Ooh! What a Lovely Pair Our Story (11 page)

Don’t get us wrong: we knew our fans were just girls of a certain age who get obsessed with pop stars, and we knew they were seeing other boy bands behind our back, but it still felt good.

Finally, after more roadshows and more old people’s homes, ‘Tonight I’m Free
’
was released. We couldn’t have been more excited. We’d had such an amazing reaction at all the roadshows that we just knew the single would do well; it was simply a question of
how
well. That Sunday, we both sat down in our front rooms to listen to Mark Goodier doing the Top 40 on Radio 1. He counted down the first ten places from 40 to 30: no sign of it, which meant our debut single had made the Top 30 – brilliant.

Then they ran down the next ten, and we still weren’t mentioned, which meant it would be in the Top 20 – even better.

Then another ten went by, and still no PJ and Duncan, which meant our first ever release had made the Top 10. We were stunned: this couldn’t be happening.

It turned out we were right:

It wasn’t happening.

We hadn’t even made the Top 40 – ‘Tonight I’m Free’ went straight in at number sixty-two.

We were devastated.

I sat at home that Christmas and watched the
Smash Hits
Poll Winners Party on TV. I think our invite had got lost in the post. Take That won everything that year, and you certainly couldn’t imagine them going to college, running for the bus or touring old people’s homes.

After just one single, it seemed like our career could be over – and the reality of becoming successful pop stars seemed further away than ever.

Chapter 9

With our careers in the music industry hanging in the balance, this was a time for calm reflection and a chance to consider the future. Whatever happened, we were still on the B-Tech in Performing Arts. If the music didn’t work out, that could provide us with a route back into acting, so getting that qualification was still absolutely vital. Bearing that in mind, I made a decision.

I left college immediately.

The tour of the old people’s homes had pushed me over the edge, and I decided college just wasn’t for me. Fortunately, at the same time, something else came along. Telstar, who clearly weren’t taking any notice of our record sales, decided they wanted us to record a second single.

They’d seen the reaction we’d been getting at the road-shows, and they thought that, with the right track and enough promotion, we still had a chance of having a hit. With any luck, we might even crack the Top 60.

So, we recorded our second single. The deal was exactly the same as the first one: one single, without a commitment from them to release any more of our material. The song was called ‘Why Me? (Is it justified?)
’
and, as you can see, like Bryan Adams’ ‘Everything I Do (I do it for you)’ and a lot of
good
pop songs, part of the title was in brackets. Although
‘
Is it justified?’ may just have been what Telstar’s accountants said after seeing the sales of our first single.

After we finished recording it, we set off on another whirlwind promotional tour. When you’re a pop star, that’s the only kind of promotional tour you do: it’s quick, and it destroys everything in its path.

I was still going to college. I didn’t have the same carefree attitude as Dec. He’s always been a bit more impulsive than me, and I suppose I was conscious of still needing something to fall back on, especially after my career as a paperboy hadn’t worked. And a part of me enjoyed student life, it was different from school. Everyone was there because they wanted to be – well, everyone apart from Dec, who wasn’t there because he didn’t want to be – and there was no teasing because I’d been on the telly.

After shining as the man with a cabbage on a dog lead, it was soon time for my next big role, the lawyer in Bertolt Brecht’s
The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
In case you’re not familiar with that play, it’s an example of Brecht’s epic theatre and is a parable about a girl who steals a baby but becomes a better mother than its natural parents.

At least, that’s what it says on Wikipedia. I can’t remember a thing about it.

At the same time as rehearsing for the play, I’d be off doing promotion for ‘Why Me?’ in the evenings. I must be the only performer in history to combine a Bertolt Brecht play with the Just 17 roadshow.

When it came to opening night, I was ready for my debut as a serious stage actor, and Dec even came to see me in it.

It was awful, absolutely bloody awful.

He’s right, it was.

I was joined in the audience by Matthew Robinson, the producer from
Byker Grove
, a man who knew all about drama, stage acting and great playwrights.

I never did find out – what did he make of it?

He left at the interval.

