S8 EP5: Melanie C on Spiceworld, comparing muscles with Arnold Schwarzenegger and why she’ll always be a Spice Girl

32:56It's not about album sales. No. That's a sort of meaningless metric now. Early on, you had an incident, which you talk about, at the 96 Brit Awards, because you were just now talking about policing each other, and there was a moment where you were policed by the bandmates. They felt, and it sounds so trivial, you know, looked at dispassionately, but you'd taken your hair out so you no longer had a ponytail, and this was before you even had released any music, but you were at the Brit, so you were under scrutiny and your fellow bandmates thought what are you doing you're fucking with uh the look the look of the band we've all got certain hair that we have and they um criticized you and you told one of them to fuck off and then the next day they all kind of in your telling anyway came on very heavy so telling you like that was you had allowed your behavior was disgusting you know it's in the telling it's like not much of an anecdote but I mention it because you identify as a moment where you clammed up a bit.

33:56Like you no longer felt you were completely able to... I went into terror because I thought I was going to lose everything. You know, those dreams as a child, which now were a possibility, I might have fucked it all up. Because you thought you might be thrown out. And I thought it was very trivial as well because, okay, to put some more meat on the bones of that evening. so it was the Brit Awards in 1996 so which fall around February time so we hadn't released anything nobody in the public knew us but in the industry you know people had started talking and we were there Santa Virgin Records and we were sitting on a table with Lenny Kravitz which obviously you know we were these young girls this was an amazing night we had a great night we had a few champagnes we were really you know it was the Brits in the 90s right everyone was having fun yeah and we were just leaving and we were like going to find our car and whatever the situation was where I just turned around and said, Victor, oh, fuck off.

34:53Unbeknownst to me, go home, go to bed, wake up the next morning. And I was in a lot of trouble. And it was, I was living with Mel B at the time. We were living in Watford. And Gerry also lived in Watford. And they were both there when I got up. And yeah, they were just disgusted with my behaviour. That was the word that was used, we're disgusted. Yeah. It's a strong word. Yeah. And because, you know, you know, when you've had a night out and you wake up in the morning, you've got like beer fear, right? You know, I don't know what to do last night. I didn't even have that. I just woke up going, oh, last night was fun.

35:28I had completely brushed off that situation. But obviously it had really affected people in a way I hadn't realised. so I was in trouble and then Simon wanted to speak to me and I was told in no uncertain terms if anything ever happened like that again I would be gone so that yeah I just that completely freaked me out one because I didn't realize I'd done anything that terribly bad and two because my actions may have led to me losing everything I'd ever wanted you know um so it affected me you know a lot are you still are you still in business with Simon Fuller no Simon Fuller's like the doppelganger not physically but kind of professionally of Simon Cowell they're very very different people they're very different but they're put together a lot they're both vastly wealthy super successful yeah I think they created Pop Idol together they fell out over Pop Idol I think but Simon Cowell is the public one and Simon Fuller is the private one Simon Fuller almost never gives interviews Hi Simon if you're watching Hi Simon Apparently Simon your management style appeared to be divide and rule Yes, at the time, yes He would admit that Do you think so?

36:52Yeah, he would admit that and the thing is you have to remember this is a very long time ago he was I think only in his 30s which obviously is an adult but none of this had ever happened to anybody involved. You know, the Spice Girls was unprecedented. What was his track record at that point? He managed Annie Lennox. Right, she's great. Which was one of, yeah, amongst other artists, Paul Hardcastle. His business was called 19. Because of Paul Hardcastle's song, na-na-na-na 19. Exactly. So yeah, that kind of set him on the road. I think he started in A &R and then he moved to management. And yeah, he was managing lots of various acts.

37:28he managed Amy Winehouse for a short period of time. Full of it. I think, yeah. Then after the Spice Girls, he went on to do S Club 7. But the Spice Girls was this crazy entity. And I think the label, the management, everyone was a bit like, fuck, what do we do? What do we do with it? And everyone was terrified of us kind of imploding because we were so volatile. We just were. That is the Spice Girls. We love each other. But when there's a fallout, it's catastrophic, you know. So I think everyone was just trying to keep it going. But it was the wrong thing to do. What should he have done? I think supported our togetherness and our friendship because when we are on the same page, we're unstoppable.

