The only time Eggsy, aka Mr Love Eggs, can remember having seen snow was when he wrote swearwords and drew a big phallus in it in his neighbour's garden as a teenager. Billy Webb (aka Tim Westcountry) has never been to a ski resort and believes après-ski to be some sort of yoghurt. Rhys (sometimes P Xain) learnt to snowplough on a school trip 10 years ago, but has since developed vertigo, which might prove a hindrance.
Still, 'get involved' is the mantra of the Welsh comedy rap group Goldie Lookin Chain, a phrase which sums up their attitude to their first snowboarding trip together in the French Alps. Adam Hussein (Billy Blanco), the keen boarder in the band, has encouraged them to come for a much-needed holiday from a hectic schedule, so he can get back into the sport which he fell in love with during a season working in Whistler.
The GLC make an unlikely group for a conventional ski holiday - they are about as far away as you can get from the traditional middle-class enthusiast - but have agreed to take me with them to the Dragon Lodge, one of a growing number of hip chalets just for snowboarders that are springing up in the Alps to offer a very different kind of holiday.
For a start they allow short breaks instead of the usual week-only rule of normal ski hotels and chalets, and, more importantly, the emphasis is on the cool social scene. The Dragon Lodge is in the fantastically varied resort of Tignes, a Mecca for snowboarders and 'nu-skool' skiers. It's also run by a Welsh friend of the group, so, with them in tow, it is the perfect place for me to sample the snowboard lodge vibe.
I am a little wary, but then, who better to explore the snowboarding scene with than a group of real-life rappers?
When I meet the boys, a jumble of bright, stripy, shiny clothing, fag smoke and gold chains, at Geneva airport, they are friendly and charming. Smoking dope features heavily as a musical topic and, funnily enough, as soon as we've passed the Swiss border control into France on the four-hour drive to Tignes, we pull up next to an Irish pub, bizarrely advertising spaghetti, so they can construct a 'jazz' to get the journey rolling.
'Look at this road trip man, I feel like Thelma and Louise,' says Rhys. We stop briefly for cheeseburgers and fries at their favourite restaurant, McDonald's. The journey passes quickly with abstract chat that flows and spirals as randomly as the blizzards we drive through.
'I wonder what it'd be like to be inside the mind of a madman,' wonders Billy.
'How do you know you're not? You wouldn't even realise.'
'I wonder what it'd be like to be inside the mind of a butcher.'
'You'd know all about the different cuts of meat, where the sirloin steak was, which bit to use for what.'
'You could use the veins in a broth ...'
'Yeah, Irish spaghetti!' And so on.
When we finally reach Dragon Lodge they're pleased to find regular pasta on the dinner menu. The lodge is the ultimate snowboarders' retreat, a friendly, laid-back chalet run by easygoing Welsh boarding enthusiasts. Adam has stayed there before and soon settles back into its lifestyle, which revolves round drinking on sofas by the fire in what the boys name the 'Big Brother' area.
Much of the first night's entertainment is provided by Billy and Eggsy clumsily forcing their feet into snowboarding boots for the first time, then stomping around doing impressions of glam rockers. We stay up late drinking, so the next morning there's no sign of anyone but Adam, who is first on the slopes. After some off-piste powder runs down the back of the resort towards Val d'Isère, he admits he would love to do another season and escape Newport, which he is getting sick of. But living in Newport is a key part of the GLC identity. A UK tour is planned in February and the band's popularity shows no sign of waning, meaning no imminent end to the group.
We go to watch, or rather, laugh at Billy and Eggsy making their first turns on the nursery slopes and they're not showing the usual frustration of novice boarders. In fact, despite some writhing in the snow like polar break-dancers, they're loving it and are naturals.
'I hate sport,' says Eggsy, 'but this is wicked! More of a leisure activity.' Rhys is enjoying it too and keeps whizzing past doing wonky, madcap snowploughs, though his vertigo is preventing him going higher than the nursery runs.
By the end of the day everyone is knackered and left with only enough energy for a cheese-fest dinner ('what do they put in fondue? Lambrini?') and a DVD of the band's favourite TV show, Most Haunted, which they've clearly spent a lot of time watching before.
When they're not watching weird DVDs or touring, they're down the pub or at each others' pads. 'I get bored and ring Billy who'll come over and smash up my house,' says Adam.
When they write new material the seven of them hole up with beer and bounce around lyrics. 'Writing is like being at school but the teacher's left the classroom,' says Eggsy. 'We even talk about this imaginary teacher, Mr Baxter.'
