Ooh! What a Lovely Pair: Our Story

by Ant McPartlin

  The plugging company told us we’d also been offered the chance to perform the song live on Blue Peter – yes, you read that right, Blue Peter. At the time, they didn’t really have many bands on the show, and for us to be invited on was a bit special – either that or the Royal Highland Bagpipers had dropped out at the last minute.

  Then, inevitably, the bad news came. Blue Peter was the same day as the Radio 1 Roadshow. They were the two biggest opportunities of our career so far, and they clashed. Obviously, we wanted to do both, but that seemed impossible. Blue Peter had booked us for the day, it was live at around five o’clock and we would need to rehearse beforehand. There was no way they would ever let us go up to Glasgow in between, in case there was a traffic jam and we missed the show.

  Then we had an idea: what if we did the Radio 1 Road-show without telling Blue Peter?

  We asked the record company if it could be done and they came up with a plan. We’d do a rehearsal at Blue Peter in the morning, then fly up to Glasgow on a private jet, sing our song on the Radio 1 stage and fly back in time for the show at 5.10.

  At least, I think that was how the plan worked – we both stopped listening after we heard the words ‘private’ and ‘jet’.

  This was one of the most exciting things that had ever happened to us. We were going to fly on a private jet and stitch up Blue Peter. It didn’t get much more rock ’n’ roll than this.

  When the day came, we did it all as planned. After we’d finished our rehearsal, the Blue Peter production team asked us if we needed anything. Did we want any lunch? We were suddenly very cagey, saying, ‘No, no, we’re… er… going out for lunch – in London, that’s where we’ll be – in London, and definitely nowhere else. Anyway, we’ve got to fly, I mean go, we’ve got to go – ’bye!’

  And off we went. We caught the jet, which was just about the most decadent thing I had ever experienced in my whole life. It had plush leather everywhere, there were only eight seats, it was totally luxurious. We got to Glasgow, did the show, and it went like a dream. The Scottish crowd gave us the most amazing response, as they would continue to do every time we performed there. We left Glasgow on a high, over the moon that phase one of our evil masterplan had been completed.

  We felt like a pair of Bond villains.

  Well, if you can imagine Bond villains in baggy jeans and fluorescent shirts…

  We arrived back in West London and at Blue Peter in good time, feeling very pleased with ourselves – until word got back to us that the producers had found out exactly what we’d done. They were furious. They threatened to pull us off the show, which would have been a desperate blow to our promotion plans. We were embarrassed, but also angry. Who had snitched on us? Someone had gone behind our backs and told Blue Peter about the Radio 1 Roadshow. We had to find out who.

  Then the penny dropped. They’d simply listened to Radio 1. They heard us on the radio, then immediately went to check our dressing rooms. It didn’t take Hercule Poirot to work it out. So, despite their anger, and partly due to the fact it was too late for them to book anyone else, they graciously let us perform on the show. Afterwards, they told us we’d never perform on Blue Peter again but, frankly, we didn’t care, we’d been in a private jet and, thanks to them and Radio 1, our new single had been heard by millions of kids.

  Mark Goodier had been the DJ at the Radio 1 Roadshow and, from that gig onwards, he and his producer, Fergus Dudley, championed us, playing our singles on Radio 1 whenever they could. After all the hard work and our shameless deception of Blue Peter, ‘Why Me?’ went into the UK singles chart with a bullet at number twenty-seven. Okay, it might not have been superstardom but, after number sixty-two for the first single, we felt like we’d just sold out Wembley Stadium. We were in the Top 30, and things were moving in the right direction.

  Telstar immediately took up the option for a third single, which meant it was time to go back into the studio. Little did we know that we were about to record a track that would become our biggest hit, and would follow us around for the next fifteen years…

  Chapter 10

  Watch us wreck the mic.

  Watch us wreck the mic.

  Watch us wreck the mic.

  P-S-S-S-yche.

  It’s up there with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, isn’t it?

