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She hasn't had the full-scale stalker treatment yet but Catchers singer Alice Lemon knows all about over-zealous fans. Indeed, she came face to face with one 45 minutes ago following an in-store at Paris' answer to Tower Records, FNAC.

"This guy - who was trembling - brought along a scrapbook of photographs he wanted signing which was fine, except they were all of me. Half of them were band shots that the others had been cut out of and the rest, well, I didn't recognise where they were from because they had been blown-up. Maybe I'm overreacting but that sort of behaviour from someone who's 20 or 21, is a bit scary. I mean, what's he doing when he's looking at those photographs?"

Holding the book with one hand and wondering how much it would cost to have the pages laminated?

"Eeeeurgh!" she shudders. "He may be pulling himself off or he could be a perfectly normal bloke with a girlfriend and stuff, who likes my singing. The trouble is, you don't know."

I followed Motorhead around on tour for a month once but I never wanted to shag Lemmy. On the other hand, Adam Clayton's spent the past three years dodging a mad Canadian, and Chris de Burgh was none too impressed the other night when he discovered a deranged woman hiding in his garden.

"A really, really big fan is one thing," she continues, "but when it goes beyond that and becomes obsessive you have to distance yourself from it."

Fortunately for Lemon, most of the attention that's come her way recently has been of the "J'adore votre album nouvel" variety. While the words 'couldn't', 'get', 'themselves' and 'arrested' spring to mind in terms of their Irish profile, the Catchers have sold 10,000 copies of Stooping to Fit in France without really trying, and in a few hours time will be playing to 1,000 people in top indie mecca, La Locomotive.

"If it made sense from a band point of view, I'd love to move to Paris," she confides. "Having put up with the cynicism of the British media for the past few years, it'd be great to live in a country where you're judged on your music rather than your haircut or who you've been ligging with. Belle and Sebastian going top 10 is encouraging but, generally, there's no room in the UK for bands that are lyrical or poetic.

I don't want to sound like a whiny bitch but when they do give you coverage there's always some agenda involved. I did a 45 minute interview with a guy from one of the weeklies when our first album, Mute, came out and all he used were two or three lines which, divorced from the other stuff I'd said, made me sound like a silly little girl. He did the same thing, apparently, to Dolores O'Riordan when the Cranberries started which makes you wonder if he's got a problem with women musicians."

Hailing from that most rock'n'roll of metropoli, Portstewart, the Catchers have been plying their trade for over seven years with Alice and Dale Grundle jointly responsible for their to-die-for harmonies. Allied to Setanta in Europe, they're currently trying to clarify their relationship with American label Discovery who, after being taken over by Reprise, have stopped returning their calls.

"It's frustrating because having based ourselves in New York for a while we've got a really good following there. Going back to fans for a moment, we had a couple who flew all the way from Oregon to see us play in Chicago which was a great confidence booster - y'know, 'We must be doing okay if these people are prepared to travel 3,000 miles for one of our gigs!' Anyway, it's with our lawyers at the moment, so hopefully it'll get sorted."

Along with London and New York, the Catchers were also based for a while in Dublin and supported Oasis at their legendary Tivoli gig.

"That was scary. The atmosphere was very laddish and the moment they saw I was a woman, it was 'Get your tits out!' Dale , being chivalrous, tried to drown them out by playing his guitar really, really loud but they still crucified me. The thing I don't get about Oasis is that, apart from them being blueurgh personality-wise, they're very boring to watch. They do an okay job of ripping off the Beatles but from the point of view of putting on a show, I don't understand how they've become so big."

At this point, any thought of Lemon being a simpering girly who can't take a joke should be expurged from your mind. Having shared a pint - or six - with her the previous evening, I can report that she not only has a wicked sense of humour but can out-party her male bandmates.

"I was puking my guts up all morning, though," she says going into more detail than is strictly necessary. "Talking of being heckled, a very drunk Catchers fan kept shouting 'You're shit!' at Edwyn Collins when he followed us at a festival in Strasbourg. After letting it go for a while, he takes off his guitar mid-song, walks into the crowd and gives the bloke a thump. Honour restored, he puts his guitar back on and resumes his set which was just so classy."

While Stooping to Fit demonstrates that she is able to deliver in the studio - listen to 'Spellbound' and tell me there isn't a God -Alice is at her most comfortable on stage performing.

"One of the many reasons my dad's my hero is that when I was a little girl, we used to stand around the piano and sing these marvellous '40s and '50s songs. After that I became a huge Michael Jackson fan and tried to recreate his dance routines in my bedroom with my stepsister. As far as I was concerned that was all the music I needed, but then I met Dale and he introduced me to stuff like Crosby, Stills and Nash which I completely binged on."

Although harder to pin down than an epileptic Hulk Hogan, the Northeners' sound includes elements of not only CS+N but Love, Jefferson Airplane and the Go-Betweens who could have written at least half of Stooping to Fit.

'The Go-Betweens comparison comes up all the time but, personally, I don't see it," proffers Dale Grundle in between mouthfuls of his plat de jour. As laid back off-stage as he is energized on it, the Catchers mainman prefers to be mentioned in the same breath as cult Americans like Chris Stamey from the db's, and the Flaming Lips. He's also extremely proud of the fact that the album's strings and horns were arranged by former Nick Drake man, Robert Kirby. Like Lemon, he's resigned to the fact that the UK may take a while to come on side.

"It's all beats and big choruses there at the moment which kind of leaves us out in the cold," he rues. "You come to France and, even though it's not their first language, they want to know what the lyrics are about. As well as dancing and getting drunk to your music, they're interested in where it's come from.

"The knock-on effect of not selling many records in Britain is that it's difficult for us to play in Ireland. If you're doing, I dunno, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, it doesn't cost a lot more to hop on a ferry to Dublin but as a one-off it's hugely expensive. Whatever about the Divine Comedy, Setanta are a small company who can't afford to write £5,000 off on a couple of shows."

While Grundle doesn't seem too bothered about being a hometown hero, you get the impression that his former girlfriend would like to show the residents of Portstewart that she's been spending her time productively.

"I spent the last six of my teenage years in Portstewart with my father who, like I say, is the light of my life, so I'm still very attached tot the place and go back whenever I can. I wouldn't be able to live there though, because it's too incestuous. It's depressing when you see friends of yours, who had these big plans at school, permanently drunk because there's nothing else to do. I suppose it's the same as anywhere in rural Ireland - if you don't want to be a farmer or work in the tourist industry you have to go away."

Pre-gig nosh consumed, it's off to La Locomotive which derives its name from the fact that there's half a train in the foyer. There may be times on record when the Catchers veer towards tweeness, but live they're an absolute joy with Grundle and Lemon's voices intertwining so perfectly that you forget there are actually two people up there with microphones.

There's no sign of our scrapbook-wielding friend from FNAC but, nevertheless, the sense of adoration in the venue is palpable. If I was Setanta boss, Keith Cullen, I'd get them that flat in Paris now!