NME Magazine
Peter Robinson Vs Sara Dallin

Pop's original girl group predict when the reaper is going to call...

Hello Sara. How many times have you been on the cover of NME in the 'olden days'?
Three times. I'm really proud of that. We were quite a cool band when we first started out - and then we became so colossally famous and successful that we were no longer allowed on the cover. But now I'm back in NME! Where will I be featured then? Am I on the back page?

No, you'll be in the news section. Anyway, how would you like to die?
Oh God. You're not going to follow through on this are you (howls) In my sleep. I don't want to be too old, when I go. Not too decrepit.

Pick an age...
Oh, I'm not doing that, it will jinx me. although I do have visions sitting under an apple tree reading a book, in the sun. I'm an old romantic aren't I? Ha!

Your new album title Drama rhymes with Bananarama. Amazing.
Oh bloody album titles - they're an absolute nightmare. 'Drama' wasn't my choice. I was thinking of 'Away with the fairies', but I suppose Bananaramadrama sounds good.

What else could you have chosen, if you were sticking to a strict rhyme rule?
"Farmer"? That might have been quite good. And that, I think, is it! Are you thinking of something rude? It's a very hard name to rhyme anything with. We really didn't think the band name through properly - afterall we were only 18. We thought Banana sounded tropical. Hahaha. And - hey what a name it's proved to be.

Do you havce any advice for Lisa Scott-Lee in light of her recent troubles?
No. (Guffaws) Wasn't she going to give up if she didn't reach the top 10? What a bizarre choice to make. And then she didn't get into the top 10! Very strange.

But what do you do, Sara, if you're a musician and the public basically sack you from your job?
Very simply, you have to give up. For us we were lucky because we were big in every country - we had three or four top 5 hits in the States, we had number oone hits everywhere else in the world.

Band Aid 20 was frankly awful. Was that because the Rams weren't in it, having been the only act to appear on the first and second Band Aid singles?
You see, the second one escapes my memory. What was the second one? Was there a second one? 1988 or something? No, I really don't know, sorry.

Are the songs on your new album all Kylie rejects?
No, we write all our own songs! (Neglects to mention new single is essentially a cover version). What a rude question! (Guffaws).

Are you plagued by nightmares?
Yes I am, and I don't sleep too well. I have a million anxieties running through my head. Oh, it's just the general organisation of my life... my love life...

Is there anything you'd like to share with us Sara?
No, fuck off!!! Hahaha.

It's very dissapointing that Bananarama didn't have hilarious 80s drug habits. Why did you not all go mad on drugs?
Well we were just very naïve. I remember once, and I think Venus was Number One at the time...

Oooh, is this a flashback sequence?
Yes. I have no idea how it happened, but we were sharing a hotel with Van Halen and David Lee Roth was there. I wouldn't say he trapped me in a room, as such but he decided that he wanted to talk to me. And he talked, and talked and talked. I must have sat there for three hours as he nipped to the bathroom every 15 minutes. He didn't even offer me any! I probably would have tried to put it in my tea, hahaha. Our only vices were a few bevvies and a dancefloor with poles. We basically invented poledancing you know.

If you were Pete Doherty's mother and he came home 'looking like that', what would you say?
How old is he? He's just a youngster, isn't he? I'd be terribly, terribly worried if I was his mother. Clearly people find different ways to express themselves., but... well, he's not a stupid person, is he? Is he intelligent?

He's a poet and the voice of a generation etc!
People are sometimes quite self destructive, aren't they?

That's surely a sign of true genius.
Well, we'll have to wait and see on that won't we?

Quite. Well, once again there's a space on the page to discuss a charity of your choice.
Oooh, I'll go for Childline. They have terrible trouble with funding, which I just find bizarre. We (Sara and Bananarama partner Keren Woodward) were supposed to decorate a phone for them once, for a charity auction. Of course we were terribly hungover, and all we managed to do was rifle through my daughter's toy box , find some glitter and sequins, and throw them over the phone. It was so awful that we couldn't bear to hand it in, so we had to make a donation instead, haha. Oh, and the album's out, can I mention that!?