E1: R U Streetwise? Transcript

Sep 20, 2021

Ashley: Hi there. This is Ashley, a producer on the show. If you're not sure what you've walked into, I highly recommend listening to our trailer episode. I also wanted to give you a heads up that we are six women recording from different homes and different setups during a pandemic. And despite our best efforts, there are some audio glitches here and there. I hope you love the Spice Girls as much as we do, and that it doesn't bother you. Alright, let's start the show.

 

Elyse: Is the key to having this podcast take off that once we record it, we just show up at people's houses and play it really loud and then jump on their furniture. 

 

Spice Invaders Theme Song: [over trumpet music] It’s got theme song vibes. Like danceable, funky. [Laughter]. So 90s. Girl power. Spice Invaders.

 

Ashley: This is Space Invaders, an obsessive breakdown of the history of the Spice Girls and what they meant to the people who grew up with them. We are six of those kids. And while we're not experts, we have done a ton of research on the Spice Girls and we can't wait to share it with you. I'm Ashley. 

 

Cheryl: I'm Cheryl.

 

Elyse: I’m Elyse.

 

Meg: I'm Meg.

 

Sinead: I'm Sinead.

 

Steph: And I'm Steph.

 

Elyse: Let's get started, what are we talking about?

 

Sinead: So we're gonna jump right in and start where the band was formed. So the year is 1994 and a music management company posted an ad looking for streetwise, outgoing, ambitious and dedicated young women for an all girl pop act. And I have sent a picture of that ad, the same one that all of the girls would have seen. It's very, very 90s aesthetic. It's a black and white ad. Obviously it was printed. It was put I believe on posters that were pinned up places and it was also run in a bunch of sort of like industry and like acting and dancing kind of magazines where you would have classifieds. The side of it says “wanted”, and it's kind of like curled like a scroll, like a cowboy, Western kind of aesthetic. And then then has the “are you 18 to 23 with the ability to sing and dance? Are you streetwise, outgoing, ambitious, and dedicated?” It says Heart Management is a widely successful music industry management consortium, which I don't know that that was necessarily true, but it had an impact obviously on all of the young women who decided to apply. It is a very strange aesthetic considering they were trying to recruit for a girly pop band and they went with cowboy Western theme. The ad was posted by Heart Management who were in the business of developing musical talent.

 

Cheryl: So heart management is a father son team. Bob Herbert and his son Chris Herbert. Chris is about 23 and this will become his, like, first major claim to fame. Bob Herbert was pretty big in the 60s and 70s. Nothing like a breakout act. But, like, solid enough that like he can open his, Rolodex hit up a couple great songwriters, you can hit up a couple great acts. The big acts that Bob Herbert has managed are not really big acts at all. They've worked on a couple of acts together by the name of Optimistic, Worlds Apart. Bob was also instrumental in creating a band called “Bros,” which kind of follows a similar trajectory of what we're going to see to the Spice Girls, and that he trains them, and - no spoilers. And then our third character in the Heart Management team, who is a character, and I'm going to say that like willingly, is either Shick, or Chick Murphy, or Sheik Murphy.

 

Steph: It could have been Chic. My grandpa’s nickname was Chic and it was c h i c.

 

Elyse: Did your grandpa manage the Spice Girls at any point in his life? 

 

Steph: If he did he did not tell me and I would be very angry about that, that’s hot ticket information to keep from your granddaughter.

Meg: What a reveal that would be Steph if he had, oh my gosh.

 

Cheryl: So blows my mind about Mr. Murphy is he ponies up like the financial backing for this project. Like this entire, like, building a girl group project. No one can quite tell me where his money comes from. Like it's very weird. He managed a group called The Three Degrees - if you're familiar with the like (singing) “when will I see you again” from like the 70s, that like easy listening hit. He was involved in their career in like the super early days, but like, they're a one hit wonder and that's not enough money to like pony up a girl band.

 

Sinead: Okay, so Heart were the ones who were sort of initiating this. They were trying to create a new pop group that they could potentially get a record deal for. They were looking for younger women, like girls essentially. And Mel B, Mel C, Victoria and Geri all auditioned in the initial auditions. And they were picked out of the initial auditions.

 

Meg: Mel C actually went to the first audition, and she missed the second audition, the callback, even though they wanted her to come back. Her mom actually called in because she had tonsillitis and couldn't speak and couldn't come in and sing for the second audition. And they had actually gone with a girl named Leanne Morgan. However, Leanne Morgan was 23 and they told her she was too old and they replaced her with Mel C, who came back later on after they decided that Leanne was too old. And they brought her back because they liked her voice so much on the first audition.