38:17That is the only way the Spice Girls works. But sometimes I think, and you'll know this, right, historically through music, when they're infiltrated when an act or an artist is infiltrated from an outside influence then it goes to shit you know our our power is in our unity right it always was and it still is but i think that was always his i i believe that was his thought process keep them separate keep them all because he'd tell us like different things to each other and it just caused a little of unrest and yeah i do believe it was his way of trying to keep control of the beast um but it backfired on him and we left him uh you say of that time i started to consciously make myself smaller my confidence began to be stripped away and it happened so quickly it is difficult um um you you earlier you know talked about other girl and boy bands and their stories and it is bizarre because your life completely changes it's unrecognizable and the media at that time were brutal the tabloid media especially here in the uk and we were you know when you're young you're naive you don't think about the negatives so i didn't think about the negatives i was just like we're making music we're having fun everybody's gonna love us and then it was like oh shit that's not that's not life that's not real life so you're dealing with all of these opinions of you that you weren't ready for and it's before social media yeah and it's sort of before the internet was the internet yeah so it's mainly tabloids is it can you is it easier to tune that out at least it's not on your phone right well how are you seeing see i would disagree i think because at the time as well i personally i was obsessed i was obsessed with what everyone was saying about me so i'd i go to the gym every morning the first thing i'd do would go to the newsstand and look in the you know the gossip columns or that you know the the entertainment whatever in the in the newspapers yeah um and just check it and the other thing was we were told that anything we ever did would get found out so we were always living in fear so if we'd ever gone out and had a drunken night or whatever or you know met somebody you were just like when's it going to be in the paper because you knew it was going to come out because we just knew that was just the way it was now we know why and how go on but at the time now we know why because our phones were you know being hacked and i've done the case i've been through the whole thing it started in 1996 it ended in 2009 so wannabe came out in 1996 and I had my daughter in 2009 so myself and every other person in the public eye in the United Kingdom was you know was being listened to throughout that period do you know who was hacking your phone?

41:22I think it was a number of people it was more than one publication News of the World? the one that I've been to court with is the Sun and News of the World yeah what about the mirror those proceedings have come to a halt why I think it's just been too long I was never notified people were notified by the police and I never got I never got that call so I just left it and I think as well do you think Piers Morgan was involved I wouldn't like to say

42:00you're good at your job and I'm good at mine. Would you hold it against, if it was true of Piers Morgan, let's say, would you be interviewed by him? No. You feel like... No. I've met Piers. I'm not a fan. I'd choose to not have an interview with him. Yeah. Because of that period? I, when I was young with the Spice Girls, part of the process of becoming a successful band is speaking to lots and lots of journalists and at the time you know in many ways the tabloids broke us you know and we did have this do you mean in a positive way well in both ways um but yeah they were very important at the time like you say we didn't have social media now which is a wonderful thing well they've lost so much of their power because we do have social media but i don't need to speak to tabloids i don't want to it doesn't sell records and you know i've i've learned my lessons presenting the counter narrative it would be well it was a tango and that there was a sort of somewhat symbiotic dimension to it i learned quite quickly that i'm not comfortable with that aspect of fame you know this whole like you belong to the tabloids or you belong to the media and you know you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

43:26I want to make music. I want to be on stage. I want to perform. I don't want to be in the newspaper. Do you know what I mean? It's like, yeah, it's going to sell records. It's important. If I'm promoting things, then I realize I have to toe the line to a point, but I'm not, I've never wanted to, you know, fuck me. I'm one of the Spice Girls, right? One of the most written bands in history. I've never felt the need to exploit myself to that point because I feel like you're dancing with the devil right it's for me i never felt comfortable with that and and i feel really grateful because i've had my issues with the tabloids but i don't think i've ever given them enough that i owe them is was there a um you know with some of these girl bands there's a there's an especially painful moment like lee from blue famously said something about 9-11 right after the planes had gone into the World Trade Center.

