CAMBRIDGE NEWS (July 2007)

GIRLS Aloud, The Pussycat Dolls and Sugababes may all be bitter rivals but they have one thing in common - they might all be serving fries in McDonalds if it wasn't for Bananarama.
The threesome who first appeared in the void between punk and early 80s dance created a blueprint for girl groups which is still being used today (Thursday, 12 July). But while they may have inspired a new generation of eager young fame chasers they prefer to take things a little easier nowadays.

Now a duo - Siobhan Davies left to form Shakespears Sister in 1988 and her replacement Jacquie O'Sullivan left in 1991 - they have returned from a career break to raise children and will be performing alongside some other stars of the 80s including Belinda Carlisle, Midge Ure and Toyah Wilcox at Audley End on Saturday July 28.

Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward were not too sure what to expect when they decided to re-enter the pop fray a couple of years ago. But after some well-received collaborations with DJs, two hits on the American dance charts and a new album they were back in business. They are now celebrating their 25th anniversary year - but the party won't be so wild this time around.

"It was so hectic back in the 80s and for me it's quite nice now to just sit back," Sara tells Scene. "We have all the experience now and when I see new young bands coming out and they have to do the same stuff and the same promo work I just think, 'Thank God I don't have to do that any more'.

"You need energy for that and I'm afraid I just don't have enough to trek around and talk about myself all day."

But while the youngsters who have followed in their path may take their cues from the all-girl pop format that Bananarama pioneered, Sara is quick to point out that things were a little different back in the 80s.

The band's management, Stock, Aiken and Waterman did more than anyone else to pave the way for the manufactured pop units that fill our radio stations today (Thursday, 12 July) but in those days the formula was still in its experimental phase.

"When we started we were unique because there was nothing for us to follow or copy. The fact that it did work was as much a surprise to us as anyone else.
"We were not a manufactured band so we wrote our own stuff and, to a certain point, controlled what we wanted to do.

I think that is why we were so successful and in a way we paved the way for other girl bands, but I don't think we are necessarily the same type of band.

"Girls Aloud come from the reality TV world - you take your opportunities while you can and I don't think there is anything wrong with that - and they make great pop songs. But it's very commercial and it's all about packaging and how you look.

"Everything is very controlled now but when we started if someone said, 'Wear this' we'd tell them to piss off. We saw ourselves the same as The Cure or any of the other bands around at the time. We didn't think, 'We're girls so we're going to be very girly and do as we're told'."

It was an exciting period to be in a pop band. Punk had swept away all the pretensions of the 70s and bands like Bananarama, along with Human League, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club and many others with even worse hairdos, injected a new excitement into the charts. The spandex-wearing, shoulder-padded, giant cellphone-wielding young music lovers of the era lapped it up.

Nowadays Sara and Keren are not ashamed to be performing for the nostalgia crowd who are looking to recreate the heady fluorescent days of their teenage discos.

"That was obviously our most successful period, along with Duran Duran and Boy George - everybody from that era is very identifiable. We did have a long break in between, I had a daughter and Keren had a son and it was quite difficult for us to get back into it in the 90s because it was all about Oasis and Blur and guitars.

"But recently everywhere we went people said, 'When are you releasing new stuff? We really miss dancey, poppy stuff '.

"We just do what makes us happy now, we don't feel like we are on a treadmill any more and that we have to compete.

"Everybody has their day and their time and it's not like I want us to be like we were in the 80s. I'm very proud of what we did - we're in the history books and I think I've really achieved something in my career. Anything we do now we are just doing because we enjoy it."

But while that period may have been their most eventful and exciting, neither of them are about to spill the beans in a juicy tell-all autobiography just yet.

"We travelled absolutely everywhere in the world and we were just on a merry-go-round that went on and on. We were burnt out by the end of it.

"We get asked all the time if we would write a book about it. I think you would have to be totally honest and I just couldn't be. There's too much dirt - I have a child now, I can't expose her to that."