 

Elyse: Stop it. That is horrifying. I just have a fun fact about Geri because she actually didn’t audition in the original round of auditions. She missed it because she was visiting her uncle in Spain and she got a really bad sunburn and was too embarrassed to go in. So she called them like two months later. And the only reason she called them - so, she had put the posting, like the newspaper clipping, up on her bathroom mirror. She was going through a really bad period of depression. It was right after her dad had passed away. And she’d struggled with clinical depression her entire life, so it was really dark time. And the only reason she looked at the slip again is because she watched Groundhog Day. And it inspired her to live each day to the fullest, which, I mean, I didn't think Bill Murray could leave a legacy greater than he already has. But I think getting Geri Halliwell to join the Spice Girls is definitely it. So she just called them two months late and was like, “hey, any chance are still looking?” And they said, yeah, no worries, you can be in the final 12. So she skipped all of the original auditions and says to this day, she's like, I never would have made it through if I hadn't just gone for that call.

 

: Sorry, something else super creepy that's age specific. So when Geri called in for her audition, they asked how old she was. And she said “I'm as old or as young as you want me to be. I can be a 12 year old with big boobs if you like.”

 

Ashley: And they were like, that's ambitious and streetwise, it fits the ad perfectly. Come on in.

 

Elyse: Perfect!

 

Steph: Ticks all the boxes. Jesus. I was gonna say Geriatric Spice when Leanne quit, and then the moment really passed.

 

Sinead: Well, you know three years in your 20s may as well be three decades. 

 

[Transition Sound]

 

Sinead:   The fifth Spice Girl was not yet Emma Bunton. It was actually another woman by the name of
Michelle Stephenson, who ended up practicing and training with them for a little while.

I have a quote here from Chris Herbert who said, quote, “Mel B put her head round the door and she was immediately right for the project. It was obvious why we went for her. She was confident and she's got a real presence. She was the obvious star. Melanie B's mom actually was the one who saw the ad for her in a local paper and showed it to her. She didn't need any convincing because she was already dancing professionally in Blackpool. Mel C. She's got a very good range, very strong vocals and quite diva-ish. Victoria was a very good looking girl. She represented a more sophisticated look whereas the others were a lot more pop. She probably stuck out a little bit until you put them all in the melting pot and the whole thing started jelling.”

 

Cheryl: I also love her being not cool. She sings Mein Herr at her audition. Mein Herr from Cabaret. 

 

Ashley: Oh, okay. Wow. 

 

Steph: She's posh. She's a classy gal.

 

Sinead: She definitely - she has the highest socioeconomic status, I think of all of the girls going into it, like her background.

 

Ashley: I read somewhere online that her parents were rich and she used to like get mad at her dad for dropping her off at school. She’d get bullied because she'd be dropped off in like a Bentley or something? I don't know, some fancy car.

 

Cheryl: I think she has a Rolls Royce.

 

Ashley: Yes. 

 

Cheryl: Yeah. 

 

Meg: Oh my gosh, they were rich.

 

Ashley: Yeah, and she was bullied for it, so she was like “Dad, stop it!”

 

Elyse: Kinda crazy though, apparently Geri and Victoria had met each other before, because they were both coming up in the acting scene. And they had met at an audition they both did for something called Tank Girl, which was apparently a very queer cinema production. Although she described in way less kind language because she’s a little bit of a piece of shit. But anyways they both auditioned for this, and they had to go on stage and say a little thing like about “hi, here’s my name, here’s what I like.” And Geri Halliwell pulled something out of her ass that was like, “I’m Geri and I’m a Sagittarius and here’s what I like.” And then the next girl in line just lifted her shirt up and flashed the producers. And then across her nipples leans Victoria Beckham and makes eye contact with Geri and she’s like “how the fuck are we supposed to compete with this?” And that was their little meet cute and they saw each other at the Spice Girls auditions and locked eyes and were buddies since.

 

Sinead: So the group - again, at this time it’s Mel B, Mel C, Victoria, Geri, and Michelle Stephenson - are initially named Touch. And they move into a home in Maidenhead where they begin intensive singing and dancing lessons. All these professionals were hired by Heart Management to teach them how to sing, how to dance, and how to perform. Now, the majority of these women already are professionally trained dancers. I know there’s one redheaded exception.

 

Elyse: I was just wondering if you guys wanted to hear some fun housemate things, some fun housemate tidbits that I have.

 

Sinead: Yes, absolutely.

 

Meg: Do we ever.

 

Elyse: Awesome. So this house that they were in, it was not a glammed-out girlband house. It was a little semi-detached house on a hill near a railway with a back garden full of garbage and tons of mounds of soil in a really elderly neighborhood. So it was not a super glamorous house and it was just packed to the brim with these girls. And so the room layout for the girls was Mel B and Mel C shared a room, and then Victoria and Michelle - so, proto-Baby - and then Geri had a room to herself. And they had four major house rules. The first was speak up or shut up. And that meant they had to be really direct with each other and there was no gossiping, just talk directly to each other. Don’t let boyfriends get in the way, so the first kind of inklings of Girl Power. Make decisions together. And that all expenses are shared. Which was a really practical tack-on from Victoria, who apparently was the one that was very grounded.

