They most certainly do, madam. Woodland soft-porn romps, "new Oasis" claims, tattooed butt cheeks
and one of the best pop records for years. Step inside the all-singing, all-conquering World O'Spice.
"I want people to think of us as the new Oasis." Melanie Chisholm (aka Mel C, The Sporty One), looks over at Emma Bunton,
sat listlessly toying with her long blonde pigtails. She sighs incredulously. "Everywhere we go people say
to us, 'How does it feel to be the new Take That?' I mean, Take That? Fuck off."
There follows more swearing, this time from a different pair of Spice Girl lips.
"Fucking hell! Have you heard where we're going next?" A door at the back of the photo studio where Mel and Emma are in mid-flow
bursts open to reveal the flushed face of 'classy' Victoria Addams. "They just phoned to ask if we
could do it, and we can," she continues. "We're gonna be on News at Ten."
'Mad' Geri Halliwell and 'wild' Melanie Brown (aka Mel B) appear. "Why?" asks Geri,
wearing a strange expression that mixes confusion and inexpicable guilt. "I don't know," frowns Victoria.
"Something about us being the fastest selling band or something."
"Brilliant," wails Mel B, fluffing up her already enormous hair. "I've always wanted to meet Trevor McDonald."
So, "New Oasis", then. A bold, if not entirely serious claim. One that sits awkwardly
enough on the shoulders of kagoul-wearing, guitar-thumping wannabes, let alone five young women
whose debut album contains nary a hint of Beatles influence, nor fuzztoned Gibson Les Pauls.
Think of it as more a statement of street-centric authenticity. These days, it isn't all airbrushed,
gym-honed appearances and early bedtimes in teenworld. As proven by the likes of Ant & Dec, Robbie Williams and les
femmes du Spice, you can do Just Seventeen and make a habit of appearing at Clothes Show
events while retaining your cool. Smoke, drink and be merry. Should the fancy take you, you'll also be
allowed to swear like a trooper. ("How would I describe 1996?" ponders Mel C, as if to prove the point.
"Fucking, fucked-up fuck.")
The place of the Girls in the zeitgeist, however, is down to more than Silk Cut, lager and expletives.
In polar opposition to that lads-only Burnage brood, they also came with an agenda: Girl Power. They
claim they've never heard of Riot Grrl, but they enthuse incessantly about '90s women with a '90s
outlook: a basic fusion of strength, fun and determination. Their manifesto is simple: 'Be who you wanna
be, don't take any shit and you can never wear too much blusher.'
In the summer of 1993 it was rather different. Their first manager, a luckless entrepreneur
who prefers to remain nameless, advertised for five 'lively girls'. It was a cash-fuelled concept
which failed dismally after he chose five overtly wilful and decisive women, who all knew each other from
the times they'd meet at auditions for anything from The Bill to Tank Girl. They rebuffed his '90s Bananarama proposal
and ditched him two months later.
The tale illustrates not only the Girls' fem-tastic, insurrectionary mindset, but their shared origins
on the vaudevillian treadmill that yer Northern guitar types have never been anywhere neaer. Before they conjoined
under the umbrella of Spice, the Girls would all scan the pages of The Stage, the theatrical magazine
in which the all-important ad was placed. It's the house rag of a fame-hungry world that takes
in TV commercials, the chorus line of West End musicals, and countless elements besides (some of which are rather rum:
witness Geri's Sun-exposed try at "glamour" modelling. And the way the well-upholstered minx
once found herself on the cover of TV listings/"pain and penetration" mag Eros.
Anyway, having ditched the ad placing management, the Girls hit problems.
"It was really difficult," explains Victoria. "We had people saying, 'You have to have a lead singer,
and you've got to all dress the same, or it's not going to work.' It's good for us that it did work,
because we didn't want to change. We wanted to be ourselves and have a good time doing it."
Despite their history of self-motivated independance, there are those who still see the Spice Girls as
animated waxworks. After all, it's too perfect: five different types, doubtless picked by Mr
Ex-manager to appeal to 20 per cent of the male population, depending on their taste of women.
