'Most of the stories about us fighting aren't true'
Sugababes returned with a new single, Easy, last Monday and this will be followed by their greatest hits Overloaded: The Singles Collection, out on Monday November 13. The three-piece talk candidly about their famous in-fighting.
Sugababes didn't get where they were today by being on time.
Summoned to their record company offices for a day of promotion, only new girl Amelle Berrabah is there for the first interview.
Keisha Buchanan, 22 and sporting the biggest hair this side of Dynasty, strolls in a few minutes later. These girls are glamour personified – whereas Keisha is all hair, Amelle, 21, is all eyeliner and mascara, and Heidi, 23, when she joins us later, is all foundation, her skin looking perfect.
They look every inch the most successful female act of the 21st century, as they were proclaimed recently by researchers from the British Hit Singles and Albums book.
They won the title, over the likes of Madonna, Kylie and Britney Spears, for their numerous achievements since they released their first single Overload back in 2000 – the four number ones, the three top five albums, the eight million album sales worldwide, to name just a few.
What makes their success even more remarkable is that the band's line-up has lost two members over the years.
"It's one of those ones where it doesn't make sense until you look back on all the work you've done," says Keisha. "Even since Amelle's joined the group (earlier this year) we've done so much stuff. If we looked back at all the stuff we've done since we began, we'd be in so much shock."
About time, then, that the girls put out that inevitable greatest hits album. Or is it? Some might say that the forthcoming Overloaded: The Singles Collection is a little premature given that Amelle only replaced the departing Mutya Buena earlier this year. Surely it would have been better to do an album with her first?
"We'd already started planning the Greatest Hits anyway," explains Keisha. "And when Mutya left we decided it was even more important, that we should do this as closure so we don't have to relive history all the time."
"And I do feel really settled already," adds Amelle. "I know what I'm doing now, and I'm just looking forward to the future really. I can't wait to get writing and recording the next album."
The Sugababes in 2006 look very different to the original band, which sprang from Keisha and Mutya's childhood friendship. London-born Keisha first spotted Mutya singing on a Michael Barrymore talent show when she was just six.
She never forgot seeing the little girl on TV because, she says, "I'd never seen a small person like me singing before". Then, three years later when her family moved to another part of London, she found herself in the same class as Mutya, and the pair quickly became friends.
Keisha began to spend more and more time at the studio with Mutya, who had begun working with another girl, Siobhan Donaghy. Before they knew it they had formed a band.
"It literally just happened," says Keisha. "No one actually got us together."
Minor success with their debut album One Touch followed, but 2001 saw much disaster with the band being dropped by London Records and Siobhan leaving amid reports of her having suffered bullying.
"I can't really be accountable for actions that I took when I was like 12 or 13 years old," says Keisha. "I mean, I have my opinions about the whole thing. I think parents, management, people like that, could have handled the situation better.
"We were really young and there was no one telling us that everybody is different and it was okay to be different. So there was a lot of things flying around that didn't need to be, and there's no real communication at that young age. I think that was our problem."
Heidi, who replaced Siobhan, joins us just as Keisha is talking, apologising to her bandmates for being late. Her almost formal apology immediately gives the sense that these are colleagues as much as (if not more than) friends.
Heidi later reveals that she has had no contact with Mutya since she left the band last Christmas.
"I was really close to her before she left," she says. "But management told us she left and that was it. There's never been a fall out, it's just been a bit awkward."
Keisha's comment is also telling when she's asked about how much she keeps in touch with her childhood friend.
"I've seen her a few times but it's just a bit of a weird thing," she says. "It's difficult because we're trying to settle in with Amelle."
The girls' obvious commitment to the band and determination to keep it moving on from the past really shows. It's notable because even after Heidi joined the stories of in-fighting continued, with Keisha and Heidi supposedly turning their attention to a new 'victim'.
"It was probably harder for the girls than me," says Heidi. "They were used to Siobhan. For me it was moving away from home and not knowing anyone down here. But I was made up that I was finally singing after trying to get into it for so many years," she laughs.
"Most of the stories about us fighting haven't been true," she adds. To be honest with you, the proof is in the pudding," says Keisha. "We're still here."
But two people have left the band.
"I know," Keisha counters, "but we still carried on. And when Mutya left there wasn't the hostility that was there when Siobhan left. But really no one knows what goes on within the band except for us."
"But nothing has really gone on," says Heidi.
"I've never seen anything," adds Amelle. "I was expecting Keisha and Heidi to be bitches," she jokes. "But there's been no fights, no nothing. I swear to God if it gets too friendly I might have to leave."
Right now the three women say they feel they have the final line-up of Sugababes. But they're also aware they've said this before. laughs Keisha.
Heidi says: "There's no point in commenting on the future. It's probably best if we just see what happens."
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Weather for Leighton Buzzard
Tuesday 22 May 2012
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