MELODY MAKER
"Indie Spice"
Birds do it. Blokes do it. Even educated fleas do it. Probably. In fact,
over the last few months, everybody's been doing it. High court judges,
high-flying city slickers and high-as-a-kite ravers have done it. Tony Blair,
Prince Charles and Damon Albarn have all done it in public. And, yes, us lot at
the Melody Maker do it too. All the time, as it happens.
Yup, as phenomenons go, the "Who's your favourite Spice Girl?" game is right
up there with the big ones: "Blur or Oasis?", "Mirage or Taboo-which one are
you?", that sort of thing. True, by now, it's been replaced as the pub/parlour
game of "choice" by the eternal "Which one off 'This Life' would you most
like to shag?"/"Which one off 'Friends' would you most like to punch?" question,
but that's purely because the only people yet to make up their minds are dead.
If you were a fan of the downright obvious you went for brassy, busty Ginger
Spice, Geri Halliwell. If you were slightly less obvious, you chose sweet,
schoolgirl-ish Baby Spice, Emma Bunton. If you had nerves of steel, you could
opt for feisty, fiery Scary Spice, Mel Brown. If you were a thick footballer
looking for a shag, it was cool, classy Posh Spice, Victoria Adams, everytime.
But for the indie kids of the nation, there could only be one choice. The
Spice Girl who was into football, not just footballers. The Spice Girl with the
tattoos, the backflips and the take-no-s**t attitude. The Spice Girl who told
Liam Gallagher-Liam f***ing Gallagher!-to come and have a go if he thought he
was hard enough. Yup, we're talking the one woman, three-stripe riot that is
Sporty Spice, Melanie Chisholm.
It was only the name that needed to change. "Sport?" cried the nation's
independently-minded youth. "We have no time for Sport! We have Urusei Yatsura
albums to be listening to!" Well, fear not, ladies and gentlemen of The Kids.
Yet again, your caring, sharing, super, soaraway Maker is here to save the day.
For today we have lured Mel C away from the clutches of her fellow Spicettes to
a dingy photo studio in East London where, very shortly, she will be transformed
into One Of Us. Gone! will be the trademark flourescent Adidas trackie bottoms
and tied back hair. In! will be indie-friendly all-black and shaggy post-grunge
barnet. And then we`re taking her down the Monarch for some no-holds-barred
lager'n'punk rock action. No, really, we are. And Mel C is more mad for it
than a Knebworth's-full of Liam Gallaghers.
"I'd much rather be Indie Spice than Sporty Spice," she grins in full-on Scouse
brogue, slotting "OK Computer" into the CD player. "I've got all this pressure
to keep trim as Sporty Spice. I used to drink loads of pints of Kronenbourg
and black but I had to stop cos I was getting a beer gut. But I could probably
be fat old lazy Spice if I was the indie one..."
Radiohead! Lager'n'black! A desire to loaf about all day! How much more lo-fi
could she be without actually playing bass for Smog?
Last night I went out for 14 pints of lager and a curry with the lads. Tonight,
I'm going out with a Spice Girl. If I can just squeeze in pulling an air
hostess and scoring the winning goal in the FA Cup Final then the answer to
Monday morning's traditional "What did you do at the weekend?"-type questions
should see me installed as Loaded Editor ln-Chief For All-Eternity by lunchtime. Because truly, there is something about the words "Spice" and "Girls" that has a
disturbing effect on the psyche of anyone in possession of a Y chromosome.
Witness the crazy scenes as your correspondent and Melanie C arrive at Camden
Town tube station - a location regularly frequented by Liam, Noel, Damon and
Morrissey to a notable lack of eyelid-batting effect. Within seconds of the
first popping flashbulb, Mel has stopped the Saturday night Camden clubbers in
their tracks. Within a minute, a huge crowd has formed. Another minute and
gangs of lads start chanting "We love you Sporty, we do!" and asking her to go
for a drink. It's bedlam. Mel C's security look twitchy. Us indie losers look
shell-shocked. Meanwhile, Mel herself acts like this sort of thing happens to
her every day. But then, of course, it does. Since "Wannabe" first stomped
all pop opposition to dust a year or so ago, the Great British press and public
have been locked into a feeding frenzy of piranha proportions.
