Smash Hits magazine also said they were backing the boys, and put them on the front cover. All the way along, the tide seemed to be against us. I suppose that’s what made us even more determined.
Peter later told us that one of the Polydor managing directors had given carte blanche for him to pull out all the stops.
‘I don’t care what you do or what you spend, just make sure we win,’ he said. The Bee Gees were also signed to Polydor, so Peter heard on the grapevine that the One True Voice single was to be a cover version of ‘Sacred Trust’ – a Bee Gees track. Peter thought it would be fun for us to record our own version of the same song, so when you bought the CD single of our record ‘Sound of the Underground’, you also got ‘Sacred Trust’ into the bargain as a bonus track. He wanted to put a sticker on the CD that said, ‘also includes “Sacred Trust”’.
As much as they wanted to win, this particular plan was deemed a step too far for the bosses at Polydor, who felt like we were playing too dirty, so in the end it never happened.
At the end of the day, I think the reason we won came down to the way we were presented and the fact we had an amazing launch single. One True Voice came out with a cover version that was very typical boy band, and the production wasn’t exactly edgy. In contrast, ‘Sound of the Underground’ was an in-your-face pop track with a great team of producers behind it – Brian Higgins, Miranda Cooper and Xenomania. It had tons of gusto and felt brand new. I loved it as soon as I heard it, particularly the drum and bass feel of the rhythm section. It was kick-ass, and like nothing you’d ever heard from a girl band. Yes, we were aiming for the Christmas number one, and this track was the least Christmassy song you could imagine; I just think we were fortunate that the team behind us had their finger on the pulse as far as what was going on in pop music. Doing it the way we did it gave us the girls vote as well as the boys; had we been dancing around in floaty dresses singing a ballad, I think it might have been a different story.
With our first single being released imminently, the video for ‘Sound of the Underground’ had to be shot almost immediately. I wanted to be excited, I wanted to be happy, but the whole drama around the voting made that impossible. The night before the shoot, I got hardly any sleep at all. As I sat in the Winnebago, waiting to go on to the set, I kept seeing and hearing the news stories, reporting on the so-called voting scandal. It was tough to keep my head up that day. I cried to myself until I was sick of crying.
In the end, I decided that the only way I was going to get through this was to prove to myself and everyone that I bloody well did deserve to be in Girls Aloud.
I was good enough.
CHAPTER FIVE
When ‘Sound of the Underground’ debuted at number one on 22 December 2002, it was the best Christmas present I could have dreamed of. How was this possible? I was in a band who were at the top of the charts. It just seemed insane and so hard to take in. God, we were actually going to be on Top of the Pops. That in itself was mind-blowing. We ended up staying at the top of the charts for four weeks, sailing into 2003. In the end, it went on to sell just short of a million copies.
Our debut album of the same name was a bit of a mish-mash of tracks written by a variety of writers, produced and recorded in a hurry. There was even a song written by Brian from Westlife called ‘Girls Allowed’. This was shoe-horned on to the album, mainly because Westlife were also managed by Louis Walsh, who was our manager. Still, our second single ‘No Good Advice’ debuted at number two in the charts, just beaten to number one by ‘Ignition’ by R. Kelly, and although it didn’t quite have the chart life that our first single did, it was a big hit. I loved the song because it encompassed the same attitude as ‘Sound of the Underground’. We’d made our mark as a band who weren’t just a bunch of pretty girls with pleasant voices; we had something to say, and we were saying it loud.
Still, it was never going to be easy to sustain that initial success. ‘Sound of the Underground’ was number one for a month, and we’d broken all sorts of chart records with that release; one of them was being the fastest any band had gone from formation to a number one single. That’s quite some tall order to follow up.
It’s no bad reflection on the other girls to say that I didn’t fit in at the start of the band – and for quite some time afterwards. Sometimes, I felt like a cartoon character rather than a pop star. We were all different, but I was always the one who stuck out like a sore thumb. I was louder, brasher and said and did things in the moment. While everyone else tried their best to be professional, I was just winging it. I didn’t know how to be anything other than myself, and my condition meant that I didn’t always have a filter. I’m sure there were times when this was hard for the rest of the band. I know my hyperactiveness didn’t always go down well. Sometimes people saw my enthusiasm as attention-seeking, but, more often than not, I was just trying to get all my thoughts out on to the table.
I’d be like, ‘Ooh! Ooh! I’ve got an idea,’ and then I’d jump on to the next thing and the next, full of beans and going nineteen to the dozen. I was like the kid in a classroom who stuck her hand up every time the teacher asked a question, shouting, ‘I know the answer, I know the answer!’ even though they sometimes don’t!
Feeling I had to fight hard to find my place in the band, I probably pushed myself forward more than I needed to. It’s something I can see looking back, but at the time, I just wanted to be accepted. From the girls’ point of view, I felt I came across as loud and annoying. It didn’t help that I alienated myself from the rest of them because of the way I felt. While the others were all getting along and sharing flats together, I was living on my own. We all lived in a place called Princess Park Manor; a smart, gated estate in North London. Here, Cheryl shared a place with Nicola and Nadine with Kimberley. I convinced myself I was on my own because I didn’t want to be the third wheel in either one of those situations. Because I’d already lived in my own place before being in the band, I was accustomed to being by myself. In some ways, it suited me. Instead of a flatmate, I got two cats – Marley and Phoenix. They were great to cuddle up to, brilliant company, and best of all, they didn’t answer back.