  ‘Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble’ was our third single, and most probably our last chance of making it as pop stars (if you didn’t count the last chance we’d had on the second single). It was certainly our catchiest track yet; once it got inside your head, it wouldn’t go away, a bit like a nasty migraine. But it was a great pop song.

  By this stage, we also had something else in our favour – a music manager. We hired Kim Glover to take care of some of the stuff we didn’t know about, like the entire music industry. Kim had managed New Kids on the Block in Europe so, when it came to complicated stuff, like white boys in baggy jeans trying to rap, she knew what she was doing. She was a fiery little redhead who also managed Let Loose, whose lead singer had written ‘Tonight I’m Free’. Kim had seen the reaction we’d got at some of the roadshows, she’d been around the industry for a while and the whole thing seemed like a good fit.

  Kim always wore a bumbag and a black beret and carried a clipboard and a mobile phone that never had any battery left. She’d call everyone ‘gang’, so we always knew we were leaving somewhere when we heard a shrill, ‘Come on, Kim’s gang, we’re going.’ We’d all stop what we were doing and follow her to the next gig, or photo shoot, or signing, or possibly all three in one. With Kim’s arrival came more gigs, more interviews and more hard work at the sweaty coalface of pop semi-stardom.

  It wasn’t long before that hard work started to pay off, and we were now getting screamed and spat at in some of the UK’s very finest dodgy nightclubs. After weeks of non-stop promotion, it was time to release ‘Rhumble’ – that’s what I’m going to call it from now on, I can’t be bothered to say ‘Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble’ every time we mention it, okay? Good. For the week of release, we’d been booked to appear on Live & Kicking, the BBC1 Saturday-morning show with Andi Peters. The Saturday-morning shows were a big battleground for pop stars at that time because, naturally, kids would go out and buy records on Saturday afternoons, so the hope was that our performance would convince them to buy ‘Rhumble’. When it came to that week’s Top 40, it rocketed straight into the charts at number eighteen. We weren’t exactly setting the world on fire, but we were making progress. Slowly.

  We had listened to the chart on Sunday night, and on Monday lunchtime Kim rang us with some news. We had been booked to appear on that Thursday’s Top of the Pops. Top of the Pops! We couldn’t believe it. It was news we had always hoped for but never really expected. We’d grown up watching this show and it was amazing to be invited on it. In the week leading up to it, we promoted like we’d never promoted before. Trust me, if you were aged between about five and fifteen in July of 1994, me and Dec were unavoidable.

  Top of the Pops was, of course, a dream come true. There was just one teensy, weensy problem: we would be required, as everyone was, to do live vocals. Yes, rapping on the telly live, rather than miming. This was something we weren’t used to, so we started rehearsing straight away. We got a tape of the instrumental version of the track, and we went to work.

  The only trouble was we were out on the road doing gigs and sleeping in Travelodges, and we didn’t have a tape machine, so we had to practise in the only place that did have a tape machine – our van. The hired burgundy Toyota Previa, a kind of people carrier – well, I suppose all cars carry people, but you know what I mean – we went everywhere in doubled up as our rehearsal studio. I was in the driver’s seat, with Ant in the passenger seat, and we sat in a hotel car park practising our live rapping. We must have looked like a right couple of halfwits.

  When it came to the day of the show, we spent a long afternoon rehearsing in the studio in front of the cameras. We weren’t used to rapping and dancing at the same
time, so we had to make sure we could pull off all the moves and the vocals without getting too out of breath, which is harder than it sounds. That was actually the most embarrassing part of the day. The Top of the Pops crew had seen everyone in that studio down the years, like Madonna, U2, David Bowie, so watching a couple of former child actors cough and splutter their way through five renditions of ‘Rhumble’ was hardly likely to impress them.

  The show was filmed at Elstree Studios, which was also home to the EastEnders set. It was a bit of a thrill in the canteen at lunchtime spotting people like Dot Cotton (salad) and Ian Beale (chicken Kiev).