 

Steph: Slash, I’m not paying for everything just because I already have a lot of money.

 

Elyse: Good point.

 

Sinead: So around this time, like Elyse mentioned they’re really bonding in the house. Everything is going somewhat well. Heart Management still hasn’t asked any of the group to sign contracts. The majority of the team behind Heart comes from a time when it was rare for artists to up and leave. And it also leaves Heart with the opportunity to cut the project if they don’t think it’s gonna work out. So the girls are aware that they’re in this sort of limbo where they’re living in this house, they’re sort of having their expenses paid, they’re being trained, but there’s no clear future path. And it’s around this time that Michelle Stephenson leaves the group. According to Victoria and Mel, and I’m sure you guys might have other perspectives, she just wasn’t a good fit. I believe she also insists that she wasn’t fired, she left. Everyone else kind of describes her as just not having the same drive that the other four of them did. And this is when Emma Bunton is brought in to replace her.

 

Steph: Well and Baby, I guess we’re gonna get a little more into it, but Emma only joined after because her music teacher became the vocal coach of the girls in the spice house. And when Michelle Stephenson dropped out, her vocal teacher was like “hey, I know a girl” and got Emma to audition. So technically Emma did audition, but at the recommendation of someone who was already directly in the house. And then all the girls met her and everyone I guess got along really well.

 

Cheryl: Just to sort of quickly like, both sides this, Michelle insists that she left the group willingly, that her mother was ill, and that it was just not a fit for her. You know, maintains no hard feelings. Except in every other story coming out says otherwise. I don’t think it’s a fault thing, I think it’s entirely possible for “I have other shit going on in my life” to look like “I don’t care.” But there’s also stories where it’s like, “she got the nickname of being the sun worshiper because instead of spending her lunch hour learning a new routine, she was out suntanning.”

 

Meg: Yeah that’s the kind of vibe I got. Everything I read talks about how the five of them, like the final five or whatever you want to call them, how they were all so driven. Like this is what they had all wanted, sort of like growing up what they aspired to, a lot of them trained as dancers or singers you know? And that’s what they were all sort of imagining. And they knew they had to be single-minded, and if they believed and put in the work they truly thought it would come together. And all five of them were of the same mindset. And you know, I think they attribute a lot of what they accomplished in those first couple of years to that shared mindset. Do you guys know a date when Emma Bunton joined them? Like when did Michelle leave, Emma joined, how long had that been in the house together?

 

Sinead: I don’t think we could find firm dates, but I don’t think that Michelle was there for more than six weeks. Based on the photographs, based on the videos, and Emma is there, so it does seem very short. It’s very hard to find very clear information about Michelle Stephenson. I was shocked because I’ve been a Spice Girls fan since they were made, and I had never heard her name. I didn’t know that there was a girl before Emma. I had no idea. They clearly distanced themselves from that aspect of them being very produced.

 

Elyse: Yeah, just on the note of Michelle leaving, it’s so unfortunate. Because apparently right before she left - she was actually asked to leave by Heart - essentially, the girls in the house were getting really frustrated with her because she wasn’t being driven enough. They noticed that when they were rehearsing, she was kind of goofing off, just kind of taking it easy. And in the spirit of their speak up or shut up rule, they talked to her about it. And they were very blunt. They said listen, we don't think you're putting in the same work as us and you’re bringing us down. And apparently she totally stepped it up and got really serious about rehearsals and really got her head in the game. But it was already too late. And shortly after they had that conversation management kind of gave her the axe. 

 

Sinead: Oh, that is rough. And then she got to watch the Spice Girls get incredibly famous.

 

All: [Laughter]

 

Elyse: That’s so painful to think about. 

 

Steph: Oh God, poor woman.

 

Sinead: So if we want to continue on, I just shared a clip of them talking about living in the house together, which we could all watch at the same time. They are so young, and it's so funny talking, like they're talking about like doing chores, and like how they manage a household together as little babies. 

 

Elyse: That's so cute. 

 

Sinead: But it's really fascinating, because the Spice Girls definitely are a corporate entity, but living in this house made them into a band. And that is the really interesting thing. Like when I approached this project, it was very much like, Oh, we were like, forced to like the Spice Girls. Like it was very premeditated on the part of the record companies, which is absolutely true, but they're way more of a cohesive unit who were creative together than I ever would have given them credit for. And all the stuff in Maidenhead I think is why, because they had to live together for a long time.

 

Elyse: They’re so little.

 

Ashley: They really are. They look like teenagers. 

 

Steph: They are.

 

Sinead: Yeah, they basically are. 

 

Ashley: And Geri is the oldest, right? 

 

Elyse: Yeah. 

 

Ashley: How old was she at this time?

 

Elyse: I think she was right at the upper limit though. I think she was 22 or 23. Or a 12 year old with big boobs. It's tough to tell. Depends on the moon she was in.