And, let's face it, the line-up does read like a male-fantasy menu. Victoria ("not Vicky") Addams,
21, is from Hertfordshire:she's elegant, classy and likes to shop at Harvey Nics, if you fancy a bit of
posh 'tot'. Mel "sounds like jism" Chisholm, is 20 from Liverpool, oozes scally 'chood, and likes
going to football matches. Watford-bred, half Spanish, quarter-Swedish Geri Halliwell, 24, is a crazy
disco daredevil who likes to "flash at people in King's Road" for a "laugh" and once persuaded The Backstreet
Boys that she had two Ws tattooed on her buttocks, "so it spells WOW". Emma Bunton, 18, is from North
London, small, sweet and very cute in her little pink dresses. The alarmingly load Melanie Brown, 21,
is a club-centric junglist Leeds lass who comes complete with pierced 'nads' and that big hair.
She wanted to do "a moonie" on Top of the Pops until persuaded it might not be the best idea.
"I suppose there is something for everybody," muses Victoria, running a palm over her perfect,
sleek bob. "But I also think people should realize it's just the way we really are."
Back to the story. In the grim position of finding themselves under contract to Virgin Records
but without a manager, they all moved into a house in Maidenhead and signed on the dole.
"We were so skint," laughs Mel C. "The record company would take us out to dinner and we'd
nick all the toilet rolls from the loos. We'd order loads and stuff our faces, and then we'd leave
with half the table in our pockets."
Eventually they signed a deal with Annie Lennox's manager Simon Fuller, who was not only
sympathetic and understanding, but could also cope with the tears, arguments and over-excited pranks.
The girls began writing songs with Elliot Kennedy, who was also composing with Gary Barlow, and by autumn
of this year - thanks to one of the best pop-rap records ever made - the Spice Girls were the biggest
thing in pop since, yes, Oasis.
'Wannabe' is in The Guiness Book of Records as the first debut single by an all-woman band
to go straight in at Number One. It stayed there for seven weeks, distressing the comebacks of both
Gary Barlow, and Robbiw Williams, before topping the charts in a further 21 countries. To date,
it has notched up sales of over two million. With those kind of figures, Noel and Liam have little option
but to let the Girls into their spangled enclosure.
"Someone stole my rubbish the other day," gasps Geri, as she casually takes a cigarette out
of Mel B's packet. "I couldn't believe it. I came out of the hoyuse and it was gone. There were all these kids hanging around
the street, laughing. Pretty weird."
Such is the price of fame.
"I was out shopping the other day," says Victoria. "And I walked out of Joseph and all these
photographers pounced on me. That hadn't happened before. I was really scared."
The tabloids, needless to say, have become obsessed with the Spice Girls. The News of the World
ran a campaign to find if anyone possessed incriminating pictures of them before they were famous.
The Sun, of course, came across that stash of photos of a distinctly naked Geri rumly
frolicking in some sunlit English woodland and went publicly ballistic.
"A lot of the stuff we read in the papers makes me laugh," spits Mel B. "They see five girls
who are a bit loud and boisterous and think, 'Yeah, let's make out they're slappers.'"
"There was one thing in the papers saying we're a bunch of lager louts and we'd get our tits out for
anybody," mumbles Emma meekly. "I've only got mine out for the girls. We're five different people,
but we get tarred with the same brush."
The girls have responded to their fame with grace. Second single, 'Say You'll Be There', was selling up to
200,000 copies a week, the third is a cert for the Christmas Number One, their debut LP is leaving the shops
like free milkshake, and still they say they've only had a "bit of success".
"I went through a phase when I was really paranoid," admits Mel C. "We were away in Japan when
'Wannabe' went to Number One. We got back and I went shopping and thought everybody knew who I was.
Then I thought, 'No - there's maybe two kids who've clocked on.'"
But doesn't getting recognized in the street make you a tad big-headed? A little, dare we say it, Liam-esque?
"You can get caught up in it," says Mel B, scouring the empty fag packets on the table. "But
you just have to readjust. I think people can tell we're not up our own arses. You can see people who
are like, 'Yeah I'm fucking Number One. They're the ones you want to smack in the face.'"
"There's no right or wrong way to take all this," explains Geri, for once she's not answering all
the questions herself (she's had a late night). "We know we could be in the gutter tomorrow. What
isn't real is selling over two million copies of 'Wannabe'. That's the unreal part."
The girls are all fairly unfamiliar with 'alternative' music, despite well-documented runs-in
with Kula Shaker, Cast and Courtney Love. However, their verdict on the group whose fame they aspire is
all but unanimous. Not entirely suprisingly they all like the Gallagher brothers.
"but would we shag Liam?" squeals Victoria. "No way, I think he's repulsive, and I'd like to
smack him in the mouth. I think Noel's cool. He keeps himself to himself, but Liam? Oh no."