After the relaxing night, the ski-holiday virgins decide to see the view from the top of the glacier the next day. An eardrum-bursting funicular train ride through the inside of the mountain and intestine-quivering cable car ride later, we burst onto gale-blasted peaks at 3,600m and scramble as near the edge as we dare. 'This is amazing! It makes me want to have a jazz,' says Eggsy.
It's only when we stop to pose for photographs that we realise Rhys has disappeared. Unsurprisingly, walking over steep, craggy slopes on the lift station's wire-mesh floors has triggered vertigo, so he's gone back down. We do too and have a quick lunch, which Eggsy orders with the phrase 'Je m'appelle un hotdog'.
Tignes proves ideal for our mixed-ability group, with nursery slopes to keep an altitude-resistant intermediate happy and fantastic off-piste. However, we only get round to exploring the nightlife on our last evening, when the GLCs decide to leave with a bang - on a proper bender.
After debating the merits of French cuisine, fondue or pizza, the boys start the night with Mexican food at the colourful Daffy's Cafe, washed down with margarita they rename 'crazy juice'. Soon Adam is downing a bottle of Tabasco sauce as a liqueur, before being dared to 'nasally ingest' vodka.
Next is a stint in Yorin Cafe, which they call Cafe Piss because it sounds like 'urine'. It is a venue so awful and cheesy it's brilliant, and much dancing to Dire Straits and Euro-pop ensues. Everyone gets very, very drunk. A stripping man falls on us from the bar; we take turns to breakdance in a circle.
We return to the lodge balcony for the night's finale, our own firework display. Eggsy has been touting it as 'Europe's second biggest light show', though the packet of rockets was only £6 from the Spar shop. Drunken, inept handling of the fireworks adds to the show's dangerous appeal, until Eggsy accidentally lets one explode in his hand, leaving it rather black and burnt and crispy.
Still, he takes it in good humour, and sits with a bag of ice in one hand, beer in the other until bedtime, which is about an hour before we have to get up and reluctantly leave.
'I've had a wonderful time, it seems like a blink of the eye,' sighs Billy in the car. They debate whether, if they had to have dinner and drinks with Elton John every night, but got to go snowboarding every day, it would be worth it. They decide it would be. And if I got to listen to more of these crazy Welsh rappers' silly banter, I'd happily get involved too.
Board and lodging five of the best riders' hang-outs
Rude chalets
Morzine, France
Nothing to do with swingers: 'rude' is a snowboard term of approbation. There are three Rude Chalets in Morzine, all with a boarding ethos. A sponsorship deal with Canadian snowboard maker Option means the best equipment is on hand, and special touches include weeks for girl boarders only, and 'ride with a pro' weeks. Prices from £369 a week half-board including transfers. As with the other lodges here, skiers are welcome too - but brush up on boardspeak before you go. (0870 068 7030; www.rudechalets.com).
Riders palace
Laax, Switzerland
Everything about the Riders Palace is young and funky, from the architecture - a modernist block of concrete, glass and wood - to the 24-hour bar and nightclub to the PlayStations and plasma-screen TVs in the rooms. There's a choice of basic five-bed rooms (from £16 per person per night) to posh suites (from £76). Book through Design Hotels (00 800 37 46 83 57; www.designhotels.com).
Freshtraxxx
Chamonix, France
Founded by boarders in 1999, Freshtraxxx now has three 15-bed chalets in Chamonix. All are designed as hip hang-outs, and have decks for DJing, PlayStations, pool tables, and hot tubs. Boards from sponsor Dakine are on hand. From £350 per week half-board including transfers. (07000 794 795; www.freshtraxxx.com)
Riders republic
Montorlin, France
While most snowboard lodges focus on all-night partying, this one also caters for families, with childcare and prices that are fixed - £300 per person per week - rather than doubling during school holidays like those of the large tour operators. (0033 4790 75709; www.ridersrepublic.com)
Jed's place Fernie, Canada
Essentials
Gemma Bowes and GLC stayed at the Dragon Lodge (0870 068 0668; www.dragonlodge.com), which costs from £199 a week, half-board.
An adult ski lift pass costs £23 a day, or £113 for six days. Call 00 33 479 400 440 or visit www.tignes.net.
Flights from Luton to Geneva cost from about £30 return with Easyjet (0871 750 0100; www.easyjet.com).
For more information about Goldie Lookin Chain, including details of their UK tour in February, visit www.youknowsit.co.uk. Their latest album Safe As Fuck is out now.
