AUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY
by St Lucy
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You already know of the remarkable ascendancy of Roolz, how they've risen to number one in the charts of our hearts, thanks to their charisma, rakish good looks, and most importantly their wonderful, wonderful music, and all without resorting to tawdry sensationalism, lies and providing oral pleasure to their manager (unlike some we could mention). Despite pathetic insinuation from other parties, envious of Roolz deserved success, that Roolz have cynically targetted the gay audience, despite being straight themselves, Roolz firmly believe that their sexual leanings are not an issue, preferring to see their appeal as pansexual, and their undoubted sensuality has touched the lives and loins of boys and girls, straight and gay. Hell - even Field Mice fans have felt a twitching in the gusset when confronted with such indisputable sexual electricity. But who are these boys? How did they come to fulfil what they see as their destiny to change the face of modern music in Roolz? Actress, model, self-proclaimed good-time girl and longtime Roolz fan Saint Lucy pinned the boys down and gave them the probing of a lifetime to bring you this biography of our favourite pin-ups.

 The Roolz story begins in 1996 when Keef, a young face in Edinburgh's swinging nightlife, grew tired of his nine-to-five job in computing, and the narrow-mindedness of the so-called "Reekie Scene" in his native town. Although Keef's technical proficiency had earned him the nickname "Web Warrior", he was no geek and his first love was music, in particular ROCK music. One day, locked up in his pied-a-terre, and aimlessly strumming his guitar, whilst repeating his mantra "There must be something more", something remarkable happened. "It was like a surge of fire swept through me", says Keef now, "One minute I was churning out Pete Townsend riffs, the next I was flat on my back, my fingers frantically running up and down the fretboard. I felt an incredible sense of pleasure, and then...a release". Keef knew what he had to do, he knew he couldn't achieve that kind of intensity alone, he needed a partner, and quick.

Meanwhile, in Manchester, an up-and-coming turntable wizard named Tag was making quite a name for himself. Despite his international playboy reputation, maverick style and critical acclaim in Finland, this lover of Northern Soul stompers, disco, and 60's French pop was earning only a meagre crust for his skills. A chance meeting with Keef in a smoky North London drinking den whilst on one of his many trips to the capital in search of forgotten disco classics, however, changed all that. Tag was impressed with Keef's encyclopaedic musical knowledge, while Keef was merely desperate, and the two vowed to work together. Roping in Juan-Jesus Jackson, a New York breakdancer of Puerto Rican extraction, the first line-up of Roolz was born. Their first cut was a radical reworking of the Man-2-Man meets Man Parrish classic "Male Stripper" (still a Roolz live favourite), which found Keef adding ruthless guitar licks to Tag's frantic scratching, while Juan-Jesus performed a tantalizing dance routine. Jackson's time in Roolz was cutshort, however, when he fell in love an exotic dancer named Princess Rachel and quit the band. Disenchanted, Tag and Keef were back to square one.

It is here that the tale takes a supernatural turn. Among the mangroves of the Deep South (Basingstoke to be exact), "Blind" Kevan Cooke, had fallen onhard times. In the eighties, after his blues career had failed to take off, Kevan had moved into management. He had worked with all the greats -Classix Nouveau, Living in a box and Jimi the Hoover, to name but three - but those halcyon days were over. Although desperate to get back into music, Kevan had began to squander his wealth on Jack Daniels and loose women. One such "woman" was Honey, a flatulent lap-dancing transsexual from Toxteth, whose only redeeming feature was that she still had all her own teeth (even if they were a little crusty). Kevan was stuck in a rut and he knew it. But one night at the crossroads, returning from another evening spent frittering away still more pennies on Jack Daniels and glue at a nearby bar, he met a leprechaun, who offered him untold riches and fame, in return for his prized silver disc of King's groundbreaking "Kiss the spiky fridge" LP. It was the hardest decision Kevan had ever made, but in the end he reluctantly parted with the disc, wiping a tear from his eye.

Before vanishing in a puff of smoke, the leprechaun left Kevan strict instructions to go to Dublin. Kevan scrabbled together what little money hehad and boarded the plane. Once there, magic feet led him to "Seamus O'Bollix", a dingy club by the River Liffey. What he saw on stage would change his life forever. For there, on the stage was a handsome and fleet-footed dancer named Joss, a boy with eyes so twinkly that he could turn a shot-putter gay, who had procured a part as a dancing leper in "Riverdance" by offering his sister to Michael Flatley without her knowledge. Kevan watched the show transfixed and afterwards, nursing an erection the size of the CN Tower, ran up to Joss and uttered the immortal words "I'm going to make you a star-ah-ah".

By sheer coincidence, Warrander, an old friend of Joss's from Performing Arts College, had just returned to Manchester from Australia, where his promising surfing career had been tragically terminated when he was mauled by Bouncer while appearing as an extra in "Neighbours". Warrander had always been a solitary character, but the trauma of his accident had made him a recluse. He drank heavily, steadfastly refused to wash, and left the house only to attend record fairs in search of forgotten soft rock albums, usually dressed in a flea-bitten raincoat and with four days of stubble. It was at one such fair that he met Tag. Initially hostile to each other after a dispute over a rare Lee Hazlewood single, a shared loathing for everyone in the whole world cemented their friendship. Tag urged Warrander to clean up his act, rediscover the resonant baritone that had brought him so much attention at college, and at last, Warrander emerged from his hermit-like existence. He celebrated his return to public life by travelling to Glasgow with Tag to see 60's legend Evie Sands. Incredibly, also in attendance thatnight were Keef and Joss. Since the break-up of the first incarnation of Roolz, Keef had paid his way with modelling assignments for home-shopping catalogues, where his singular talent for staring blankly into the distance while dressed only in y-fronts was put to good use. After his meeting with Kevan, Joss had returned to his father's Guinness farm in Limerick where he spent his hours meditating, working out and writing heartfelt ballads on the family harp.

Delighted to meet up, the four celebrated by drinking heavily into the small hours in a Glaswegian leather bar, where ideas flowed from their heads like champagne, and the four were so engrossed in their new-found excitement that Joss missed his plane back to Dublin. Kevan, who had finally ditched the troublesome vampire Honey, was immediately appointed manager, and the jigsaw was complete. The rest, as they say, is history.