ELECTRO sleazemongers Dragonette have already caused a stir - and now they are set to play their biggest British support slots to date.

The four piece, which centres around the central relationship of Dan and Martina, produce dirty, hook-heavy, electropop monsters like "I Get Around" and "Competition", depicting a world of guilt-free promiscuity and sexual predators on the prowl.

They have already supported New Order and Duran Duran over in America, and now have set their sights on the British pop market.

And they will start by supporting Sugababes at the MEN Arena on March 31.

Hopefully they will have a better reaction than they received from Midwestern Duran Duran fans...

Dan says: "The next day, we saw someone's blog: I went to see Duran Duran in Dayton, Ohio, and this terrible band from Canada opened It was fronted by a girl wearing panties, and she was singing songs about Jesus and sex. And all these other people chimed in, saying I know. I took my son!' "Which is hilarious, because Duran Duran are the bad boys of the 80s. They've done everything you can think of, with four more ounces of class A narcotics on top"

From the very start, the concept was, in stark contrast to the rest of the Canadian scene during that Nickelback moment, unashamedly and unapologetically Pop.

Dan explains: "I'd like to write songs that at least I can remember. I'm very bad at remembering melodies and the lyrics, so it needs to be memorable!"

The band's appearance both on and off stage is startling, and certainly more interesting than the black, black, black ethos of so many of their Canada contemporaries.

"It's so easy to wear the skinny jeans halfway down your ass, and disappear into your fanbase," says Dan. "The real challenge is to look the way we do onstage, and be that person offstage as well. That's kinda fun. It's also terrifying. But we wanna give a great show, and that's part of it."

And as for the name?

"Martina called her iPod that," says Dan. "I saw it plugged in on her computer, and I thought Wow, that word looks cool.' Then we post-rationalised it and said it was about this female-fronted male power band. It's a fire-breathing dragon, but it's a chick!"