MelC NME Interview - 8/18/99

Black Text = NME
Blue Text = Melanie C
This weekend, Mel C and her new band play V99. It will either be a Robbie-style mass conversion, like V98, or a baptism of fire in the flames of indie disdain. In this week's NME, the erstwhile Sporty Spice gives her views on indie, money and politics.

"When it was first mentioned to me, my initial reaction was like, 'Fuck, yeah!'" she says of her gig at V99. "But a lot of my friends go to festivals and went to V98, and I just thought, 'Do these people really want to see a Spice Girl onstage?' So God knows what's going to happen, but the music's right, so hopefully it will go down well. I know I can do it, it's just whether I shit my pants."

People might just dismiss you as a millionaire megastar trying to prove you have indie-rock credibility.

"Which is crap, isn't it? But you know what? I really don't care. That's their problem and they can deal with it. I'm not really trying to prove anything, I'm just doing what makes me happy. Whether it's gonna be successful or not is another matter."

In the course of the interview she also answered questions such as: If you could shag David Beckham without Posh finding out, would you?

"I think David is absolutely beautiful but he's not my type. And we may as well have all shagged him anyway, we get all the ins and outs. Heeheehee! No, not really. David's lovely but he's too quiet for me. I like bolshy blokes. Victoria's the boss there."

Mel expanded her detail of the drugs she admitted to dabbing into in her recent Q Magazine interview, admitting to trying marijuana.

"I was a kid at college when I tried a spliff." But Mel, 25, says she doesn't take drugs now because they cause too many problems. "The smallest problem that you may have, if you're going out and doing drugs it's just going to make it seem so much worse."

Mel C said she would rather listen to heavy rock acts such as Nirvana. She has admitted that the Spice Girls were to blame for unleashing a flood of terrible pop music onto the British charts and said that she would not choose to listen to most of the pop groups inspired by the Spice Girls.

"I listen to it if it's on the radio. We're partly to blame for this, but with the huge success of the Spice Girls, the market has been absolutely saturated." Mel also took a swipe at former colleague Geri for quitting the band and then launching a solo career.

"I love Geri. She was one of my best friends, but unfortunately I've not been able to keep in contact with her since she left. But I was just shocked. She left the band, I thought, to pursue other areas of her career. Then I found out she was making a solo record and that hurt, because I thought she was leaving because she didn't want to do music."

Mel also says neither she nor Mel G are the really scary ones in the band, but Baby Spice is a hardnut.

"The truth is I'm as soft as shite and Emma's tough as nails. She is a hard woman. Not in a scally way, she's just fucking tough. Don't mess with Emma."

Mel C also distanced herself from any suggestion that the Spice Girls were all Thatcherites.

"I'm a socialist. A left-wing socialist. Because I'm from a working-class background, it's quite weird to have all this money and be in the highest tax bracket. But I think if you've got a fuckload of money you should get taxed to the hilt! I believe in that principle. I was brought up very anti-Thatcher, of course, living in Liverpool."

Did it piss you off when the Spice Girls were labelled Thatcherites?

"Yeah. Some of the girls really didn't care, but I was freaked out because I could not walk around Liverpool after that. Thankfully it got resolved. It's nice in Liverpool because people are really proud, so when I go home I really get looked after. I can go out clubbing and I don't get any trouble."

These says, Melanie the millionaire punk socialist is offered endless sportswear sponsorship deals. She turns them all down.

"People say they'll send you stuff and that's great, but when I want something I want to just go and buy it now. And you feel a cunt anyway, because I've got all this money now! I'll go out and buy it thanks!"

Back To The News