Sanity!-December 1999
Melanie C: in her own words
Melanie Chisholm has just returned from playing Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, and Tokyo with her solo rock band. The 25-year-old has been busy projecting her "rock chick" persona away from the Spice Girls, and previewing her solo album Northern Star. And the question most asked? "They want to Know if I’m a lesbian," she says chuckling, flashing a toothy smile.
Her recent image change- dying her hair blonde, uncovering her tattoos, a gold tooth, a tiny nose ring- gave her a dyke look. And is she? "No!"
"I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy," she shrugs. "My dad used to say I had footballers’ legs. They were always muscular because I did a lot of dancing when I was a kid. But I’ve heard some amazing stories about us. The best one is that Geri left because her lesbian affair with Mel B was over! If you know anything about those two, you’d know that was the biggest bollocks. Maybe a few years ago I’d have been a bit perturbed to talk publicly about my sexuality- the real thing and what people think of it. But being in the Spice Girls, it’s part of the territory."
Her Change of image also triggered gossip; she was fleeing her past, wanted to "break ties" from the Spice Girls, and there’d be no more Spice Gal records. "Well, that’s silly! We’re halfway through our next album, which we started recording in august. We’ve got a book coming on the last world tour, there’s a Spice Girls cartoon series, and I expect the Spice Girls to go back on tour next year. You read so much silly stuff about how we hate each other. I mean, we’ve made a lot of money, we don’t need to plat with the Spice Girls if we don’t want to. Spice Girls is part of me, just as much as my solo record is also a part of me. Two of the girls wanted to have babies, so we took the year off. In the meantime, I had some downtime, so I thought I’d get some music.
"I didn’t go for a conscious image change. I dyed my hair, and then because of the colour change, that damaged my hair, so I cut it short. The media has really read a lot into it. Like I’ve changed or something. In some ways, it’s kind of cool that I’ve got all this press about my new image, because I do have this record out. But on the other hand, some of the insinuations are a bit of a nuisance.
"It’s very nice and liberating to be on your own for a bit. It’s exciting but also nerve-wracking. I’m still Sporty Spice, one quarter of the band. But everything on my solo record is me. Some days I’m angry so I’ll scream and shout and sing and write a rock song. Other days I’m a little subdued and maybe write a ballad. What you see is what you get. A little phrase I’ve come up with recently is that in the Spice Girls, I’m only one quarter so you just get one- quarter of what Melanie C is. But with my album, it’s 100% Melanie C. It’s more concentrated, like orange juice."
Sporty hardly drinks any more, and doesn’t do drugs because they make her mood swings worse. Instead she works out in the gym everyday for two hours, with a personal trainer. She lifts weights. In fact, in June when she finished recording her album, she decided to unwind in Costa Rica. But there were no gyms there, so she switched to the island of St. Martins in the Caribbean. She and her companions, personal assistant Ying and stylist Jenny, stayed in their bungalows, drinking herbal teas, burned incense, talked, and unwound. Not for them, the browning on the white sands like smooching honeymooners Courtney Cox and David Arquette.
The reason for the ‘gay’ quips is that we haven’t seen Melanie with a boyfriend. Put aside the fact she’s far too busy with her career to have one. Besides, she has been linked romantically with Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Robbie Williams, footballer Jason Mc Ateer and pop heartthrob Kavana. Which ones did she get it on with? ‘Er, all of them," she says coyly, before adding most unhelpfully, "Some of them. Maybe, none of them. My mind’s gone blank." What about Kiedis? "Honestly, I know it’s a cliché, but we’re just good friends!"
When "Wannabe" sold four million world wide and launched the Spice Girls as the biggest pop band since the Beatles, Melanie Chisholm was known as Indie Spice, the one who liked music that wasn’t pouring out of Top 40 radio. Northern Star shows off her love for Madonna, Blur, and Garbage.
She teamed up with a number of people, including svengali Rick Rubin, dance producer William Orbit, Madonna writers like Marius DeVries and Rick Nowells, Rhett Lawrence (who got Mel’s fave TLC member Lefteye to guest), Phil Thornaly who worked on early Spice Girls sessions, and Mel’s chum Bryan Adams.
Originally Mel wanted William Orbit to produce the album. "He actually approached me. He’d read in an interview I did that said I listened to a lot of his music and was quite a fan, and he was interested in us working together. In the end, he was so busy and I’ve been so busy, we only got together at the last minute. Ironically, the first track on the album "Go!", written with him, was the last one we recorded."
She turned to Rick Rubin, the producer who mixed dance music with Led Zeppelin and AC/DC samples, helped set up Def Jam Records, and launched the Beastie Boys. A year ago, Rubin was supposed to produce a session with the Spice Girls and r’n’b band Blackstreet for the South Park movie. But legal problems prevented that from going ahead. But Rubin and Mel became close friends, and he told her that if she ever made a solo record, he’d give her a hand.
Northern Star was recorded in Los Angeles. She originally went to do some writing with Rick Nowels, but ended up liking the weather and lifestyle. "It was nice to get away from London and all the responsibilities I have here, as a member of the Spice Girls, and what else. Going to LA was a bit of a fairy tale.
I come from a working class family in the North of England, so when you go running in the morning, you pass the huge Holywood sign and you can’t help but go, Cor!
While working with Rubin, one of her tracks was included on the Big Daddy soundtrack, so she went to the film’s premier, and met its star Adam Sandler. At the Nickelodeon Kid’s choice awards she hung with Drew Barrymore and Monica. She also caught up with her idol Madonna.