Princess Park Manor was known as ‘Pop Star Heights’ because so many pop bands and people in the industry lived there. Busted and McFly were there at the same time as us, as well as a few footballers, including the man that ended up being Cheryl’s husband, Ashley Cole. The place was full of faces you recognised.
I moved around a couple of times in the complex, but my first flat was right above the gym. Once, while I was back at my mum’s, somebody who supposedly worked for the complex called to tell me that there had been a fire in the gym. Apparently, it was so bad that there had been significant smoke damage in my apartment. Lying on my mum’s sofa, I burst into tears, only to hear giggling in the background. The next thing I knew, Cheryl and Nicola were on the end of the line, telling me that it was their idea of an April Fool.
While I was crying, they were pissing themselves laughing. They were always a nightmare when it came to practical jokes, those two.
In those early days, we all used to travel back home a lot. Cheryl and I had the same car – a Toyota RAV4. Cheryl’s was black and mine silver. We’d always head back to London on a Sunday night, ready for whatever Girls Aloud work we had on Monday morning. Sometimes, we would catch one another en route back, waving at each other as we passed. Once one of us had spotted the other, it would be a competition to see who could get back to Princess Park Manor first.
During that whole period, I was seeing Mikey Green, who’d been one of the contestants on Popstars: The Rivals in the boys’ camp. He’d got into the last ten for One True Voice but never made it into the final line-up. The five boys who never made it actually went on to form the band Phixx. They also got a record deal and ended up lasting longer than One True Voice, having several Top 20 hits. Mikey and I were happy for the most part, like two peas in a pod. Still, before Phixx took off, which was quite a few m
onths after the TV show ended, there were aspects of our relationship that were hard.
I was finding it tough being in the band and would often return from work feeling low. Mikey found that hard to deal with. As far as he was concerned, I’d won my place in the band who’d ultimately triumphed on the TV show, and was now a bona fide pop star, which is what he’d always dreamed of being. Mikey couldn’t understand why I was so unhappy, and it was hard for me to make him understand. Being in Girls Aloud back then was a double-edged sword for me; it was the best of things and the worst.
After about a year, I really hit rock bottom. I was dreading going into work, feeling isolated and insecure, and on top of that, my relationship with Mikey suddenly hit a bit of a rough patch. Instead of enjoying everything that was there for the taking, I just wanted to stay in bed with the cats. I needed time away from everything to re-set and look after my mental health. Mikey kept reminding me how grateful I should be for all I had. However, when you’re dealing with anxiety or depression, someone else telling you how wonderful your life is doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference. In the end, I asked our tour manager to drive me home for a few days, back to Manchester. After a few days away, I came back with a new sense of purpose. Yes, I was still a little on edge and fragile, but I decided to throw myself into work and get on with the job of building a career. The only way I was going to survive was to do what I was good at – singing and performing.
As time went on, of course, the girls began to accept the way I was. I suppose they got used to me and saw the good parts of Sarah as well as the ‘difficult’ Sarah. Once they understood me and how I was, things started to operate better, but that took a while. We were several years into the band by the time I began to feel a bit more at ease with it all.
One of the things I struggled with was the idea of ‘fame’. I know it’s many people’s dream to achieve fame, but once I’d achieved it, I realised it wasn’t really mine. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted success, but that was more about being recognised for doing something I was good at, rather than the celebrity of it. In fact, I didn’t enjoy the attention at all, particularly given all the crap that popped up in the press about me every now and again. A particularly low moment was when one of my exes – the boy who’d persuaded me to go for the Popstars audition – sold topless pictures of me to the press. They were just pictures of me on the beach on holiday, but I couldn’t believe he’d done it. I could laugh off most of the ridiculous stories about me that I’d seen, but that one hurt; I felt utterly betrayed.
With the release of our third single, something shifted. ‘Life Got Cold’ was much slower and moodier than the first two singles had been. I suppose it was a bit of a risky release, and although we all liked it, there didn’t seem to be the same amount of excitement or buzz around it.
The song went into the charts at number three and ended up staying in the Top 75 for nine weeks. It was a hit, for sure, but a far cry from the success of our first two singles, especially when you consider that our first record spent 21 weeks in the chart – almost half a year! The album also hadn’t shifted as many copies as everyone had imagined it might, so, after just a few months, things started to look a bit dodgy for the band. In fact, at one point Polydor wasn’t even sure if there was going to be a second album at all. For the first time in a long while, the future wasn’t looking quite so bright.
After ‘Life Got Cold’, the song ‘Some Kind of Miracle’ was tipped to be a single. It was another Xenomania song – co-written by Edele from the band B*Witched. None of us was all that keen on this as a single. Just in time, an opportunity to record ‘Jump’ – a cover of The Pointer Sisters’ big hit – for the Love Actually soundtrack came about. Had this not happened and we’d proceeded with ‘Some Kind of Miracle’, our career might have been a lot shorter than it ultimately was.
