I’ve hung out with Jarvis, been windsurfing with Kylie, and sung to a bemused packed house at the London Astoria; but I was too nervous to talk to Manda Rin at her album launch party earlier this month. I tried, but all I could manage was to buy some badges off her, grin in a stalker-esque fashion, and retreat to the other side of the room.

Manda Rin is one of my heroes. She was keyboards/singer and main rabble rouser in 90s pop-punk sensations bis, who, I am contractually obliged to mention, were the first unsigned band to play Top Of The Pops. They were one of the best live acts around, all bouncing energy and catchy cutesy songs. They also had an exciting-sounding manifesto based around the Teen-C revolution. I never quite worked out what the teen-c revolution was, but it was great and I was definitely part of it. All they really needed was for a large number of people to actually like their music, and they’d have been huge.

But that’s all in the past now – bis split for good after a final reunion tour last year. “We’ll play if the money is horrendously large I’m sure!”, she admits, via email. Yes, that’s right. I was too scared to interview her in person.

Manda’s solo album, ‘My DNA’, should silence the reunion howls. It’s a brilliant, slinky electro-pop album, all stabby synths, funky bass, and tunes worthy of 80s Madonna. But while bis were always a pace out of kilter with the rest of the musical landscape, this album also feels very current.

“It was heavily influenced by what I was listening to”, she says. “It was the Gossip, CSS, New Young Pony Club…”. All of whom I’m sure were at least partly inspired by bis in the first place. It’s the circle of pop.

But away from these bands, I wonder what she thinks of the current state of the music scene. Not much:

“Everything sounds the same. You get the odd stand out band like Ting Tings or Late of the Pier, but everything else is 4 or 5 ultra blokes in skinny jeans that you couldn’t recognise from the other”.

When bis were starting out, they received a lot of nasty, personal remarks from the music press, mostly aimed at Manda’s appearance and voice (“It probably still irritates the hell out outta folk!”). She’s developed a thicker skin now, but the sexism clearly still rankles. And amidst the throwaway disco joy, My DNA features songs that tackle the Size Zero controversy and domestic abuse. I ask if some of the messages of feminism have been lost on the Heat magazine reading generation. She’s not sure.

“It’s so hard to tell what the kids these days think about stuff like that. No one talks about it which makes me feel it’s just paused after the riot grrl era, and no-one’s making an effort to move on and keep the equality fight going”.

In a fitting echo of the DIY spirit that has driven her career, Manda now has her badge making company. If you need to put a slogan on a pin, then she’s your girl. I should say woman, really, but she still looks so young. My theory is that she’s been using her old bis band mates, Sci-Fi Steven and John Disco, as living pictures of Dorian Gray. I don’t share this with her, because it’s borderline insane, but I ask what her secret is. She won’t tell me.

“Haha, I’ve never been asked for ID more than I have in the last 2 years. It’s amazing!”.

Finally, I can’t help it. If I don‘t ask now I‘ll never know. Manda, what *was* the teen-c revolution?

“It was just the sense of empowerment and feistiness that we had at 16,17, and 18. It was the way we were fighting against the world for everything we believed in at the time. I now look back and think that was actually quite respectable.

“Silly, but respectable.”

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Manda’s album, ‘My DNA’, is out now, and you should buy it because it is proper mega.