This story starts at its end with the demise of a band. To fully understand how its demise came to pass, we must start at the beginning.

We were just your normal, run of the mill teenage band, Cate on Bass Guitar, Dan on Drums, Ian on the second Bass, Jack on Vocals and keyboard and me on Vocals and Electric Guitar. I'm Ellie by the way. We practised in Cate's garage, everyday after school and at weekends. None of us were into school very much, we all wanted to be rock stars. We never thought we'd get there, except for Jack who always knew he'd get what he wanted. We started off covering other bands...Nirvana, My Vitriol and as the female vocalist the one song Jack ever actually let me sing most in was Dido's song Here with me which was always fun but we just did anything we thought we could sing well and get a good review for in the school's magazine. Then, after months of persuasion, our Headmaster finally allowed us to play at a school disco. We were so nervous before hand, it felt like we were going to explode with excitement, but when we went on stage and the lights came up, everything went right we belted out the songs without a hitch. All we needed now was a name...which was more difficult that we thought.

The gig ended after three encores and a stage invasion by a bunch of silly little trendie girls in my year all after Jack, it's amazing how people just change there music style to suit the cutest guy. Usually at school discos they played pop music, not rock, but everyone liked us! Once off stage, we saw the Headmaster coming over and we thought that we were in trouble for the mess in the Hall, but he congratulated us and told us we could play at the next disco in the Town Hall. Dan and Jack's jaws dropped and the rest of us couldn't stop jumping up and down, screaming and hugging each other. This was it...our chance to make something of ourselves even in our sleepy little town, never know we might get somewhere. The next day we were being mobbed in the school halls, even by people who had made our lives miserable through their mockery of the band. Now they wanted us to be our best friends. They're so fickle!

The next week was the Town Hall disco. It was twice the size of the school hall, and once we were out on the stage the full extent of what was going on hit us, as the crowd started to scream and dance and going mad for us, we really couldn't comprehend but we were'nt gonna pass up the chance to be noticed. This time we opened with the very first song that we had written ourselves. Everyone in the group had contributed to the piece, but the lyrics were Jack's but the tabs and music were mostly Dan and mine...at that point we couldn't see that Jack considered his contribution to make this his song and we had no part in it. We decided to call the song Stripper and it told the story of how people could strip off the problems in their life and get on with the rest of it. What we didn't realise was that the daughter of a talent scout had told her father about us and he was back stage. This was both the beginning, and the beginning of the end.

The last song finished after a few hiccups, as Cate's guitar string snapped half way through, but we carried on nevertheless. All we could see of the crowd was the flickering of flames from cigarette lighters, which were being waved all around. The atmosphere was electric; it was as though we were already famous, as though we were somewhere really important in rock history...it was almost like T-in the park had been the year before.

Before we could even put down our instruments, the Headmaster came over and took us to a man no one recognised. He didn't introduce himself; he just offered us a contract with his record company and he didn't need an answer as the guys just jumped around hugging people. Cate and I just stood there thinking it was a joke. But it was real and the next week we were escorted from our homes with only a few personal objects to remind us of home. I was hustled on to a tour bus and found the rest of the band looking bemused. The talent scout was telling them that the first stop would be in London to record the single and a video, followed by a tour round the country to do promotional appearances. Then we would record an album. All this and we still didn't have a name!

We arrived in London on the 29th and went into the studio to record. It all went well until they asked us for a name. We didn't know what to say, then Dan, who had been fairly quiet, said that we should call ourselves Answer42, as it was the answer to the ultimate question, what should the band be called? Before we could do the video we had to change our image from average looking teenagers. Now we all had hair in a variety of different colours and clothes to match our new rock image. No more school uniform. The video took a lot of time. The themes were people and new beginnings in a mixture of cartoon and live action shots. The final outcome was brilliant and from there it looked like nothing could stop us.

The record was released a few weeks later. The first time we heard our song played, we were in town walking past a music store. We ran in and saw the records lined up on the shelves. No one could understand why we were so excited, so we told them...this is us...we are them...we're Answer42. We watched the single climb the charts while we were on tour, looking every morning to see if it had progressed. And every morning it had.

After a month our track reached number one and we were the band we had always dreamed of. After only two years we had six number ones, ten top 20's and our album had got into the top ten. We were on top of the world. And then it all came crashing down.

We were in the recording studio talking about the new single and an argument broke out- I can't even remember what it was about - and Jack just said

"Look, it's because of me you lot are here...I'm the one who did all the work...I wrote Innovation, not you!"

All hell broke loose, insults were slung around the room and I just yelled out,

"Why don't we just break up then?"

Silence fell across the room.

"Fine then", said Jack, "I don't need the rest of you anyway!" and stormed out. I ran after him but it was too late. He'd driven off. That was the last I saw of him. The rest of the band stayed together for a year, but it wasn't the same. Cate and Ian went home and started up a music store selling instruments and CD's and old memorabelia, they even got old instruments off bands for display. Jack went solo, and had a few number ones before starting managing his own band. Dan and I stayed together, and were planning on getting married, we set up our own recording label and signed some incredible bands...including our idols who spilt from there old managers, but nothing felt right.

Talk about fifteen minutes of fame. Even though the fifteen minuits lasted on into seperate careers. But you never know, I saw Jack last week. Maybe I'll get in touch and we'll reform the band. This time it might be right for Answer42.