something like Todd Solondz' take on Nada Surf's "Popular". When I drew the comparison between the song's chorus (a sweetly sung "I loved my English romance / I fucked my American cunt") and Vladimir Nabokov's novel 'Lolita', Delafon stayed true to the band's fun-loving sense of novelty and removal.

"I wouldn't really link them," he explained, "we're talking about one person, not saying that all American are cunts--someone on Myspace mentioned WWII and that we should be grateful, but we aren't being politically aggressive."

The band's other, "Scarlett Johannson" pays homage to the actress as only a sexually confused teenaged-male could: dreamily and obsessively. The b-side "Selflove", a sardonic piss-take on teenage discovery and reminiscence (like every Teenagers song), also helps set the mood.

Another awkward moment: Upon discovering that Scarlett Johansson has a cat named Trooper, I thought I make an inquiry regarding the Vancouver rock band Trooper, famous for such songs as "Raise a Little Hell" and "We're here for a Good Time". Apparently you need a bona-fide Canadian dad to even know about that shit. Like that time I got caught by the cops for throwing a balloon full of ketchup at someone's house, I guess I should've known.

I recovered by mentioning that Montreal-based record label Summer Lovers Unlimited also had their beginnings in Vancouver, Quentin was happy to explain that Summer Lovers will be releasing a limited edition 7" of their song "Fuck Nicole", which will include a remix from Summer Lover spazz-out producer SLUTTT on the flip.

Keeping in mind the massively successful internet circulation of their collection of "New Songs and Demos", the Teenagers elected to maintain their DIY sound for their upcoming debut LP "Reality Check", due out on XL records at the end of January (digital release only). And I seriously can't find a single person on the internet or otherwise who isn't a little bit excited.

With everything in place for the release of their debut LP "Reality Check", the Teenagers are ready to embark on their two-week tour of North America, which starts right here in the home of Trooper.

<p>Michael Barrow, 15 Jan 2007</p> <p><a href="http://chalkedup.com/events/view/the-teenagers">Watch the Teenagers Friday January 18th at Richard's on Richards</a></p>