CELEBRITY WEEK
Catching up with... Bananarama

Who says lighting can’t strike twice? Twenty five years after childhood friends Keren Woodward and Sara Dallin began making music as Bananarama, they’re back (sans former partner Siobhan Fahey) with a new CD called Drama. We caught up with the girls over breakfast last week in Santa Monica…

Q: Is this a comeback?
KW: It’s just that we happened to get a deal in the States this time around. I guess we took time off and found it a bit difficult to reestablish ourselves. But we never really stopped. We have always worked in Europe.
SD: Coming here, I really thought it would be like starting from scratch. But everyone seems to have such fond memories that it is not. There is so much history.

Q: Both Belinda Carlisle and Tiffany posed in Playboy to promote their records. Would you?
SD: I would do it if they promised to use a bit of Photoshop! [laughs]

Q: Have you been approached to do reality television?
KW: They have so many different ones going over in Britain. The last one I was offered was Celebrity Show Jumping (horse riding). Which I turned down.

Q: Who has better celebrities: the US or UK?
KW: I think it is really similar now. There are just so many of those kinds of magazines. So many of these people are just famous for being famous that you are just not sure what some of these people do anymore. We bought a few of the junk magazines at the airports. The British ones are worse. The American ones at least seem to have people in them that you have heard of.

Q: Who is better celebrity drama: Pete Doherty or Britney Spears?
SD: Britney. She’s highly entertaining.

Q: Any advice for her as a mother?
SD: Yeah. Strap your child into the car! [laughs]

Q: Who do you think is a better singer: Jessica or Ashlee?
KW: You know what? They are nothing in England. Nobody knows who they are. I don’t even know their music. I kind of know Ashlee more than Jessica.
SD: I have never heard a Jessica Simpson song. We certainly don’t know anything of her recording career.

Q: Which one of you is the bigger drama queen?
SD: Probably me. The only time I ever really lose it is if I have been doing my job properly and the people around me haven’t been doing theirs. I really lose it. Otherwise, I am really laid back.

Q: You two have been friends for years…
SD: We’ve known each other since we were four.
KD: Best friends since about 12.

Q: And how many guys have come between you?
KD: Absolutely none. We’ve never liked the same guys.

Q: Do you prefer American men or British men?
SD: I like all men.

Q: You seem to have a lot of fans in the gay community. How often do you get propositioned by women?
KW: It is so shocking when a woman propositions me. I don’t know what to say. Guys you can just say get lost. It is an awkward thing. We are so used to hanging out with gay guys. And straight guys we can obviously handle. But the girl thing is a different thing entirely.

Q: So the Spice Girls took over your position as the biggest selling girl band in the UK. What could you beat them at?
SD: We had more hits than them!
KW: They were a very different band. They were a business. They were put together to make money. We put ourselves together. Did everything ourselves. Managed ourselves. We did it for our own reasons. For the right reasons, I think.

Q: Is the experience different for you this time around?
SD: It is more chill. I think in those days you didn’t car anyway. You just would kind of go 100 miles and hour. Now we kind of know the difference.
KW: I am having more fun (now). I had gotten a bit jaded I think after having done it for 12 years and just living and breathing Bananarama. I had forgotten how much fun you can have. The last year has just been hilarious. I have laughed more in the past year than the last ten years put together.


- SEAN DALY