The grand queens of British girl groups, with more charting hits than even the Spice Girls, Bananarama remain in the hearts of British pop fans. Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward talk to Carl Marsh.
How did a couple of punk rockers end up as a girl group singing on the Fun Boy Three song It Ain’t What You Do (It’s The Way That You Do It)?
Sara: Keren and I were at school when punk happened. We were about 13 or 14, and I think we adopted this ‘do it yourself’ attitude because we loved The Slits and they were a girl band, and they did it themselves. We took that attitude with us, even though Bananarama didn’t start until 1981.
Keren and I had met Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols in a club, and we were living in a hostel at the time in London. When he found out that they were closing the hostel, he said that he had this room above the rehearsal room that the Sex Pistols used to use and that we could drag some mattresses in there and just sleep on the floor. It really was a hovel, there was no hot water and no bathroom, it was only Malcolm McLaren’s office and this Pistols rehearsal room. Keren and I loved it because we were little punks at school, so it just felt great. It had John Lydon’s drawings all over the wall of Sid and Nancy, it had Sid’s bondage trousers in the cupboard. It was just amazing to two teenage girls.
Keren: Now I think it’s a heritage site and our names are on the wall with the Pistols, which is classic. We wrote them ourselves, obviously!
Was Paul Cook the most significant influence, career-wise, on yourselves?
Keren: Had we not met him it might have been a very different beginning, in that the Fun Boy Three record came from that demo that we made with Paul – so if Sara and I hadn’t met Paul, then I don’t know. We did do backing vocals with other people, but Paul had the connections because he had been in the music business. He helped us record a demo, which is something we wouldn’t have had a clue how to do or had the opportunity, so he was instrumental in actually getting us off the starting blocks.
Your first album was a bit more fun while the second album became a bit more serious. Whose decision was that?
Sara: It was just a sexist business. I think they just saw three girls with backcombed hair and lipgloss, thought “oh, just a few bimbos,” and didn’t want to take us seriously. Obviously, we were new to the music industry but we wanted to write all our own music, and we did! And we did dress ourselves, we didn’t have stylists or anybody telling us what to do.
So in that respect, it was quite hard for us to be taken seriously because we were very young girls. That was probably a reaction as to why we were going to write about politics. At the end of the day, you can still have those views, but you don’t necessarily have to put them into songs and be all aggressive about it.
Would you say your music through your career has evolved?
Keren: I think so – we went from a kind of quite alternative music with Cruel Summer and the first few albums, then went very pop with Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Then Keren and I, as a duo, did Pop Life with Youth [producer Martin Glover, also of Killing Joke], which was guitar, drum and bass and had all these new samples that were coming in, so that was very different.
And then we did Drama [in 2005] with Murlyn, who were huge Swedish music producers. The only thing the albums have all got in common, really, is that they are by us and we like pop. We’ve always chosen the direction of who we work with.
Sara: And because we’re not a manufactured band, we’re the masters of our own destiny. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. We’ve had a really long career, and it’s had ups and downs, but fortunately for us, we’ve just had a great Top 30 hit with our current album In Stereo. We couldn’t be more thrilled about that.
Don’t you now own your own record label?
Keren: Yes – we’ve done it all ourselves, which is why we are so thrilled as this is something that we couldn’t even have contemplated in the past, and I don’t think it was necessarily done in the past. It was something that we decided to do.
Sara: I think a lot of people do it now, especially if you have been around for a long time. You know how it works and if you’ve got a team of people around you that can use for the media side of things – it’s quite easy to do really.
Anything that any of you regret over the last 35 years?
Keren: No, not really. Everything is a learning curve and nobody can be massively popular and at the top of your game forever. It’s a job, it’s a career but it’s also creative and great fun. We are both very, very fortunate that we can still make a living out of something that we absolutely love.
Has there ever been a moment when you have thought about giving it all up?
Keren: The odd moment, say in the 1990s. The 1980s were just so mental so, perhaps not giving it up exactly, but certainly having to take a break. But I couldn’t love it any more now. If I had to say my favourite years then they would have to be the last 10 years, which sounds really strange but it’s been the point where we, ironically, know exactly what we are doing and what we’re good at.
I think I had insecurities in the 80s when we didn’t develop our live performances. Now it is a combination of the songwriting and the live stuff, which is what I have wanted from the very beginning. And it is in our own hands completely, which is how we like it.
Sara: No, never really. I could weather the storm. When it doesn’t work, it is quite depressing but when you look back at it, you realise that’s how life works. It’s not one massive high all the time, so it is only to be expected. And like Keren says, the last 10 years or so where we’ve been touring, I’ve absolutely loved it. The band are our friends and we just go all over the world with them. It’s great fun.
Bananarama headline Feels Like Summer, Sophia Gardens, Cardiff, Sat 20 July. Tickets: £49.50/£24.75 kids/free under-5s. Info: www.orchardlive.com