 

[Transition Sound]

 

Sinead: Yeah, so basically they're living in Maidenhead, they're really bonding, Emma has joined. Apparently the chemistry with Emma and the rest of the girls was pretty instantaneous. Everyone was super excited that she was there. And they were becoming frustrated because they didn't have recording contracts. And they didn't feel like they were making any headway in the industry. At this time, Mel B remembered fondly that she and Geri would go out to clubs, and Geri would introduce them as “oh, we're Touch. We're this band.” And Geri would like have a boombox with her and just start playing their rough recordings. And this would just be at random clubs. And so Mel is very much like, she remembers Geri as being the most tenacious in terms of like, “what are we doing, we need to be doing something.” Around this time, Heart management tries to appease the girls by giving them an industry showcase. This is in December of 1994 at Nomis studios in Shepherds Bush. Heart pulls together some industry types to see them, and they’re a hit. The showcase shifts the balance of power really dramatically because people like them and are impressed by what they're doing. This starts to give them some agency and some power because people start to become interested. Like “who are these girls? There's a lot of raw talent here.” They start to feel like maybe we could do this somewhere else if Heart is gonna keep ignoring us, which is how they really felt. 

 

Meg: What is an industry showcase? Who was that for, like other producers and stuff?

 

Cheryl: Basically, Heart opens up the rolodex and says “these are the people who, if we say we have a cool act, will wanna come.” So it introduces them to songwriters, it introduces them to a lot of other record producers.

 

Sinead: The showcase is really when they see “oh, we’re being received well, and oh maybe there will be an interest in us.” So it’s around this time that they meet Richard "Biff" Stannard. And he with his writing partner Matt Rowe were kind of a big deal in the producing/songwriting world. Based on that showcase, Biff agreed to work with them. So he said, quote: “More than anything, they just made me laugh. I couldn't believe I'd walked into that situation. You didn't care if they were in time with the dance steps or whether one was overweight or one wasn't as good as the others. It was something more. It made you feel happy, like great pop records.”

 

All: [Incredulous laughter]

 

Elyse: Whoa whoa whoa, 

 

Steph: Who was overweight?

 

Elyse: Wait, what?

 

Sinead: Literally none of them were overweight. Just to be clear, they were all very thin.

 

Elyse: That's absurd! Like as if normally if you walked into - well, this is the 90s so of course this is true - but in the 90s it's like if you walked into a room with a few women in it, and one of them wasn't real thin, it's like, “oh, god, how am I supposed to look at them?” It's like, but their music was so good, he overcame that phobia. I feel like Geri must have been in at least one tabloid.

 

Cheryl: Years later, Rolling Stone asked them all “what's the worst thing you've ever heard about yourself from a tabloid?” And I think what Geri actually said: “Someone called me Pudge Spice.” And I'm like, first of all, that's just mean. And second of all, like really? 

 

Sinead: And it's definitely not a coincidence that multiple of them had pretty significant eating disorder issues, which is something I'm sure we will come to again and again, because it was the 90s and everything was about thinness and hating women. 

 

Elyse: Sure glad that's all changed.

 

All: [Laughter]

 

Meg: How lucky we are.

 

Sinead:   We've made so much progress in the last 25 years, what am I thinking?

 

[Transition Sound]

Sinead:    So this, this producer/songwriter who was a big deal really liked them. And so they began writing singles for the Spice album together starting in January 1995. By early 1995 the girls had written songs like Wannabe and 2 Become 1. They also worked on a song called Feed Your Love, which didn't end up on any of the records because it's a little bit rude for the target audience. Do you want to talk about that Cheryl? 

 

Cheryl: I wish I could answer the question as to why it was rude because I can't find the answer and it's driving me nuts. 

 

Elyse: Oh, is it because women were talking about feeding? Could people not handle it?

 

All: [Laughter]

 

Sinead: They acknowledged that they needed to eat food? They should kill themselves.

 

All: [Laughter] 

 

Ashley & Elyse: That's so rude.

 

Meg: Rude. I read that some of the early songwriters and stuff they were like made to work with really wanted to showcase one of them and have the others as like backup and everything. But they really wanted to all have their own piece in it. And it's a five way split and everything. So when they started writing these songs, like that was their choice, right? Like the ones that actually came out on the album because they're all in there, especially the early ones. 

 

Elyse: Yeah, apparently it was like a super team effort. So apparently Wannabe took 20 minutes to write, which is mindblowing to me. And Mel B was amazing at little catchphrases. So like “zigazig ha,” that's Mel B for sure. And then Mel C was all about the harmonies. Emma was for - these are Geri Halliwell’s words - “Emma was for sweet melodies and ballads.” And then Victoria suggested - I’m using air quotes - suggested a chant here and there. So maybe less valuable on the songwriting front.

 

All: [Laughter]

 

Steph: So I do have a bit of a bombshell actually. Emma did an interview with The Guardian in 2019. And this was also previously mentioned by Geri. Posh was not singing in Wannabe on the recording. 