"He'd probably be really crap anyway," dismisses Mel B, as the others giggle in agreement. "He'd
have brewer's droop and expect you to do all the work and I believe in equality on that score."
Being attractive, successful and one of the few female bands on the road, are they aware of the availability of sex?
"I can honestly say I used to get more boys interested in me before this," groans Victoria. "What's
going on, good-looking men? C'mon!"
"We don't shag on the road," asserts Mel B afterwards. "We never meet anybody and some of us have
boyfriends. And, also, if we ever did anything like that, we'd get fucking slated. Like I said, we're
already seen as a bunch of old slappers."
The majority of Spice Girls fans are pubescent girls. They wait hours for autographs and stand
screaming at the front of the concerts. It's also very possible the girls have grown women lusting
after them. Would they be interested?
"Probably," smiles Geri. "It's like asking, would you ever eat strawberry ice cream? If you've never
tried it you don't know if you like it or not."
"But the question was, would you sleep with a woman?" asks Mel B. "Yes, I would. I'm pretty liberated,
it doesn't bother me. I think you are what you are. Why, are you offering?"
The conversation eventually turns to 'drugs' - whereupon the Spice Girls' key difference
to the vanguard bands of Britpop becomes all too obvious. Unroll that tenner! Unlock the cubicle!
"I've never been offered any," jokes Emma. "Seriously though, I've never tried any drugs. I mean,
I wouldn't think any less of someone that does take them, but they're not for me."
"There've been drugs there sometimes," admits Mel C. "But I've never bothered."
"So, no," surmises Mel B. "We don't do drugs. We might have tried them once or twice, or we might not,
we're not saying."
Geri throws her a concerned look. "The thing is," she says, "we've got a responsibility now. We're
very aware of that. But we don't need drugs, you'd miss the plot and we wouldn't want to miss anything
right now. You can get high on life anyway."
"Er, yeah," agrees Mel B. "And we act like twats with out drugs anyway."
Are you constantly aware of what you can and can't say?
"You have to think about you're doing sometimes," says mel B. "But if I thought like that all the time,
I wouldn't be here. We do and say what we want, and it's not my style to be straight."
How true. The Spice Girls, in case anyone needed reminding, have a reputation for chaos.
On a live TV show in Paris they were insructed to wheel on a cake and sing happy birthday. Instead they
stuck in their hands ans smeared it all over the guests. No one was impressed.
Twelve months ago, they mounted a bronze statue of Red Rum at Kempton Park racecourse during a
Virgin corporate wing-ding, flashed their knickers and repeatedly yelled "I'll tell you what I want/What
I really, really want." A bewildered crowd thus observed the Spice Girls' first public appearance:
the fruit of two years' rehearsal being man-handled to the ground by aggrieved stewards.
"We never mean to offend anybody," pleads Mel C. "We're just a bit naughty. I know eventually
it'll probably get boring. We don't want people thinking, 'Oh the Spice Girls are on telly again,
they'll probably have a food fight or something."
In the current pop milieu, the Spice Girls are something of an anomaly. They've carved their way
through a market founded on early nights, anodyne interviews and appearances on This Morning
while behaving like - gasp - regular, hormone-enhanced young women, and attracted a predominantly female
audience in the process. Forget all the pouting lads with their simpering love ballads: the battle of the
teen bands in the wake of Take That was won by a bunch of girls.
The reason for the victory seems to be bound up with the Spice Girls' sense of loyalty - to themselves,
to each other and to their sex.
"I think we freak people about how straight we are with each other," says Mel B, looking around at her
four compradres. "If someone looks shit, we'll say, 'God, you look disgusting.' If we get mad we'll start screaming -
Fuck off, no you fuck off - and we'll storm off. When people are around to see what they think,
'Oh God, drama,' but it's not, it's just an argument. That's how best friends are."
"We're married anyway. We've all got rings. Look..."
Mel C shoves out her hand to reveal a plain silver band on her finger. The others are all wearing one too. "one of five, see?"
"You thinks it's nice?" laughs Mel B. "Well, it's sad, really - but we like it. I think if you can
own up to being a prat, a twat, a divvy to your friends then you're sorted. Once you've done that,
where else have you got to go apart from up?"
Noel and Liam, of course, would baulk at such humility - another reminder that the reassuringly
earth-bound Spice Girls probably aren't the new Oasis at all. Not a problem...
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