44:19Do you remember that? No. He said something along the lines of, yeah, but a lot of whales are being killed as well and no one talks about that. Something like that. Gosh. Eek. Which, obviously, he didn't mean it vindictively, but it was, it didn't come out right. Well, you know, we all say things sometimes, don't we? And famously, Brian Harvey, he said he takes 19 E's on a night or something. I shouldn't joke about it. Be serious. The thing you say that kind of, yeah. Before cancel culture was a thing. Well, it turns out it was a cancel culture even then, but they didn't call it that. And he was cancelled for saying on a night out, he likes to take, I don't know what the number was.

44:58It was more than your recommended daily allowance. What's the recommended daily allowance? I think one a week is considered. One and a half. Maybe one a week sounds like too much. Once every few months, if you're a pop star. The prescription can change, varied on your level of success and your tolerances. Did you have a Spice Girls? This is a really low-road question, even as I'm saying it. It felt like you didn't have a moment of scandal like that, right? It wasn't as though one of you once said, I'm in favour of public execution or something. I mean, Geri said she liked Margaret Thatcher. Yeah, that was the one that sprung to my mind.

45:36So obviously, again, being young and being thrown to the lions, as we were, we didn't have media training, which I mean, I'm sure obviously a lot of listeners would be like, what the hell is that? Compared to saying I like to take 19 E's in a night, saying you like Margaret Thatcher, and she said she was the original Spice Girl and she had girl power. Didn't she say that something like that? She did say that. So we were interviewed by Spectator, what the actual thought. Spectator magazine, really. I didn't even know what Spectator was. It's a right-leaning political magazine. Yeah. So why? are a pop band yeah tell me why you set that up what the fuck anyway was that one of Simon's I think it probably was but you know obviously we were five very different individuals with different experiences growing up predominantly working class but you know predominantly left leaning but obviously Margaret Thatcher she was a you know even saying the name kind of fills me with dread she was a you know was she the first female Prime Minister She did what she did.

46:42And, you know, and Gerry applauded that and her being female. And those, you know, the girl power references were there for that reason. I grew up in the northwest of England. My whole family are from Liverpool. My mum, my dad's side of the family, the men have worked on the docks or they did work on the docks for generations. Obviously, that was very difficult for me because that was not my opinion. I think that was one of the things that was hard about the Spice Girls is that we could get tarred with the same brush. If somebody had an opinion, a political opinion, everyone would think that's what everybody thought and felt.

47:23And it wasn't the case. I mean, you know, people know that now. But being a young girl going back to Liverpool after it's like, oh, the Spice Girls have said this. It's just like, shit. I didn't say it. I don't think it. You did an interview with Oprah. I mean, I've already said this, but just a reminder that like the Spice Girls cracked America wide open, which for a UK girl group or boy group was, I want to say, if not unprecedented, then highly unusual and certainly unprecedented in the scale of domination that you kind of achieved. So you're on Oprah and you say that the next day you looked at yourself in the mirror while on the treadmill and you said, You've just got to be a robot.

48:09No feelings, no excuses, no pain. You're a robot. That was a little mantra that I had. And that kind of, you touched on a couple of things like the catalysts that led to that point. So obviously being criticised about my appearance. By who? Well, the first person, the first like little thing that cut deep was when Chick. Chick Murphy. The original backer, a financial backer of the band, had commented on my thighs when doing a backflip, and that hurt. And I was like, oh, fuck, okay, I need to lose weight. And then really being scrutinised by other people, tabloid media predominantly, but also by myself.

48:54You know, you're in photo shoots, you're looking at your image constantly. and I think as well I had like a lot of guilt for my success and I don't know why but I kind of didn't feel worthy for it and I think I talk about this in the book as well it's like you know I did grow up in an environment where people work really hard and can have very physical difficult jobs and I was starting to earn money that they would never see in a lifetime. And, you know, I had guilt about that. And so I was like, I have to be, to be worthy of this success, I have to be perfect. I have to be the absolute best version of myself.