Not a day passes without a major Spice story in the papers, on the telly,
everywhere. Their nine-times platinum LP "Spice" still nestles snugly in the
Top Five of the album chart. None of the five Spice Girls can walk down the
street without being mobbed. And none of them care. They have made their own
bedlam-and they're quite happy to lie in it. Certainly, at the eye of the
storm, all is calm. Mel Chisholm is possibly the most relaxed, down-to-earth
superstar your correspondent has ever interviewed. She describes being in the
Spice Girls as being "absolutely f***ing mental" but you'd describe her as being
anything but. Which is pretty amazing when you consider that, if the Spice
Girls were a guitar band, they'd have all cracked up months ago.
"Well yeah, but I never really wanted anything else in my life. And now I've
got it I'm willing to do anything to keep it. No one's going to f*** it up for
me. I've never once wished I wasn't a Spice Girl."
Never?
"All right, sometimes when you're jet-lagged to f*** and doing another photo
session and the photographer is being all arty and slow, you might think 'Do I
really want to be here?' But then you wake up the next day and think 'Yes, I
do.' You know, being famous is f***ing fun! You've got money, you're doing
all these fantastic things, going to fantastic places... you're telling me
that's not fun? And you get all these indie bands f***ing moaning...Ah come on,
get a life! You'd really be moaning if you were back on the dole!"
Oh, I don't know. To look at most Britpop bands' albums this year, you'd think
that's precisely where they wanted to go...
"Yeah, all these people who are cool and don't want to be mainstream...Come on,
f*** off, if you sell a million albums who gives a f***? I mean, Blur were
cool, but now that they're totally commercial they aren't down with that so that
pisses them off? F*** off! What's the point of them trying to be 'cool' again.
They are cool, they don't need to try. Credibility doesn't bother me at all. Not. At. All. I mean, I'd love to be cool. When I was younger that's all I
wanted but now I just look at my bank balance and think 'Bothered.'"
Oh dear. It seems Ms Chisholm may have some way to go down the stony path to
indie righteousness after all. Taxi! Indiedom, please-and don't spare the
horses!
"EXSCUSHE me luv, but are you one of them Splice Girls?" You know you're f***ing famous when the winos hanging around Camden Market know
who you are. Even here, as Mel C poses outside the now deserted home of crap
leather jackets and-oh the irony-hideously over-priced old skool Adidas gear,
she cannot remain entirely unmolested by autograph hunters. But then, even if you spend your nights in Regents Park with only yesterday's
papers between you and the stars, you're bound to know Mel. Because, truly, the Fourth Estate is physically incapable of going a single day
without splashing her (or Victoria's or Emma's or Geri's or Mel B's) face (or
tits or legs or arse or sprained ankle) all over its pages. All a bit of a laugh
over the morning Lucozade for us punters but if you're the centre of their
"attentions"...
"...it's a pain in the arse," giggles Mel. "They camp outside our houses, they
go through our bins but, y'know, I'm making f***ing money and I'm getting all
the glory so if they want to camp outside my house, so be it." (hold up, my Melanie said THIS?!, hmm..) They must have written something that upset you? "Oh yeah," she grins. "Being linked with Kavana [s**te teeny-bop popster]. I
was f***ing embarrassed about that. At least I could get someone remotely
attractive. He's a little boy! As if!"
Mel C is unique among the Spice Girls in not having had an ex-boyfriend dish the
dirt on her ("It must be cos I'm so nice," she chortles. "Or maybe they're just
that bloody thick. Or maybe I just haven't got any ex-boyfriends...") but the
tabloids have nevertheless done the dirty on her twice.
