First it was Hootie And The Blowfish ritually disembowling Please Please Please . . . now goth mechanics Snake River Conspiracy have taken How Soon Is Now? and injected it with steroids.

To those in need of a little history, the Smiths rode into town from Manchester with a brand of indie rock that saved the world from the forces of Duran Duran and Phil Collins. The lyrical genius and weird falsetto of Morrissey was matched by the brilliance of guitarist Johnny Marr.

Morrissey's stock delivery was a melancholic call to arms to schoolhall wallflowers and bedroom poets.

They produced six peerless albums and then broke up - just like a proper band does.

For music fans of a certain age, they are untouchable. It would be a thick-skinned Brit outfit that would cover a Smiths song - apart from the odd torch singer - but the Americans now seem to have discovered what all the fuss was about.

"I guess they were little depressed . . . children back in the day," says Tobey Torres, who together with Jason Slater makes up the SRC machine.

Call it overprotectiveness, but the Smiths just seem too delicate a bloom to be deflowered by Yanks.

How Soon Is Now starts "I am the son, I am the heir, of a shyness that is criminally vulgar".

It's tough to imagine your stereotypical American rock fan comprehending the concept of shyness and vulgarity, let alone singing it. But Torres is a tough "rock chick" - she doesn't care what the critics think.

"I hang out with the boys, I eat like a pig, and I talk dirty . . . and we watch pornos."

A nation of anorak-wearing Morrissey fans breaks down . . .

But Torres, a volleyball scholarship winner from Mammoth Lakes in the Eastern Sierras, claims a Smiths interest going back years.

"I'm a huge Smiths fan. Ever since I was little I've loved Morrissey. He's been my idol for years." At concerts she even dedicates the song to "My favourite man in Manchester".

But the SRC twosome weren't happy it became a single. "We needed another track for the album and we wanted it to be a hidden track . . . the record company decided it was going to be the single when they swore up and down it wouldn't be.

"We were kind of bummed about that. It's definitely not one of the stronger songs but people like it. The crowds love it.

"And Morrissey came to a show and said he preferred it to the original."

A nation of anorak-wearers commits hare kare.

Moving away from the Smiths, the SRC canon is primed with machines and an almost gothic feel. Jason Slater, a founder member of Third Eye Blind, was the instigator, aiming for something that was, wait for it, new.

Torres describes him as "hardcore" - while she admits to a more pop background back in good ol' Mammoth Falls.

"There's one movie theatre that changes its movie once a month and no fast-food places . . . man I wanted out. But it gave me a lot time to be creative and I watched a lot of television and MTV and I copied everything Madonna was doing . . . all those fools."

She says the combination produces a mix of the sweet and the sick.

"I love poppy catchy songs . . . but with my lyrics it sounds like a sweet poppy song but then you listen and it's about a threesome (You And Your Friend). .

"We're a band that likes technology. We like to sample things and we're trying to evolve to the kind to the kind of music we think would be the music of the new millennium."

SRC are certainly tough to categorise. Half Garbage, half something else again. The metalheads at Kerrang! lovem' ("I got the sex symbol centrefold - it was so cool").

But if the makeup of their fans is anything to go by, it's not a simple matter of filing them under metal.

"There's lots of young girls," Torres says. "A lot of crazy-looking goths, which is great 'cos I used to be one, there's old men who think I'm cute and there's my handful of lesbians who come to see me."

The crossover market successfully covered, it only needs the name to be deconstructed.

Believe it or not, both Jason and Tobey were big Evel Knievel fans and were appalled to see his rocket bike explode during a TV programme about his attempt to jump Snake River. They smelt a conspiracy . . .

"And when we were making this music, people were hearing it and acting weird.

"It's kind of our rocket that might explode and might kill us."

• Related item: Morrissey at SRC mentioned in latest issue of Rolling Stone (Jan. 18, 2001) - Dec. 28, 2000