49:42And yeah, I became really insular and I was controlling what I was eating. I was exercising obsessively. I was really kind of withdrawing from the band as well because I was really embarrassed about it. I knew I had an eating disorder, but I wouldn't acknowledge it. I wouldn't. I was I was kind of in denial. There was like a little voice, but I quietened that voice constantly. And so that was the thing. You're a robot. Because I I loved and I love being a Spice Girl so much. And I love performing. And this was all of my dreams come true. Talking to Oprah Winfrey, we were performing at Madison Square Garden.

50:21we were flying to Tokyo it was mind-blowing and I could not fuck it up because I nearly did at one point so just all of these little things like came together and just made me like you know very very guarded it's a lot isn't it I interviewed Jade from Little Mix uh for the podcast and her her observation was that it gets harder as you get more successful like it's when you it's almost like on the way up it's a bit more straightforward and then when you're actually and it's more fun and when you're when you sort of reach the top of the mountain for some reason yeah pressure responsibilities sense of impending failure like obsolescence like how do we like this so like i've got to maintain it now and how do you how do you maintain that level of success Well, it's funny because I kind of just want to reflect on my personal experience of being a Spice Girl.

51:20And at the time, I didn't ever really feel like the most popular one. You know, I feel like I was treated quite, they were quite mean to me in the media. There was obviously doing the phone hacking stuff. I had to go through all of the articles that were written about me and the narrative around me was, you know, I suffered after my time with the Spice Girls in that Spice many days and into my solo career. So it was probably after I toured my first solo record. I had a very difficult time. I had a lot of demons I had to face. What year are we talking? So this was Millennium. Are we talking about your eating disorder?

52:01So eating disorder, I was diagnosed with depression. I was suffering with anxiety. It was hard to leave the house. It was a really, really dark time. So I went over to LA and I did a three-month stint there writing and recording my first solo record. It was the first time I'd stepped away from the band. I'd allowed myself to admit I had a problem and I had to do something about it. So that was the first time I sought help and was trying to deal with my eating disorders and my addiction to exercise. I was just trying to get some kind of balance in my life, but still controlling everything. And that worked to a point, having someone to cook all of my meals, to have a personal trainer.

52:45So I was literally giving other people the responsibility. I couldn't have those responsibilities myself. Did you have a manager at this time? I did. So when we left Simon Fuller, I think it was in 98, we then had a manager, Nancy Phillips, who was someone I stayed with for 18 years. And she was Spice Girls, but also you individually? Yes. All of us individually for the first record. Obviously, Geri had already gone. Geri left under her watch. And then, yeah, we all released a solo album. And then I continued to stay with her. Each of you individually released solo records. Yeah, yeah. So all the Spice Girls have released a solo record.

53:20That must have been weird when you're all thinking, like, I wonder how their one is doing. Yeah, it is hard because, you know, you want to be supportive, but you also feel competitive. So that was all going on. But I was, you know, trying to figure shit out for myself. and then once I wasn't in that environment when I had all of the things in place from being you know I was anorexic for sure I mean I wasn't starving myself but I was really restricting my eating and over exercising I was underweight but then my body just took over and I started binging sometimes uncontrollably to the point where I would become conscious kind of mid-binge and just think like what the hell am I doing yeah and it was petrifying and I'd always been at night yeah at night I'd wake up and I'd I'd just be like I just want carbs and I went on to learn that a lot of this are the symptoms of depression waking up early hours of the morning going to the kitchen like self-soothing like with carbs to the point of like you know being able to sleep again and of course my appearance was changing and that was my biggest fear because I knew I knew it was going to be commented on you know I knew that the tabloids were going to be really really mean about it and I was so embarrassed and I was so ashamed because I prided myself on my control and on my determination and I'd created this the perfection or as close to the perfection as I could possibly get to be worthy of this pop stardom and then I was losing it I was losing grip of this control.

54:57But it was my body reacting, going, I can't continue in this way. You know, I'm so grateful that my body kind of saved me in a sense. So it was around 2000 when I was like crying, constantly struggling to get out of bed. I was still promoting and touring my first album. I was becoming more and more uncomfortable, you know, gaining more and more weight. and that's when I first went to my GP and that's when he said to me well first of all we need to address your depression and I just that felt like a weight lifted up like physically a weight lifted up my shoulders because it had a name you know I knew it was something I could be helped with and that was the start on the road to recovery I mean sometimes depression comes from nowhere right it's just like catching any other disease and sometimes it's related to things that you're going through.

