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The Spice Girls have wowed audiences everywhere during their spectacular career - and they're not about to stop now! Currently touring the UK and featuring material that will appear on their new album (due for release later in 2000), the girls are having as much fun during their gigs as the thousands of fans who are watching their idols. In this TV WEEK interview, all four Spice Girls reveal their feelings about being back on stage, their plans for the rest of 2000 and the changes they have experienced in their personal lives. And Victoria, at last, talks about rumors in the press that she's anorexic. TV WEEK: You seem to all be having fun on your tour, and enjoying the chance to perform for your fans again. MEL C: We were actually really nervous at the start, because we haven't been on stage together for such a long time. We were all shaking. VICTORIA: Initially, I was so nervous that my knees were shaking. I'd have these really high heels on. Everybody is waiting for me to collapse anyway because they think that I'm anorexic, but it was just purely nerves. I was thinking, 'If I fall over, then all the press are going to write that I'm anorexic'. EMMA: We really want to make sure that everybody enjoys the show. It [the reaction] has been really nice, because we just didn't know how people were going to react. TV WEEK: Have you hurt yourselves at all on the stage during the tour so far? MEL G: Yeah, I tried to get this guy on stage once, and I banged by leg in the process. I shouldn't have even got him up - he was telling me that I should bring his girlfriend up, but I'm not going to sing a love song to a girl! He was really bad. I put his hands around my waist and he wouldn't hold on to me. I had to pick his fingers apart for him to hold onto me! EMMA: He's probably got one of those girlfriends who was sitting there seething! MEL G: I'm a married woman - I'm not going to do anything! One of them, who I pulled up on stage at our concert in Manchester, was this big guy with a bald head. At the end of it, I said thank you to him and he said, 'You are the only woman in the world who could turn me heterosexual!'. EMMA: I've got a huge blister. You know what it's like when you get a blister and you have to dance on it? It's agony. MEL G: I feel sick too.... EMMA: That's because you eat a huge dinner before you go on stage. She eats a huge pie and mash! (Mel G's phone rings) MEL G: That's the babysitter. Jim [husband Jimmy Gulzar, from whom Mel separated on New Year's Eve with after a series of rows over the festive season] is ill and she wants to leave because the baby's fast asleep. I think Jim's got flu or something like that. EMMA: Men are always worse when they're ill! Women just get on with it. TV WEEK: Victoria, you still look so moody during concerts. Don't you enjoy it? VICTORIA: No, it's not that. I have to pretend to be cool, and I find it really hard to look so miserable! I look really bored, but the fans seem to love it. Everyone else is working really hard, running about and kicking and things - and there I am, just standing there and not doing any work! EMMA: We all have our own jokes on stage, so it makes it really good fun for us four. TV WEEK: Mel C, you're still the only one of the Spice Girls wearing trainers. Everyone else is in high heels. MEL C: Well, high heels do make your legs look good, but wearing trainers is so much more comfortable. TV WEEK: What do you all wear when the concert is over and you're relaxing? VICTORIA: I wear simple clothes. MEL C: I wear Spice Girls merchandise! (Points to her Spice Girls t-shirt.) And gym-training bottoms, the new Adidas trainers, Calvin Klein knickers... and a pair of Donna Karan socks, too! TV WEEK: Are the new songs you're singing on this UK tour typical of what's on the new album? MEL G: No, all of the songs on the album are really different. EMMA: One of them, Woman, is different to most of the things that we've done in the past. I think that naturally we're all growing, musically and individually. We've got a couple more songs to do, and then the album is ready. TV WEEK: Emma, isn't there something about a G-string in the lyrics to Woman? EMMA: Yeah, I really like shouting that bit! MEL G: When we wrote that song, she really wanted to sing that bit. TV WEEK: When do you plan on releasing the album? MEL G: It will be released in July, 2000. (Pauses.) I don't know actually - that date just came out of nowhere! EMMA: The middle of the year. Because of the way we work, we want everything to be right. We want the album to be the way we really want it to be. If it's not right, then it will have to wait. TV WEEK: All your fans in the UK are getting the chance to see you play live. Are you planning on touring the world at the same time the album is released? EMMA: Once it's out, we can play the tour. Were hoping that we will do it at the end of 2000, but if that's not possible it will be at the beginning of next year. MEL G: We missed out on a lot of places the last time we toured, so we'd want to go everywhere we haven't been. We'd like to start in England, and then go around the world and come back. TV WEEK: Won't that be hard work, with your babies and everything? EMMA: They would come along with us, but we would come back to the UK every couple of weeks to rest. It would probably be a much longer process than the last one. The tour would take more time. TV WEEK: Mel G, has your daughter Phoenix been attending the concerts on this tour, or has she been staying at home? MEL G: It's a bite late for her, but she came with us to the ones in Manchester - she sat through all of the show with her little earplugs in. I've got her into a routine where she's in bed by 9pm, and I don't want to get her out of that routine. EMMA: We've just taught her to wave, and when she saw Mel on stage she was waving at her and Mel didn't see her! She waved at me and she was clapping. TV WEEK: When you're performing, do you ever worry about how the gig is going? EMMA: Everytime we do a show, we just have the best laugh. I don't know if it's just because we're more confident being on stage, but that's how it is these days. We're a lot more relaxed, and that makes it all really good fun. TV WEEK: It would be hard for you not to enjoy one of your concerts though....... MEL G: We've found that there is a very different audience in a lot of places. In Manchester, for example, it was a smaller venue and there were a lot more adults- whereas in our London shows, there were a lot more children in the audience. The kids there are really dancing - the parents look like they know the songs, but they aren't sure whether they should be dancing or not! EMMA: It's usually really funny, because by the end if it the dads are up and dancing away with everyone else. TV WEEK: And do the crowds get louder as the show goes on? EMMA: We have the best fans. We've never had a show where they're dead! TV WEEK: Emma, at one point in the concert you have a little girl up with you on stage with you. Is that a fun part of the show? EMMA: Yes it is. The other night I had a girl up. She must have been about seven, and she was singing 2 become 1 with me and knew all the words. The single was number one years ago and she still knows all the words...it's incredible. Sometimes you forget the words that you're supposed to be singing, and then you see the kids looking at you with confused faces, saying, 'What are you singing? You're doing it wrong!' TV WEEK: Mel G, at that same show, you picked on a man in the audience who wasn't smiling. Did he cheer up? MEL G: No he didn't. I looked at him at the end of the gig and I thought, 'Oh no, what if he's a journalist?!' TV WEEK: His kids must have been upset that you picked on him. MEL G: Not at all - he was there with an older woman! EMMA: Mel did it once before to this guy at a concert, picking him up for not enjoying himself, and his daughter was absolutely devastated. She was hanging onto his arm and hiding her face! TV WEEK: Finally, are you all thinking of the next phase of your career and perhaps calling yourself the Spice Women? ALL: OH NO!! MEL G: Certainly not. That means that we'll have to become responsible and intelligent all the time. EMMA: And I know that I like being Baby, because there's a bit of a kid in everyone. I'm definitely still a kid!!! Back to Interviews
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