Once, they found out she had a 15-year-old half-sister that her dad had never
told her about. The other time, well, heeeeere's Sporty:
"Oh, I had the big drugs scandal. My Cocaine Shame. An old friend of mine had
pictures of me at a party and people were doing cocaine in the pic behind me. The frustrating thing was I wasn't doing cocaine at that party. Typical. If I
was, I wouldn't have minded, at least I would have been guilty as charged. But
who gives a f*** really?"
Well, Mel C does, for a start. She's disarmingly frank on many aspects of the
Spice Girls phenomenon but drugs is the one area where the interview coaching
the girls have allegedly had really kicks in. You can almost see the ghost of
Brian Harvey, the stigmata scars of his tabloid crucifixion still visible,
appear behind her as we broach the subject.
So, have you ever taken drugs?
"I don't want to talk about that. I can't talk about that really."
Does that mean yes?
"No comment. No."
Will you get into trouble if you talk about it?
"Not professionally, but personally."
Are you anti-drugs?
"I am now, yeah. I'm very anti-drugs."
With all the drugs sloshing around the music business, you must have been
tempted?
"No. We don't get offered drugs really. The last time was when I was out
clubbing. Some stranger just came up and said 'Do you want this?' and I'm like
[dons most sarcastic voice ever heard] 'Oh yeah, please!' As if! If it wasn't
for the British press we probably would all be complete druggy pissheads. But
we can't, we have to keep our noses clean cos they're watching us night and day. Maybe I should thank them for keeping me on the rails!"
When acid house hit Britain, Mel C was a full-on raver. If she didn't take
drugs back then she was about the only clubber who didn't. So she must be
worried about getting the Brian Harvey treatment, right?
"I'd never make the mistake to do that. I wouldn't want to test the waters and
see. I mean, our fans are predominately little kids. It depends on your image.
Everyone expects it from the Gallaghers, but East 17 are a teenybop boy band.
Brian Harvey, what a geek. He obviously has done too many Es, saying that.
I'm really against drugs. If you want to take them, that's cool, but it's not
for me."
Hmm. And that would seem to be the end of it. Except later, we're talking
about measurements of fame and Mel C says: "There's a new E tab named after us! That's terrible, isn't it? Cos you
imagine, little kids, they go for anything with Spice Girls on. We were wondering if there are individual ones for each of us: like, if you want
one with a kick you get a Sporty and if you want a mild one you get a Baby...
it's not a laughing matter though, is it?"
You can't help but fear the nation's tabloid editors will heartily agree.
Of course, if drugs were legal in this country, you'd fully expect there to be
an official Spice Girls E tab. After all, there's an official Spice Girls
everything else. On any trip to the shops - as well as the official records,
video, book, T shirt and magazine - you can drink the Spice Girls drink (Pepsi),
eat the Spice Girls crisps (Walkers) and even take snaps with the official
Spice Girls camera (Polaroid). Playing the concerned parent for a moment, I ask
if all this corporate branding isn`t getting out of control. I expect a PR
puff-type of answer. Instead I get this:
"This is what we think: the British public are fickle as f*** and at the moment
we are majorly successful. So we just think, if we can do it, let`s do it. Let`s do everything, let`s push every barrier and see how far we can go. We`re
just five normal girls who got together and made a few songs. Suddenly it's gone
worldwide, we're making a film-we're making a f***ing film!-and it's like what
else can we do? Everyone's just been fished in."
Here at last is a pop star who makes no bones about having hard cash as a
primary motivation. Not very indie, possibly, horribly mercenary, probably, but
also pretty refreshing. So, just how loaded are you then?
"Unfortunately, not anywhere near as rich as the papers say. I'm not a
millionaire yet. I'm not! Well, maybe on paper, but not in the bank. But you
won't catch me doing a Bros. I`m just trying to make sure me and my family are
all right for life, then I don't give a f***."