 

Ashley: At all?

 

Steph: At all.

 

Cheryl: She wasn't there.

 

Meg: Why?

 

Steph: She wasn’t there. She was at a wedding according to Emma. In Geri’s interview, she said she was shopping or something, I don't know if that has anything to do with the relationships that evolved after Wannabe, after the beginning. But yeah, Posh was not in Wannabe. 

 

Elyse: I wonder if they later like layered on vocals for her to do live. Or if she just lip synced every performance? 

 

Cheryl: She provides like, backing vocals for that track. And she eventually gets very on the like “I'm really not a fan of Wannabe” train for that reason. This is also something that she feels later on like really colors people's experiences of her in the Spice Girls. She's very talented, she's very much like a pop singer. But it's also the first track that gets released. And you could really tell in the Wannabe video that she just doesn't have her own verse like the other songs. 

 

Sinead: I think starting the songwriting process for them was once again another sort of proof that even though they had been sort of made by a company, they actually really did have their own identity as a band. They were very involved in the music writing. There were definitely producers who underestimated them or tried to control the sound that they wanted, and they just wouldn't work with them anymore. They had a really strong idea of what they wanted their musical identity to be, which again I just think it's interesting because it really goes against my assumption, which was that they were sort of told what to do. And they certainly were in some ways, for sure. But yeah, they had way more direction with their music than I anticipated. So as we mentioned before, the girls were really frustrated they didn't have a contract. And they kind of felt like they were being jerked around.

Finally, in early ‘95, around when they're writing all these songs for Spice, Heart offers them a contract. Victoria’s dad is both a lawyer and had been in bands and projects when he was younger. He looked over the contract and told them that it wasn't fair and it wasn't a good contract, which is a very common 90s slash always experience for women in music, it seems like. Probably men too, I just don't know. And so they turned down this contract offer. And this led them in March of 1995 to fleeing the Maidenhead home. Like quite literally I think they were putting their belongings in like garbage bags, and leaving as quickly as possible under the cover of darkness, literally hoping to avoid a conflict. And the other thing that they did is they stole their master recordings. We have looked into how they did this, it's very unclear, they must have just had the copies of them, like I'm not really sure. But they stole them and left because they had already written quite a lot of music and recorded quite a lot. So they wanted to take it with them on their musical adventures.

 

Megan: All I can think of when you say master recordings is the whole Taylor Swift thing, which I'm so outside of celebrity culture, I don't even really know what's going on. But that's what I think of and like 20 years later, women in music are still having these issues. So did Heart have the rights to those recordings, like legally?

 

Sinead: Heart technically owned the Spice Girls. Well, at the time, it was called Touch, Heart owned Touch, right? Like the entity.

 

Cheryl: But there's no contract. And when you write music, the publishing rights go to the songwriters and the producer of the song. So technically, the rights belong to the Spice Girls as an entity, and Matt and Biff, who I will henceforth call Biff all the time. So yeah, Heart without a contract has no standing or does not have a lot of recourse in this. 

 

Megan: Okay, so there's no like legal battle after the fact or anything.

 

Sinead: There is a settlement down the road. Which Heart leaves from satisfied enough, I guess, because there's not really drama after that. So basically, the girls flee the house in the middle of the night. The week after stealing their masters, they met with a songwriter named Elliott Kennedy. This meeting had actually been arranged while they were still being managed by Heart, and it was arranged personally by the Herbert father son duo. Mel B and Geri didn't even have an address for Kennedy's place, so they looked through the phonebook for a Kennedy in Sheffield, and found him on the third try. So, very 90s.

At this point, the girls are on their own. Heart is no longer paying for anything. And so the five of them took out all of the cash they had in their names to give to Kennedy as a payment because they really wanted to work with him. The morning that Kennedy is supposed to see them, he gets a call from Heart Management with some bullshit about the girls being sick and trying to delay the appointment for a week. What Heart doesn't know is that the girls are actually already at Kennedy’s studio when they call. So when Heart realizes that he's already working with them, they threaten him and say that they're going to pull one of his acts from working with him as like retribution for working with them because they had just fled. But Kennedy decided he'd already really liked the girls, and he told Heart to take it up with his management. And it doesn't seem like anything really came of that. But he was very influential.

 

Megan: You could not write that better on a sitcom. Like what a cringe moment, right?

 

Sinead: It's so sad that that wasn't a scene in Spice World. There are a bunch of actual things that happened to them, especially in this time where their position was very precarious. But I don't understand why they were not scenes in Spice World because they would have been better than some of the scenes in Spice World.

 

Elyse: I think some of them might have been loosely inspired because I was reading about it and they did like a ton of hustling to try to find new management and new producers and all that jazz. And they would routinely show up at people's places and then they would like, I forget what Geri calls it, but it's like, they would like “spice them up” or something? Basically they would like get them all excited and they would start singing and like jump on their dining room tables and like tear the place up and just be super high energy. Which reminds me so much of the pizza parlor scene in Spice World.