The video for ‘Jump’ was changed at the last minute when the film people asked us to link it to the movie. Initially, it was going to be us girls, in a car, just driving in front of a screen with lots of footage behind us. Thank goodness it changed. Mind you, Hugh Grant was very choosy over which bits of the film featuring him were allowed in the video.
The up-tempo energy of ‘Jump’ seemed to put us back where we needed to be, and the fact that it was on the soundtrack to one of the year’s biggest films was even better. The movie premiere was a real highlight for us. I’d walked that red carpet many times in my imagination, and the real thing was no disappointment. There were flashing cameras and fans screaming our names. It felt surreal and fantastic – like we’d really arrived.
For our second album, What Will the Neighbours Say?, it was decided that Brian Higgins and Miranda Cooper of Xenomania should write and produce the whole album. After all, they’d come up with all the best songs on the first album. The relationship with Brian wasn’t the easiest at the start, because we didn’t always have the same vision for us as he did. Brian was like a quirky musical genius, and quite forthright in his opinions. In fact, at times, he could be quite blunt. I liked to get my ideas across, and I was never backward in coming forward either. That didn’t always make for a smooth working environment. As time went on, however, I think mutual respect developed between Brian and the band. He began to recognise our talent and our input, and we started to accept and appreciate his honesty.
Along with Miranda, he developed this smart, original sound with quirky lyrics and often unconventional song structures. I think that’s what set us apart from other pop bands who stuck to a more formulaic route. With a Girls Aloud record, you never quite knew what you were going to get or where it was going to next. The only thing you could be sure of was that it was going to be bloody catchy, and never dull.
The first set of recording sessions produced the songs ‘The Show’, ‘Androgynous Girls’, ‘Wake Me Up’ and ‘Deadlines and Diets’. Immediately the record company knew that ‘The Show’ was to be the lead single. They wanted to keep the mood up like we’d done with ‘Jump’, rather than going back to the moodier ‘Life Got Cold’ vibe.
The album came out in November 2004, and not long afterwards we performed ‘The Show’ on The Royal Variety Performance. The album also included ‘Jump’ and ‘Love Machine’, and was a massive Christmas seller, going double platinum. Also included on the album was the song ‘I’ll Stand By You’, a cover version of The Pretenders original, which we recorded as the official Children In Need single. The song from the album I most loved was ‘Wake Me Up’. That song, I felt, was more ‘me’ than some of the others. It had a rocky feel, and I guess it appealed to my inner ‘rock chick’. I remember that, throughout the album campaign, I kept asking, ‘Will “Wake Me Up” ever be a single?’ It ended up being the fifth single from the album, reaching number four in the charts. For the video, we were on motorbikes hurtling along a highway against a desert night sky, with me wearing these fantastic studded black jeans. I have no idea where many of my Girls Aloud costumes are, but I’ve definitely still got those trousers somewhere! It was back in the days when we were still a little bit edgy and alternative, before all the stylists came in and it was glamour all the way. The other great thing was that there wasn’t so much choreography in the video, which was always a bonus for me, as I had the most trouble with it. The rocky strains of ‘Wake Me Up’ suited my voice, and consequently, I got my fair share of solo lines on the track as well.
We also recorded a cover of Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Games’ around that time. It was going to be a single, but for some reason it was pulled at the last minute. It’s never been heard anywhere and none of us even have a copy of the recording. The video was even planned and signed off; it was meant to be a Bruce Weber-style black and white affair. Of course, that never happened either.
One of the biggest singles, of course, was ‘Love Machine’ – it’s as catchy as hell and has become a party favourite. The funny thing is, we all hated it when we first heard it, and we certainly didn’t want it to be released as a bloody single. I
remember us all marching into Polydor to see Colin Barlow, who was one of the MDs, and telling him that ‘Love Machine’ was definitely not the right single. Why couldn’t we release ‘Deadlines and Diets’, which was more of a slow jam, but quite funky? The record company pushed back and told us to trust them, and thank God we did. The tables would reverse many years later, when we insisted ‘The Promise’ was a single, when the label wanted to lead with ‘The Loving Kind’.
The one thing that didn’t seem to be working out with the band was our management. Louis Walsh had managed us since our conception, but he didn’t seem to have the knack with a girl band that he did with the boy bands he’d managed: Westlife and Boyzone. Looking back, I suppose he just wasn’t hands-on enough to steer us in the right direction. Despite our early success, there was a lot more we could have been doing. Opportunities were being missed in the way of product endorsements and advertising. Having hit records makes you a certain amount, but when you’re not writing and producing your own music, a lot of the revenue goes to the people who are.
Our team at Polydor agreed that we needed new management, and that was where Hillary Shaw came in. She had much more of a grasp on managing female artists. She’d managed Bananarama in their heyday and had recently steered Dannii Minogue through her most successful period. Peter knew Hillary well and thought she was the right person for us to work with.
Hear Me Out Page 5