  The number-one record that week was Wet Wet Wet’s ‘Love Is All Around’ and, appearing on Top of the Pops with us were Clubhouse, Bad Boys Inc., The Grid, CJ Lewis and Skin. Bizarrely, the show was hosted by Julian Clary. I just remember feeling incredibly nervous before we did it, mainly because everyone around us seemed incredibly nervous too. Kim, Les Molloy our TV plugger, Adam Hollywood our A&R man and everyone connected to PJ and Duncan seemed to be on edge. At the time, I just thought it was because the show was such a big deal but, looking back, I imagine they were worried about the live rapping and us being a bit crap – with good reason.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of hanging around, it came to our performance. The butterflies in our stomachs were going mental as we stepped on to the stage and got into position. The opening bars boomed through the speakers, and immediately my mouth went desert-dry and my top lip stuck like glue to my front teeth. We took deep breaths and launched into the first line. And we rhumbled like we’d never rhumbled before. Nobody could accuse us of being half-hearted – we flung ourselves around the stage like a couple of rapping rag dolls. The audience was full of PJ and Duncan fans, who played their part brilliantly, screaming and cheering in all the right places. We grew in confidence throughout the song and finished with our tightly choreographed dance break and a few ‘rhumbles’ to fade. The camera moved off, and Julian Clary linked to a VT.

  We’d done it. We were breathless and sweaty but ecstatic. We’d made our Top of the Pops debut, we’d given it everything we had and we had absolutely smashed it. We were exhausted, but we were buzzing. Until the floor manager made an announcement to the packed studio: ‘Thanks, everybody, we’ll just do that one more time.’ Bollocks! Thankfully, the second time went even better than the first, and we went off home with our Top of the Pops cherries well and truly popped.

  But had it been enough to propel ‘Rhumble’ up the charts? We sat down on Sunday night to listen to the Top 40 in that most exotic of locations – the forecourt of South Mimms service station, just off the M1.

  I can still hear Bruno Brookes’ crazy DJ voice now: ‘The highest climber of the week, up nine places to number nine, it’s PJ and Duncan with ‘Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble’. I never did find out what Bruno Brookes was doing in the back of our car, but that’s another story.

  Number NINE! That was a top-ten hit! This was big time, we’d officially made it as pop stars. This called for a major celebration, so, right there in the middle of the forecourt, we cracked open a bottle of something fizzy. I think it was Irn-Bru. And that was it. Now we had a top-ten hit, Telstar said six words that struck fear and excitement into our hearts: ‘We need an album, by Christmas.’

  It was already June, and we were worried. Recording an album meant a lot of hard work. There were lyrics to write and melodies to compose. How would the people who did all that stuff for us get it done in time?

  Telstar told us that wasn’t our problem, they’d get us into the studio when the songs were written and ready to go. In the meantime, we should stick to doing what we did best: more interviews, more photo shoots and, wherever possible, more TV appearances.

  During the summer of 1994, ITV had a Saturday-morning kids’ show called Gimme 5. It was made at the old Tyne Tees studios on City Road in Newcastle, and we became regular guests. The producers always joked that we were only booked because we stayed with our mams and they didn’t have to pay for hotels, but we knew they didn’t mean it. We’d get involved in games and sketches and generally fool around with the main presenters, Jenny Powell, Paul Leyshon, Matthew Davies and Nobby the Sheep.

  One Saturday we were on the show, there were a couple of executives there from the TV production company, Zenith North. Zenith North made Byker Grove and, after they saw us in the sketches, they invited us for a meeting. They said they thought we worked really well together and asked if we had considered doing anything as a double act that wasn’t centred on music. We resisted the urge to start reciting: ‘The one-eyed yellow idol…’, as Ant stupidly didn’t have his cabbage on a dog lead with him at the meeting. We told them it wasn’t something we’d really thought too much about; we were just messing about. They thought there could be more mileage in it, though, and kept talking about the ‘special chemistry’ between us.

