TORONTO -- The Boomtang Boys point to the small studio laboratory in the corner of a tiny, unassuming house in downtown Toronto. There, the Canadian remix kings, whose debut album, Greatest Hits Volume One hits stores July 13, pump out the beats that have made pop hits out of dance mixes, or is that dance hits out of pop songs? On the wall is a photo gallery in homage to Benny, the dog which inspired the No. 1 hit, "Squeeze Toy". Betcha thought the culprit was a yellow rubber duckie.

"He had a chewy squeeze toy and he'd already ripped the bunny, or whatever the hell it was apart, and all that was left was the little plastic centre that makes the sound," recounts Tony Grace, one-third of the Boomtang Boys team. "So Benny's chewing on the thing and it's loud, and I took the thing out of his mouth and said, 'This is annoying,' and it was like, ding! Light bulb!"

While some might indeed find the cute dance-pop hit annoying, the track, sung with killer coy by Kim Esty, has squeaked its way to the top of the charts. The Boomtang Boys became the third Canadian group to enter the Soundscan singles chart at No.1 in April with the Squeeze Toy EP. Not bad for a fluke.

"Originally, I sampled (the squeak) and I started working on some music and I was like some dirty old man squeezing, squeezing. It was a horrible thing," Tony laughs. "Then we sat down about a week later, Paul (Grace), Rob (DeBoer) and myself and started working out the lyrics. So it was a reversal. Usually, with songwriting, Paul will have some music melody phrase and then have this lyric a few seconds later and then work the song out."

"This," adds his brother Paul, "started with the sound, then went to the lyrics, then went to the music."

On the group's full-length album Greatest Hits Volume 1, the trio, originally known for applying its commercial remix skills to tracks by artists like Sky, Econoline Crush, Bif Naked, Kim Stockwood, Corey Hart and The Philosopher Kings, mainly does the Boom thing to other people's classics.

The best of the lot are Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself" (sung by Kim Esty), T-Rex's "Bang A Gong" (sung by Radiate's Devin Mason) and the hidden track, Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" (sung by Emese Zaduban, an artist The Boomtang Boys might sign to its label).

Why the crystalline wistfulness of "Both Sides Now" is buried in the hidden portion of the CD, even after an alternate hidden mix of Hot Butter's "Popcorn" has pumped its course, is a mystery. Melodic, reflective and a song with some substance, it just might be the recognizable hit Virgin International needs to break pop charts all over the world.

"For some reason, somebody at the record label thought that putting on a cover of a Judy Collins song -- that's the way they put it. It's Joni Mitchell but Judy had the big hit -- would actually be detrimental to the sales of the album, which just blew my mind. So (our A&R guy) decided it would be put on the album as a hidden track."

Paul, who DJs six nights a week locally and has developed a keen sense for what the movers and shakers want (the reason record labels have gone to The Boomtang Boys in the first place to get the team's treatment on singles), says he actually uses that track to reinstate life to the dancefloor when he's played a "bad" song.

"Depending on the night, 'cause I play two very house nights and wouldn't play it on those nights, but the more commercial nights, if I screw up and play something that clears the floor, I grab it and put it on and I'll get all the people back on the floor again."