Precisely. I like my chickens frank. On the other side of the wall separating Kazuko's front-room from next-doors front-room, a bracket is being mounted. The sounds of drilling and pummelling are matched by the chunks of plaster and dust falling onto Kazuko's carpet.

"You are destroying our wall," she rushes out to inform the tool-handed Man At Work. The tool-handed Man At Work comes in to look at Kazuko's wall. "It's going to come down sooner or later," he observes.

It was an average day. Me, Kazuko and Kazumi Chicken continued our tea.

'We are Ninja' was a sophisticated and cherishable debut. And surprising because (this) one had long pondered how Frank Chickens would apply themselves vinylly. Both 'Ninja' and its accompanying 'Shellfish Bamboo' introduced them as originators rather than simply the interpreters which they had been on stage (equally their living thing itself had blossomed in defiance of reasonable expectation since their early humble huddles at the Idiot Ballroom).

The more recent 'Blue Canary' cover was of less immediate consequence although possessed of a quaint novelty-like charm.

Kazumi: "The record company wanted something between 'Ninja' and the LP. They were not expecting too much but apparently it got more airplay than 'Ninja'. I suppose it's quite different from other stuff on the radio."

Kazuko: "We found the song on an LP I bought in Japan. Karoke versions of Western pop songs."

She sorts out the LP in question. I scan the Japanese type and the English titles; 'Danny Boy', 'You Are My Sunshine', 'Moon River' (sudden spontaneous croon of 'moooon liver'). Heady stuff.

Kazuko: "Steve (Beresford) and Dave (Toop) played the music very close to the version on that LP. It seemed to get a good response."

How will it stand up alongside/against the likes of Wham! and Frankie Goes To Hollywood?

Kazuko: "Quality will stand up but I'm not sure that sales will! We need more time to have people get into us. We're waiting for them to catch up."

Kazumi: "Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Isn't that taking the piss out of sexual moral?"

Possibly. And getting the stains out of trousers.

Is your LP a pop record?

Kazuko: "Yeah. In the sense that we aim at everybody it would be pop. We don't limit the number of people who might listen to it."

Unlike some. I read that George Michael deliberately created a more slick 'grown up' sound for his solo hit so as to reach a different section of the public from those who were buying the springy infant bop of Wham! It's all very business-like and very cynical.

(The English music biz habitués: hard bitten stalkers in the post-punk depression, seen-it-all, furrowed jaded brows, cold eyes, calculating stares – and that's just the photographers!)

I prodded, I poked, I ranted, I raved but in Frank Chickens could find no cynicism.

Kuzuko: "We haven't had too much bad experience of music business yet. It's difficult to be cynical if you're fighting."

Kazumi: "Especially in this country with the miners and everything."

Kazuko: "Because we are Asian and we are women we are the people who are supposed to be struggling and it's true in some ways, we are fighting against some structure I suppose. "I don't want to sound heroic but if you start to be cynical it is an insult to other people who are struggling as well. So we'd rather have fun than be destroying the whole idea. Isn't it really restricting to think of what market you're going for? And boring too?"

Frank Chickens operate at a meeting point of humour and seriousness. Waiving the awkward formality of such terms, they recognise the co-existence of both can result in a maximised effectiveness. Frank Chickens are not definitely this or definitely that. They sing and dance and the multi-faceted impact just occurs. There is a method underlying their apparent (oriental, wacky) madness which even they are too wise to try to evaluate.

In both of them, but Kazuko particularly, there is a bubbling playful curiosity – a child-like quality.

Kazuko: "It's been said that we're like little girls who are excited. It's true. We don't want to lose that and become professional and adult and look like we know everything and the audience doesn't so we are giving them something important. We'd rather appear like little girls enjoying the stage. It's closer to the truth of us."

Kazumi: "We do enjoy the stage.

Age check: Kazuko: "32". Kazumi: "Getting 27 soon."

Kazuko: "It's quite good to look like a kid when you're 32."

Advanced readers may recall Kazuko came to England originally (partly) in search of Winnie The Pooh.

Numerous of the punter fraternity, methinks, may solely align themselves with the novelty aspects of Frank Chickens.

Kazuko: " 'Blue Canary' was our most novelty-like song and we don't want to lose that part. We want to do all the things we want to do. We want to have freedom choosing what we do. There are no other Japanese women around in bands so we can do what we want to a certain extent. If there was a lot of competition the record company may have forced us to compromise but because we are so unusual, I don't mean unusually talented, but just the fact of us is so unusual."

Kazumi: "It's quite difficult to accept. Up till now it has been either black or white people who come onto the stage and get into the charts. I haven't seen an Oriental man or woman doing that."

Kazuko: "It might happen soon."

Kazumi: "All get mixed."

Kazuko: "It would be good if lots of Oriental people started to appear. I hope that we play in Japan soon. For us it would be good to show the people that they can do what they decide to do. When we started we just went on stage with a backing tape and then did radio and TV, made records and had a lot of fun but Japanese people don't think like that. If we play there they might think we are really bad but just doing it would be really good.

"In Rome we played at a festival of Japanese independent bands. It lasted six nights. There was a Japanese band called Friction, we didn't like them. It was cold. They just... play instruments. They try to be cool on stage.

What did they think of you?

Kuzuko: "We didn't ask. They didn't talk to us." Kazumi: "When we went into the DJ booth all the other Japanese people disappeared."

Kuzuko: "It's true! Wherever we go, Japanese people go away."

If you play in Japan you might become the scourge of the right wing. Corrupted by Western ways. Sowing the seeds of discontent.

Kazuko: "My mother is right-wing but when I was there last I didn't see much street speech."

Kazumi: "I saw more people reading Red Flag, the communist paper, each week. But the right-wing in Japan doesn't change."

Kazuko: "The LDP (Liberal Democratic Party – amazingly as we speak, six thousand miles away their HQ is being set on fire apparently by 'radical left-wingers'), the leading party, has been in power for a very long time. The right-wing is often not anti-Western, not like the NF here – against all the foreigners. Politically it's more tangled up in Japan and the present government is very connected to America.

"Mishima, the writer who committed suicide was unusual because he hated America and thought Japan should be independent. The real right-wing is against Western culture but my mother is for America. It's quite weird."

Kazumi: "But is there anything America and Russia are fighting for? I think there is maybe some connection at the top."

Kazuko: "A conspiracy between the big countries.

The pair have now resided in the West for six years. Presumably they like it?

Kazumi: "The people in England are more straight, direct."

Kuzuko: "Our circle of people are not the mainstream of England, I've heard that people in the north drink all the time, I suppose our people (weirdos, bohemians, druggies, freaks) are more direct. I sometimes forget that I'm Japanese. I don't think about it much when I'm meeting English people. I get very shocked sometimes when I look different. I go to the pub and people look at me rather than other people. In my head it is all the same.

What would you do with a million pounds?

Kazumi: "Make film. Or if we were heroic we could give it to a third world country.

Kazuko: "Make film. But we need new house. Buy new wall!"