  I didn’t even pass GCSE science, so all this talk of chemistry was baffling, but they wanted to pitch a TV show with us two in it. They thought we had something and, frankly, who were we to stop them?

  The idea appealed to us for a lot of reasons. TV was where we’d started out, it was something we had developed a passion for and, most importantly, there was no singing involved. Everything takes ages in TV, so nothing much happened there and then, but we told our management about it and hoped that, one day, something fun would come out of it.

  Meanwhile, we kept promoting. And promoting. And promoting. And then, just for good measure, we did a bit of promotion. We were travelling all over the country, and by now we had a permanent driver, a French bloke called Dominique, who’d got the job thanks to his extensive qualifications – he was Kim Glover’s boyfriend. Over the next few years, we spent more time in that Toyota Previa than anywhere else. Think of ‘The Prev’, as we imaginatively nicknamed it, as a character in our story. Just as Pete Best is often referred to as the ‘fifth Beatle’, so The Prev was the third member of PJ and Duncan.

  After just a few days on the road, The Prev was completely covered in make-up from fans who’d found out it was our car and written messages and phone numbers all over it. At first we used to clean them off. By ‘we’, I mean our driver. But after a while it became pointless, because it would just get covered in lipstick again. That car wore more make-up than Lily Savage.

  The Prev always represented sanctuary for us. When you were inside it, you were away from everything and you could relax, but the hard part was getting in there. When we left a TV studio, we had to make our way past screaming girls, who were still, without doubt, the most vicious creatures on the face of the earth. I’ve often thought this country could do away with its entire army and replace it with a crack team of teenage girls who’ve been told the enemy has kidnapped their favourite boy band.

  Bear in mind, this hysteria was just for us two. If they’d seen the biggest boy bands of the time, Take That or East 17, I think their heads would have exploded with pure, unadulterated boy-band adrenalin. They would do anything to get a piece of you. At the time, I was wearing a lot of caps, which, as you can imagine, came with the territory if you were a streetwise rapper.

  Or if you wanted to cover up a massive forehead…

  They were helpful for that too. The fans would grab them. For them, it meant instant memorabilia and, for me, another trip to the cap shop.

  There was no less hysteria when you were on stage either. We’d be up there mid-song, and we’d be looking out over a sea of banners that said things like, ‘Point your erection in my direction.’ Considering the age of most of our fans, you wouldn’t point your finger in their direction, never mind anything else.

  There was also a lot of fainting going on, and we saw a pattern emerge: girl faints during show, girl gets carried backstage by sweaty security guard, girl gets polo mint from St John ambulanceman and misses show. It became as much a part of our performance as the dance break in ‘Rhumble’.

  One night we did a gig in a weird little venu
e somewhere, and the fainting girls were getting dragged out of the crowd by the security guards and taken backstage as per usual. However, the only access doors to the backstage area were at the back right-hand corner of the stage, so the guards were pulling these limp teenagers out of the melee, slinging them over their shoulders then running across the stage between us and off for a refreshing mint. We’d be in the middle of our finest dance move, and a sweaty bouncer would huff and puff his way across the stage. I don’t mind telling you, it could be very off putting.

  I was miming to the ninth hottest pop tune in the charts and thinking, ‘The health and safety facilities in this venue leave a lot to be desired.’ I often got distracted during shows, especially in the early days, when we did the same three songs every night for weeks on end. You could slip into autopilot and let your mind wander. I’d be halfway through a rap, and I’d be thinking,

  ‘I’m getting the double bed tonight in the Travelodge – he’s had it the last two nights. I know what I’ll do: as soon as we get in there, I’ll put my bag on the bed, then what can he do?’

  I suppose I’ve always been one of life’s deep thinkers.

  Our fans may have been prone to bouts of nausea, but they were very generous. In one magazine interview, we’d been asked about our favourite sweets.

  Those interviews were pretty highbrow – I think the favourite-sweets question came right after our answer to the problems in the Middle East.