55:50Yes. You had gone through this extraordinary passage of your life, right? Yeah. In which you'd been in control but out of control. Enormous success but enormous pressure. It's hard to believe that didn't have some role in what you were going through, right? Yeah. You know, I think all of us Spice Girls have had things we've had to deal with because it's not normal. it's not in even people now when I'm working with them they're like your life's just not normal just the the way you work you know the expectation of a performer you get up on stage in front of tens of thousands of people and then you go home and empty the dishwasher and it's a massive head fuck you know but that's that's life and I've kind of I have more of a handle on it now because I've done it for such a long time but then it was the extreme because it was Spice Girls fame and then being on my own and I think a lot of the control issues were because my life was in the hands of other people so it was the only things I could control was my appearance what I ate how much I exercised and also my gym was like my hideaway because I I hate confrontation and you know there was times in the band where it was very confrontational people had different personalities in that respect so if I was in the gym I got left alone so I would spend more and more time in the gym it was my safe place and yeah and this is where I talk about the reintegration into society because those spice years like 96 to 98 we hardly were in public you know we were in a bubble we had security you're on a plane you're on a private jet you know you're on stage you're you're you're not you're not living like a normal human being you had a flat in Finchley did you I did but you probably weren't there that much not really were you able to date that's another hot topic isn't it I would have liked to have dated I had a dry spell that's what we call it I think it was in the band because Robbie talks about how Nigel Martin Smith Robbie Williams of Take That talks a lot about Nigel Martin Smith sort of policed their he didn't want girlfriends Nigel denies that but Robbie says that Nigel stopped them from getting any action I think he's made up for it, don't you?

58:10I didn't realise you'd had a thing with Robbie. I mean, it was a million years ago and lasted two seconds. Oh God, that sounds really bad. Oh well. He was a mess, I was a mess, it broke my heart. That was your quote. Yeah. And Jay from Five. Yeah, lovely Jay. I've not spoken to him for a while actually, but he's an ex I've remained friends with. I don't remain friends with many exes, but he's a lovely boy. And I saw Robbie recently. I mean, God, we were kids. Do you know what I mean? It's like we're talking like, you know, 20 odd years ago. Nearly 30 years ago. It's a long time. But I think a lot of managers, they did that.

58:46You know, you weren't allowed to come out if you were in a boy band, probably, or a girl band, because you had to remain available to the fans. That was the thing, wasn't it? Did you have boys outside the hotels queuing up? It's completely different. Yeah, we didn't have... I mean, don't get me wrong. Other people had a better success rate than I did. But it wasn't that kind of, you know, like historically with like boy bands or rock bands, it's like, oh, you know, bring her back. Pick them out of the crowd. Yeah. We've got a special guy and he picks them out and says, do you want to meet the band?

59:17Yeah. Our gigs weren't like that. No. They were full of young girls and gays, which are the best audience. You just don't get any action. But, you know, that wasn't, you know, it was quite lonely for me at times. I think there was many times in the band when we were working together where I was the only one without a partner. So, yeah, that's been quite a big theme of my adult life, really. It was a long time before I was in a long-term relationship. Yeah. So was that part of what led to the Depression? I guess that's where we were going. Yeah, I think it was very environmental. It was the experiences that I'd had.

1:00:00and yeah just just getting to that point where yeah I couldn't continue living the way I was living um and that was a really long road back to to health and I never really stopped it was a different time as well because I probably I think I would have benefited to go off and have some time to heal but I was still I was touring and promoting and your solo stuff yeah yeah yeah let's talk about your solo music yeah one of the pleasures prepping this interview was realizing how good it is and also that the recent stuff's really strong thank you i think you've sort of found your your mode especially with like the last album and then this new material i haven't heard all the new album it's called sweat but that kind of i mean how would you describe the music well i started djing about eight years ago and i play house music like multi-genre house but as an artist obviously i'm a pop artist but i wanted to bring those worlds closer together and also it's just brought so much joy to my life being out there djing as well as singing live that i wanted to reflect that in the music so i've just had loads of fun and tried to to make and you're right i feel like is there a genre put a label on it um well it's electronic pop dance i suppose With a bit of disco?