 

Steph: Yeah when they’re at Brian's cafe.

 

Elyse: Yeah, that's it. Yeah. So I feel like, I don't know, same kind of vibe.

 

Sinead: This is like one of the most sort of touch-and-go moments for the girls because they're broke. They have no management. They're essentially crashing on the floor of the songwriter Kennedy. They have no backing, they have no contract, like they really believe in what they're doing. But at this point in time, there is no guarantee of their success and they've literally emptied their life savings to give to this one guy.

 

Elyse: I really like the idea of when they like withdraw all of their life savings and then hand them over. I love the idea of it being just like a stack of crisp hundreds from Victoria and then some like crumpled change from the rest and then just like a Chupa Chup on top.

 

All: [Laughter]

 

Ashley: And then like one of them’s just holding these massive, like masters. I'm just picturing these - I don't even know what they look like, but - when you were talking about Taylor Swift before I was like, that's the difference is cuz they had a physical thing that they could literally take.

 

Steph: Yeah, and T Swift was digital. with at all. 

 

Ashley: Yeah, she's just like, dammit, I can't hack their server. And meanwhile, these girls are throwing these big, I don't know, I'm picturing like old filmstrips, that's probably not what they look like, but they're throwing them in garbage bags.

 

Elyse: Or like vinyls.

 

Ashley: Yeah, and like, Santa Clausing it across town like, so much easier for them.

 

Meg: On the tube.

 

Ashley: Yeah on the tube, exactly.

 

Elyse: Really important question: So you're the Spice Girls, you're fleeing the house, and you can bring one item each. What do you think each Spice Girl is grabbing to flee in the dark of night? 

 

Steph: Will like they have to carry it in their hands? Cuz like Baby obviously as a Chupa Chup in her mouth. 

 

Elyse: Well she's gonna give that to Elliot Kennedy as payment, so it doesn't count. That’s collateral.

 

Meg: Mel C then - totally running shoes. However, she is sort of like a quiet family person. So I'd say like a family photo and actuality.

 

Elyse: Cute!

 

Sinead: Mel B by stereotypes, obviously something animal printed or vaguely tribal slash African. I'm doing bunny hooks with my hands right now. Um, in actuality, probably like a really nice top for going out, because she loves to dance and she loved to party at that age. 

 

Ashley: Victoria is like, little back dress, obviously, at least in my mind.

 

Cheryl: To me, she takes two things. One is a key to her parents’ house because she deals with a lot of homesickness during this time. And secondly, I think she's bringing actually the most expensive pair of shoes she has, because A) like her dad, correction here, her dad’s not a lawyer her dad actually runs like a, like an electronics fitting business, which is wild to me. Um, and so she's smart enough business wise to be like, I'm taking my most expensive shoes, possibly something with red soles, so that she can be like I'm trading these really fancy shoes for what we need.

 

Ashley: Alright, Geri, we didn't talk about Geri.

 

Elyse: I know, I think Geri would bring -

 

Sinead: A picture of Margaret Thatcher.

 

All: [Laughter]

 

Elyse: Literally I was gonna say that! She would bring a framed photo of Margaret Thatcher so that in certain lighting, she could also use it as a mirror. And that really covers her top two interests.

 

Steph: Hot take.

 

[Transition Sound]

 

Sinead: At this time, they also wrote Love Thing. And they also wrote Say You’ll Be There.

 

Meg: I read when they were writing music, they would like make the entire dance routine and plan the music video like while they were writing. So here's a group with like, no money, no management, like nothing like that just writing their songs but still like making dance routines as if they're going to go on a tour like they truly believed it, making like music video ideas, as if they were going to have the money to make music videos. They were truly remarkable out on the street without representation and still full belief that they had star power. 

 

Elyse: So real.

 

Sinead: In keeping with this weird, precarious time they're in, in May of 1985 they get connected with another songwriting duo who had seen or had been connected in some way to the 1994 showcase that Heart had done with industry. They're called Absolute. It's made up of Paul Wilson and Andy Watkins. Absolute was more focused on hip hop and on Black music, and they were initially really surprised by how poppy the Spice Girls were, and were like, this is not really our vibe. It didn't work at first, they would play something and it just didn't come out right. However, the day that Absolute came into the studio, basically having given up, they ended up writing Who Do You Think You Are together, which is a very popular song. The girls said they wanted something fun and uptempo and it kind of turned out disco.

Andy Watkins from Absolute had to say, quote: “They did what they did. They knew what they wanted to write about right from day one. You could not force your musical ideas upon them. If they didn't want to say it or sing it, they just wouldn't. We had no control over what they did or what they wanted to say. We just hemmed it in and tried to make songs out of it. And that's what we did.”