"I’ve always looked up to her. The funny thing is, in the early days I never thought her music was that great. It was just her persona. I’ve met her quite a few times. She is such a great woman, so intelligent, and she’s got this aura. Whenever I know she’s going to be around I get nervous. But when she arrives, she’s got this air about her, and you feel comfortable in her presence. She’s got nothing to prove. It’s amazing what she’s achieved. If I can look on my life when I’m 40 and as old as she is- ‘cos she’s 41 now- if I have achieved half as much as she has over the years, then I’ll be very happy."
She can’t chose a favorite track, but concedes that "Why", co written with Marius DeVries, was it because "It’s an epic to me. It’s about somebody who’s really special to me as well." She admits people will be surprised at the r’n’b direction she took on "Never Be The Same Again" which she co-wrote with Rhett Lawrence. "When he wanted to write with me, I was a bit hesitant because he’s very r’n’b, he’s done a lot of stuff with Brandy and Monica, and artists like that. I really respect his work, but it wasn’t a direction I was going in on this album. But sometimes you have to (take a chance). I know my voice isn’t that strong in a rock way. I’m able to sing r’n’b- not that I’m a fanatic r’n’b singer ‘cos I’m not- but it suits my voice to sing that way and I enjoyed doing it, and a fantastic song came out of it." She takes another musical direction on "Suddenly Monday", which she loves because it’s a track that is fun.
"I love listening to Blur, and they do a lot of kitsch stuff in their (earlier) albums. It worked out really well. Rick Rubin gave it a good edge because we had a live band in the studio. It goes down really well when we play that live. It always gets the audience going."
"If That Were Me", which tackles the homeless issue, will invariably draw criticism. What does a millionaire know about poverty? She explains she’d just bought a flat and sat in it unable to believe it was hers. "There are people out there who have nothing. I’m not a political person but the Government could do more. Maybe I could too, but I haven’t found the right thing. Right now I slip someone a fiver, not because it makes me feel good about myself but because I genuinely want to help that person."
The song’s standout line is " I couldn’t live without my phone, but you don’t even have a home…"She says she’s endlessly on the phone, and can’t imagine life without it. "If I lose my phone, it’s like, Oh my God it’s the end of the world, what am I going to do? Then I think, hang on, it’s freezing tonight and some people haven’t got a roof over their heads. You’ve got to put things into perspective. That’s all that’s about. But I’m not clever, I’m not super-intelligent. I don’t eat dictionaries for breakfast, I eat Cornflakes."
While attending an Alanis Morissette concert, she bumped into Steve Jones, of the legendary punk band the Sex Pistols. She hardly remembers them, being only two when the Pistols burst onto the scene with their singer Johnny Rotten spitting and snarling at everything in sight. He told her to come down to the Viper Room and do a couple of songs with his band the Neurotic Outsiders. Melanie had such a great time, doing among other things, a rendition of the Pistols’ "Anarchy in the UK". She does the song live, and also got Jones to guest on "Suddenly Monday" and "Be The One".
But rest assured she has no plans to release her version of "Anarchy in the UK". As she says, "I sound like a female Johnny Rotten! But I do sing the line, ‘I am an Antichrist/ I am a Sporty Spice’ because there are people who think the Spice Girls are the antichrist and are the children of the devil."
It’s no secret that Melanie is the smartest of the Spice Girls, and the one with the decent voice. She talks fast, is more likeable and pretty in the flesh and wears her tattoos (including Japanese characters for ‘woman’ and ‘strength’) with pride. In the midst of Spicemania, she revealed she’d bought herself a cheap guitar and wanted to learn how to play it. She grew up in Liverpool, is proud of her working class roots and still plays the Lottery out of habit despite being worth about 30 million dollars.
Her parents split up when she was three, and remarried, hence she has about five half-brothers and sisters. Her mum was a would-be singer, and had not qualms using Melanie’s little brother’s child allowance to enter Melanie in singing and dancing competitions. A good student, she was also excellent in drama and singing. In 1994, she auditioned for Chris and Bob Herbert who put the Spice Girls together, by singing Whitney Houston’s "Greatest Love of All".
In the three years since "Wannabe" sold four million and went to no. 1 in 31 countries, and the first album shifted 10 million ‘units’, we’ve known everything about the Spice Girls- their ex-boyfriends, their nasty pasts as strippers and nude models, tales of power battles between Mel B and Ginger and even the 150 anti- Spice Girls web sites. There have been a number of various reasons as to why they sacked their manager Simon Fuller- and affair with Baby Spice? Working them too hard? Geri wanted to run the band? But it is known that it was Fuller who stopped Melanie C from developing her "bad girl" image.
"I feel very lucky to be part of the Spice Girls," she shakes her head excitedly, "And you know we never take for granted what we’ve achieved. In fact, we can’t believe it still; we still giggle, you know. But, yes, it is amazing really. I hope it just empowers other people to realize that anything is possible. We’re not the best singers in the world, we’re not the best dancers, we’re not the best looking- flipping heck- but we’ve reached the top in a way in the little pop world. So it’s just proof of the pudding for all them kids out there, anything is possible."
The solo recordings will only make the next Spice Girls album much stronger, she says. "It’s really refreshed us as a band. I’ve been in the studio for nine months writing, recording, and completing this album. I’ve learned so much. I’ve worked with amazingly talented writers, producers and musicians, and hopefully some of it’s rubbed off. I’ve been learning stuff every day. As well as that, Melanie’s been in America working with Teddy Riley and Jam and Lewis. We’ll teach each other even more. We’re a lot more experienced as a band. We have a world tour under our belts; vocally we’re stronger, so the third album is very exciting. It sounds great, actually. Already I would say it knocks spots off the other two, and the other two were fab anyway, so we’re very lucky girls."