1:01:22There's so much bit of disco in there, definitely. It feels like the single, what's the single called? So we've got Sweat. Sweat, where it's taking a bit of Diana Ross. Yes. And some Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes. Explain that. Okay, so whenever I make music, it's a reflection of what's been going on in my life over the period of time that I'm making the record, right? And this is interesting, this album, because I was fresh from a long-term relationship breaking up. So I was in like the, you know, the untangling of all the things, the bitterness, the anger. Is this the part of your daughter? No, no, no, that was 2012.

1:02:04Yeah, that was way back. So this was the one after that. And that was all falling apart, untangling, getting nasty, bitterness. It's great inspiration for music. How do you know when a relationship's not working? I think when you're not happy anymore, when the icks are too big to ignore. Icks are part of a long-term relationship. No, just getting to the point where you just think, this is too much like hard work. There's no joy here. So that is reflected in the music. But then I met somebody new and I fell in love. Nice. So I had this beautiful breadth of human emotion, right, that I was able to draw upon.

1:02:53And so I had this great body of work, working with incredible songwriters, producers. I really knew what I wanted to achieve, really have such a good dance feel and pulling from different genres of dance as well. Because I know I can't go like super specialist in any direction. I'm a pop artist. I write pop songs, but it's just having those flavours and making it feel more like the music I want to play and dance to in a club. So Sweat, just to finally answer your question about Arnie, it was at a moment I was really happy with the work I had for the record and I wanted to have some fun. I've been working on a playlist, a fitness playlist, and that Rich, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, Diana Ross, Work That Body.

1:03:40That sounded great, by the way. Thank you. I was really eager to get that into a tune. I thought, I want to make like a fitness banger. I want to have loads of fun. So I was looking at all these inspos through my life as a kid. I grew up on the kids from Fame, Flashdance. I was thinking about Olivia Newton-John, Let's Get Physical. and so we had this hook from the down the ross track and looking at all these inspos and i just remembered i was on this fitness camp once and they played so arnold schwarzenegger around the pumping guy in time he made these albums where it's like bangers like it's raining men but he's like literally doing the workout over it like it's bicep curls and i know so we were looking at that and just having loads of fun.

1:04:24And I was like, it's time to bring the fun to this record. And sweat was made and it felt like the perfect introduction to this body of work. He did compliment my guns once. Did he? It's one of my claims to fame, yeah. What was the location? I was at the Royal Albert Hall and it was Gorbachev's 80th birthday celebrations. Wow, what is a double name drop? We didn't go anywhere near those, did we? Can you imagine the ridiculous, I mean, you know, I know you've had some of those moments too, but ridiculous dreams you find yourself in. Right, right, right, right. When you're suddenly... I don't think I've rubbed shoulders with either Arnie or Gorbachev.

1:05:01Did you meet Gorbachev? I didn't, actually. I was asked to perform. I think one of his... His daughter, his wife, somebody was a big fan. So I was asked to perform at his birthday. The Spice Girls encounter with Nelson Mandela, obviously, is legendary. Do you remember what he said? He said it was the best day of his life, meeting the Spice Girls. Amazing. I mean, almost too much. Yeah. Let's not overdo it. Yeah, do you think he meant it? Not freedom of your country or be released from prison. That was such a beautiful moment. Obviously, I mean, what an honor to have met the man. And whenever Spice Girls did those things, because I think, you know, people will remember the photographs with Charles when he was Prince, you know, the bottom pinch and the lipstick marks and all of those things.

1:05:55Well, help people. The younger crowd might not know. Set the scene. Well, I think it was about 1997, and the Spice Girls were performing at Prince's Trust concert. I have a feeling we were in Manchester, and there's always a royal line-up at these things for all of the artists performing on the show. and you get given the protocol. Like when you meet a member of the royal family, you wait to be spoken to, you wait, you don't take their hand, you wait for them to offer their hand to you. With the queen, you're used to curtsy and there's all of this stuff. But obviously being the Spice Girls, we always thought it was very funny to do what we were told not to do.