With this duo they'd ended up writing Who Do You Think You Are, Something Kinda Funny, Last Time Lover, and Naked. It was because of this, Absolute had a publishing contract with a music manager named Simon Fuller. When Something Kinda Funny was recorded, the duo passed the tape along to Fuller. So at this time Spice Girls still don't have a manager, they don't have a contract, they don't have anything, but this tape of theirs has been passed on to Simon Fuller.

In their first meeting with Simon Fuller, he said quote: “I think you're fabulous. With or without me, you girls are going to make it. But if you tell me where you want to go, I will try to take you there. You tell me to stop and I'll stop.

 

Meg: Consent!

 

Elyse: [Laughter]

Sinead: Basically, yeah. Very significant because he was about to become their manager. At this time, they were auditioning for industry execs quite frequently - as often as they could. It was very choreographed, especially on the part of Geri. Geri definitely emerged as like the most enthusiastic slash like organized leader of the five of them. She was very sure that they had something special, and she was very eager to sell the group whenever she could to whoever she could.

One of her schemes had all five of them waiting in a car park for hours because she wanted them to meet Simon Cowell to see if he'd manage them. Who, at the time, he was like pretty well known, obviously he’s not as famous as he ended up being. They basically waited in the carpark with their boombox. When he came up to his car, they turned their boombox on and started having an impromptu audition where they were like doing their choreography, and singing and dancing. And he basically was like, no.

 

All: [Laughter]

 

Ashley: Just picture it.

 

Elyse: I love that he - he fucked up so hard. 

 

Steph: What an idiot.

 

Elyse: I love that he lost.

 

Meg: He probably wouldn't admit it, but he must kick himself over that. Like, today.

 

Ashley: : Oh my god.

 

Steph: Yeah, he must.

 

Elyse: Yeah he’d have to.

 

Cheryl: He actually does.

 

Elyse: He and Michelle Stevens are just commiserating together.

 

Ashley: And Heart Hanagement. 

 

Elyse: And Heart Management.

 

Sinead: They rejected a long list of managers including people who managed Eternal and Dina Carroll and the manager of Culture Club, as well as Rob Dickens, who is the chairman of Warner Music in the UK.
Geri said at the time, “it was strange having so much power. We had no recording contract or performing background, yet we were turning these heavyweight managers down.”

Geri was very specific. She wanted a manager with international experience, a large enough operation to devote one person solely to the group, someone who had experience launching female acts, and a general comfort with women. And so this is what intersects with when Simon Fuller receives the Something Kinda Funny tape and he gives the group a call. Simon Fuller agreed to become their manager, and they were happy, they wanted him. Around this time, Geri actually came up with the name The Spice Girls, and they stopped using the name Touch. They wanted to initially just be called Spice, but apparently there was an American rapper already using the name. It doesn't seem like there's anything more significant. I don't know if any of you found anything more significant about the name.

 

Elyse: Only that yeah, so like Geri, I was gonna say claims to have made it up. But if it corroborates with what you read, I think Geri made it up. She was apparently in an aerobics class, which is where she says she gets all of her best ideas. And she's like, we need something cuz we're all different, but we go together, like spices. And so she came up with the name Spice. And then they used it for a little bit informally, not like in performance or anything. But just in the industry they were known as Spice. And then it was actually just people who were working with them that consistently tacked on “girls.” So they’d say like, “oh, those Spice girls are coming.” And then “girls” kind of got inherited into that name. But I do have a couple of names that could have been if you guys want to hear those.

 

Steph: Obviously.

 

Sinead: Yes.

 

Elyse: Okay, so. We almost grew up with: Take Five, High Five, Plus Five, or my personal favorite, Five Alive.

 

All: [Laughter]

 

Steph: I mean, we did grow up with Five Alive.

 

Sinead: We did grow up with Five Alive. 

 

Cheryl: I think this is also funny because like Bob Herbert is kind of obsessed with the idea of having five in the group. Five letters in the name becomes a thing later on too, but like part of the reason he insists on having five is actually like that way if there's ever a fight, there's a bigger group and a smaller group. So like a group of four, you split into two and then they go at each other's throats. Whereas if you have a group of five, you can always be like, “it's democratic, because there's three of you, and just two”.

 

Ashley: You mean like Bob from Heart Management?

 

Cheryl: Yeah.

 

Sinead: This is a perfect segue because it's when they want to sign with Simon Fuller, that Heart Management has to be paid out because they have invested a significant amount of money into the five of them. And I think they basically like owned the entity, right Cheryl? Something like that. So they're paid all the money they were spent on the group plus a lump sum on top. Best public estimates we could find was they were paid around 50,000 pounds for the venture, which, not an insignificant amount of money but considering that they netted many hundreds of millions of pounds, if not a billion pounds - it's possible in 2021 numbers.

 

Cheryl: I think that that's low, just like generally, like I think it's just like 50,000 is like what we feel comfortable making public.