I can’t blame him, I didn’t enjoy it much either. I almost felt nostalgic for the heady days of being the coroner of the Munchkin City. I caught Dec’s eye during the performance, and I could see he was thinking, ‘You poor sod.’

Actually, I was thinking, ‘Where’s Matthew gone?’, and ‘How long does this drivel last?’, but I did feel sorry for Ant.

Anyway, not long after that I decided to leave the course as well –
The Caucasian Chalk Circle
convinced me that college wasn’t my cup of tea. Looking back, I probably should’ve gone when Dec did.

Too right you should have, then I never would have had to sit through that bloody play. I’ll never get those two hours back…

As soon as we really started on the music, we realized life was about to go one of two ways: we’d either end up on
Top of the Pops,
or the dole. So we started working. Hard. As well as the roadshows, we started performing at under-18s discos. Back then, they were a popular way to promote a new band, and they’d always be held at a local nightclub with sticky floors and the smell of stale smoke. I think it was actually a part of the contract. When it came to getting changed and preparing for the gig, we’d always enjoy the same lavish backstage facilities: the manager’s office or the staff toilet.

These discos provided our first taste of the kind of extreme reactions we provoked from any lads who’d happen to be in the audience. And by ‘extreme’, I mean extremely hostile and aggressive. We’d take to the dance-floor – there wasn’t even a stage – and perform our extensive back catalogue of two songs, then the teenage girls there would start screaming and shouting our names. With the lads, though, it was very different. They tended to show their appreciation by throwing ice cubes or ashtrays at us, and if they couldn’t find anything to throw, they’d just spit at us. It happened every night without fail and there was nothing you could do about it – if someone spat at you, you’d just have to swallow it.

Not literally, that would be disgusting.

We did have to put up with it, though, and in a way, we could see where they were coming from. They were teenage boys who’d been dragged along to this disco to watch their girlfriends scream at these two jokers from
Byker Grove
. It wouldn’t have put me in a good mood either.

Undeterred, we threw ourselves into life on the road, something we’d become very familiar with over the next few years. We had a driver who would ferry us from place to place and, for a while, we seemed to live in a non-stop cycle of motorway service stations, Travelodges and Ginsters pasties. We were living the life of an HGV driver, but stopping to get spat on once or twice a day.

After each gig, we’d go back into the manager’s office, wipe the saliva off our clothes, check for ice cube- and ashtray-based bruises and get changed. Then our driver would head off towards the following night’s venue. We’d drive halfway there that night and then stop at a Travelodge.

Naturally, there would always be two rooms booked – one for the driver and one for us two to share. Yes, we had to share – every night we’d toss a coin to see who got the bed and who got the fold-out sofa – the standard of our accommodation gave us another indication of how much faith the record company had in us. I sometimes thought we would have been better off getting a job as drivers for a boy band ourselves: at least that way we’d have got our own rooms.

All the time we were doing the discos, we were chasing the Holy Grail for all pop stars, something so special, so powerful, so amazing that we were desperate to do it – an appearance at the Radio 1 Roadshow. Never mind
TV Hits
or
Fast Forward
magazine, Radio 1 was the big one. We knew if we could get on the bill, our record would be played on national radio to millions of listeners, which would result in our record sales going up, which would hopefully persuade Telstar to let us record a third single.

As is normal practice in the music industry, the record company employed a plugging company. Where Telstar’s job would be to choose tracks for us, organize contracts and decide on releases, the plugger’s job was simple – get people to hear our records. Sounds simple but, depending on the record, it can be very difficult. Within the plugging company, you’d have different people for what, back then, were the three main ways to get your music heard – TV, radio and magazines.

Matt Connolly, our radio plugger, did some serious persuasion and managed to pull off an almighty coup, a spot at the Radio 1 Roadshow in
Glasgow. I don’t know how he did it – maybe he had some compromising pictures of the head of Radio 1 – but he did it, and that was all that mattered. This was a big moment. It really felt like the start of something. Things were about to change and, if we played our cards right, we could even end up with the one thing we’d always dreamed of: our own rooms at the Travelodge.

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.