1:06:32And Geri thought she'd give him a little pat on the bum and kiss him. She'd put so much red lipstick on and those photographs are iconic. So she would have known that she was going to leave a mark on him. Yeah, yeah. It was premeditated for sure, but we were just being rebellious. The thing is with the Spice Girls, right, we're so relatable because we were normal girls from normal backgrounds that did something extraordinary and we really pride ourselves on that. So when we found ourselves in those situations, other people might not find themselves, we wanted to do what everybody else wanted to do you know i know they're going to kick us out but before they do are the spice girls in the rock and roll hall of fame no not yet but you would qualify i think do you think because there's a 25 year you have to wait there's some kind of waiting period um do you think there's still some sense of um sort of industry gatekeeping or whatever you or feeling that actually no that's not purely music it's that's more of a all cultural movement there we go that's a good way of putting it what do you think yeah i don't know it's interesting i think as time passes people become more respectful of what we achieved and the music speaks for itself it's bloody good music you know it's great pop music that has stood the test of time and alongside that it was a cultural movement and it's affected not only a generation of people it continues to do that and i'm extraordinarily proud to be a part of it and we'll you know go around to talking about it till the end of my days that was a good way of closing out the conversation thanks so much melanie c for coming along you my pleasure it was it was really fun and who would have thought all those years ago when i first saw wannabe that i'd be one day interviewing a spice girl there you go

1:08:40And a zig-a-zig-ah, which is of course a quote from Wannabe. It's Mel B's signature noise. And do you know what it means? I found that out in researching the chat. Do you know what zig-a-zig-ah means? I think it's like the noise of orgasm. so you might want to double check that um that's awkward Piers Morgan oh here we go this is a legal ah that's a legal klaxon Piers Morgan uh has vehemently denied ever hacking a phone or any knowledge of phone hacking occurring during his time as editor of the mirror nevertheless in his book he does talk about someone showing him how to hack a phone so don't say that Millie says.

1:09:31But he has never hacked a phone. He's always denied hacking a phone. He doesn't know how to do it. But he did say how to do it in his book. He said, he didn't say how to do it. He said he was shown how to do it. But don't say that. Now, Brian Harvey, I've done Brian Harvey a disservice. I think I said that he'd said at the height of E17's fame, he would take 19 E's in a night. In fact he only said that he'd take 12 E's in a night so apologies to Brian Harvey and on a serious note uh they threw Brian under the bus basically you can learn more about this in boy bands forever if you're in the UK and you want to watch it on iPlayer Brian Harvey the lead singer of E17 there's a plausible scenario that suggests their manager at the time had it in for Brian and more or less sabotaged him by knowing that he was going to say something self-cancelling in an interview and allowing him to do the interview unchaperoned.

1:10:35Girl Bands Forever is on iPlayer as well. Mel C's not in it, alas. There are no Spice Girls in Girl Bands Forever, but we have The All Saints, Atomic Kitten, Eternal, and many others. what else check out the new music uh genuinely if you like daft punk or it's a shimmering disco it's the kind of music i don't know if this is if you if you're in a club could be a gay club doesn't have to be late at night maybe you are feeling energetic and it's one or two in the morning and you just want to be wearing like a little vest am i painting a bit too much and you want to dance like with your fists in the air um i know you're thinking that's not you louie maybe it is that's what i was feeling when i was listening to the to to melsey's album what's the album called sweat this album's called sweat and who doesn't love the idea of arnold schwarzenegger being a musical influence i mean that's some clickbait right there if you've been affected by the topics discussed in this episode, Spotify do have a website for information and resources.

1:11:51Visit spotify.com slash resources. That's it for this week, apart from the credits. The producer was Millie Chu. The assistant producer was Mark Morne. The production manager was Francesca Bassett. The music in this series was by Miguel de Oliveira. The executive producer was Aaron Fellows. This is a Mindhouse Studios production for Spotify. And a zig-a-zig. Thank you.