 

Sinead: Totally. So yeah, it was kind of interesting.

Fuller reflected later, quote: “My first impression of them when they bounded into my office was of an abundant energy and optimism that could not be ignored. Their naivete was their strength, that they feared nothing and challenge everything. Self-doubt was a luxury that they refused to allow themselves.”
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Ashley Newton, who was the head of artists and repertoire at Virgin Records said, quote: “You had in Simon Fuller the stability of experienced intelligent management. Someone who came from an a&r background with a company that also represented producers, writers, mixers, and so forth. You had the girls themselves, who even at the embryonic stage had these very distinct individual roles, both in looks and attitude. And you had three amazing demos which they had performed in the office with all this funny, sexy choreography.”

And so yeah, I think that is why they ended up with Simon Fuller, and they ended up in a situation where there were multiple studios competing for a record deal with them. Virgin was not actually their first choice. They hadn't had a large pop act for a really long time. And to prove to the girls that Virgin had to know-how and the commitment, they actually sent them to the US before the record deal was even signed, because they wanted to say, look, we're the big guys, we will take care of you. The day that the girls ended up signing a five record deal with Virgin, they, the girls sent five sex dolls, who looked just like them in the limo to the signing celebration, which scared the shit out of the executives who were worried that the girls would bail on the signing. The sex dolls ended up in the canal behind the Virgin offices when the girls actually arrived to sign.

 

Ashley: Ended up in the canal? [Laughter]

 

Sinead: It's unclear who threw them into the canal. But yes, there were five sex dolls. 

 

Elyse: Why did they have sex dolls of themselves before they were famous? 

 

Sinead:   It's that confidence. 

 

Meg: Are we talking inflatable or like the realistic ones?

 

Steph: They didn't have the budget for good ones. 

 

Sinead: I don't think the good ones existed then. Did they? That's a whole other topic.

 

Meg: How much would those be worth today, if someone had them?

 

Ashley: Oh my god.

 

Elyse: Oh my god, infinite.

 

Steph: Oh, millions. 

 

Ashley I bet you someone does. Some guy who was like 13 or something found these and he got a big fishing net. And he was like, “what a fuckin deal!” And he just fished them out, and they're just sitting all moldy in his mom's basement to this day. 

 

Cheryl: Oh I love that.

 

Steph: In a nice Rubbermaid bin.

 

Ashley: It's wild that it's a standard that you get a five record deal, like five records? Like that does not happen anymore, that's for sure. There's no way that anybody has that amount of confidence in any musical acts at this point. 

 

Steph: A lot of it now is like 360, or like multi rights deals. So instead of just getting money off of an album, because obviously now, with touring and merch and all that stuff, you want to make money off of all of the merch and songwriting, not just the actual album itself. I guess record deals now are probably screwing over people more, but it's more of like, all encompassing about what the artist is producing, not just the record. 

 

Cheryl: This is also a lot of the ways that they changed the game. They're one of the first groups who make sure that they're on like the publishing deal in there for like the songwriting side of things, not just the performing side, so that they get paid out each time the song is licensed, not just when it's performed. They, I mean, the whole sponsorship deal is just batshit. They are one of the first pop groups to be credited as a group when they songwrite, not as individuals. So like, you know how when you like, talk to hardcore Beatles fans, they’re like, “oh, this is a Ringo song.” There is no like Halliwell song, there is just a Spice Girls song, and therefore they're all paid out equally when that song is performed or licensed as well. And they're all credited equally. 

 

Sinead: So that pretty much brings us to the end of the first sort of installment of our obsessive Spice Girl history. In July 1995 they signed that five record deal with Virgin, and they got an advance of about a million pounds, which seems like so little money now, but I am sure for all of them was amazing.

 

Ashley: A million split five ways? 

 

Sinead: I think so yes.

 

Ashley: Hmm.

 

Meg: What's a million pounds in like today Canadian dollars? Anyone know?

 

Ashley: It looks like in 1994 it was $2.11 for one pound to almost exactly double, a little bit over double.

 

[Transition Sound]

 

Sinead: Next time we're going to talk about the beginning of their crazy ascent to fame. They went from being the sort of nameless group to being the most famous girl group in the world - at least the English speaking world. And yeah, there's a lot to come in their insane history.

 

Meg: So excited.

 

Elyse: So exciting, yeah.

 

Steph: Can’t wait.

 

Ashley: Alright, that's the end of today's episode. Thank you so much for listening to Spice Invaders. To see any visuals we talked about in this episode, as well as bonus content, be sure to follow us on Instagram at @SpiceInvaderspod. Spice Invaders is hosted by Sinead O'Brien, Cheryl Stone, Elyse Maxwell, Stephanie Smith, and Megan Arppe Robertson. It's researched and written by Sinead O'Brien and Cheryl Stone, and produced and edited by me, Ashley McDonough.

 

Transcript created by Kevin Gontovnick