Frente! on success and backlash: ‘I was very young and I didn’t take it well’

Frente!’s Angie Hart and Simon Austin: ‘It was very hard not to cry on the stage.’ Photograph: Sarah Walker

You know you’ve made it in Australia when the most successful thing you’ve done becomes the butt of jokes. For Frente!, the indie-pop band formed in Melbourne by Simon Austin and Angie Hart, their moment came when Accidently Kelly Street – the accidentally misspelled song that became their best-known song after its release in October 1992 – was the subject of a savage parody, Accidentally Was Released, by ABC’s The Late Show.

Initially hurt by the backlash, Hart struggled to reconcile with the song. Its author, bass player Tim O’Connor, left the band shortly afterwards, citing exhaustion. Jane Kennedy, who impersonated Hart in The Late Show’s video (which included her fellow D-Generation and Working Dog alumni Tom Gleisner, Mick Molloy and Tony Martin) stresses to Guardian Australia via a spokesperson that she loved and still loves the band.