Interview: Heidi Range: “I almost broke my nose in one of the dance routines!”

Heidi Range in Happy Days

As The Fonz roars into town with the Happy Days musical, ELLA WALKER finds out how life is treating the former Sugababe

She’s ever so sweet, Heidi Range. But then she always was, wasn’t she?

The happy-go-lucky bubble-gum that mushed together Keisha Buchanan and Mutya Buena after Siobhán Donaghy dropped out of the original Sugababes line-up, amid gleeful speculation that cattiness, bullying and a “secret language” had forced her out.

Heidi appeared, smoothed everything over and helped ramp up the band’s chart success almost instantly (it must be noted, suddenly every lad’s mag became very interested in them too).

Sure, it didn’t last forever – and at this point you should definitely look up the Sugababes-as-Ship-of-Theseus theory for some bizarre cultural context – but while it did, the girls nabbed six number one singles, six BRIT Award nominations and saw two of their five albums go in at number one.

It’s quite an achievement and, for a girl band, they were actually pretty cool, arguably making the ‘Girls Aloud’ grade: a very technical term for the fact that listening back, they’re still pretty awesome. From the danciness of Push the Button to the grimy R&B base of Freak Like Me and the empowering pop tunes Ugly and Stronger, seriously, their back catalogue is ideal for listening to before a night out.

Also, they always had fantastic clothes, especially compared to their contemporaries; none of that weird Destiny’s Child matchy-matchiness or cargo pants and fleeces a la All Saints.

They had style, they had taste: Heidi must have spent her days smugly ecstatic that she defected from Atomic Kitten in time (it’s where she started, but come on, even if she’d stuck around she’d never have ended up on the Iceland adverts, the girl has class).

The final line-up – Heidi, Amelle Berrabah and Jade Ewen – split/went on an indefinite hiatus (none seem sure which), in 2011, with the original imprint going on to form the snappily titled Mutya Keisha Siobhan (MKS).

Does she miss life in the band? “Not really no, I was with the band for 11 years so I feel like it ran its course. I’m so glad I done it and we had some amazing times but it’s nice to be doing something different.”

I told you she was sweet, I didn’t say she was particularly chatty…

The “something different” the Liverpudlian lass is talking about is playing Pinky Tuscadero in the Happy Days musical at Cambridge Corn Exchange.

Starring Bucks Fizz’s Cheryl Baker as Mrs Cunningham and Emmerdale’s Ben Freeman as motorbike riding, leather jacket clad Fonzie, it’s a brand new musical created by Gary Marshall who wrote the TV show, and Henry Winkler who played the original Arthur “heartthrob” Fonzarelli.

And yes, don’t fret, it does of course feature the proper theme tune for you to sing-a-long to (altogether now: “Sunday, Monday Happy Days…”).

The plot – light, frilly and fun – follows the Cunninghams and the gang (remember Potsie, Ralph Malph, Joanie and Chachi?), as they try to save their favourite haunt, Arnold’s diner, from being razed.

The singer, who turns 31 this month, is taking on the role of punchy, fiery Pinky. “I guess she’s a female version of the Fonz in a way,” explains Heidi, who grew up, like most of us, watching re-runs of the show on telly. “She’s older than the other girls in the town and they all look up to her, she’s a bit more feisty and she puts Fonz in his place.”

“She’s brilliant to play,” she buzzes. “I have a really good time because you can go really over the top with the feistiness of her.”

It turns out the scouser, who’s had to learn how to do an American accent for the show (“We had a dialect coach that came in and he tweaked a few things with us all, but no I enjoy doing the accent actually, it’s fun”), sometimes goes a bit too over the top…

“I almost broke my nose in one of the dance routines,” she yelps down the phone. “There’s a part where the boys are pretending to be motorbikes and the girls are sat on them, and I just got carried away.

“I dipped my head down, and the guy I was doing it with (Eddie Myles aka Chachi), he brings his head up and I just went down too low and like, just whacked him right on the back of the head with my nose!”

She laughs, adding: “I spent the rest of the routine and the next scene tears just coming down my face. I could see everyone thinking what’s happened? But you can’t drop the character or say anything. But I won’t make that mistake again.”

Almost-broken noses aside, the show is going well so far, says Heidi but, despite more than a decade in the music business and constantly touring with the Sugababes, she still gets struck with nerves. “Yeah, I get nervous every show, yeah I do. Once I’ve got me first scene out of the way, I usually settle into it. But I am loving it.”

Then there’s the odd bit of homesickness too, but she has an antidote for that. “I’ve got my little dog Bettie with me!” she says, audibly smiling (dog fans: Bettie’s a stocky, velvety black pug puppy, who has been attending press calls and photo shoots with the cast, and is used to being cooed over constantly). “So that’s nice, that’s my little piece of home.”

It helps that the cast mimic their characters in terms of feel-good factor; how could Cambridge’s Christmas light switcher-on-er Cheryl Baker not be as warm and mumsy as Marion Cunningham? “She’s brilliant, I just love Cheryl,” says Heidi. “She’s like a mother figure but you can have a proper laugh [pronounced laff] with her as well, I’m so glad she’s part of the show.”

Happy Days sounds more like a colourful romp than hard graft. And then there’s the clothes: swishy, full skirted dresses, halter tops and hot pink pedal pushers. It was all part of the charm for Heidi: “I love the costumes, they’re so flattering you know? The classic fifties style I think was always great for women’s figures, and I’ve got a lovely wig I wear in the show, I love putting that on.

“When I’ve got the wig on I feel like I’m Pinky then!”

With the show on tour for the next few months, Heidi’s plans for what comes after involves far less travelling. “I’d love to do a West End show, that’s like my next goal, but I guess it’s waiting for the right part to come around again.”

And if it doesn’t, you never know, there might be a full on Sugababes reunion with ALL the members. Now that would make excellent viewing.

First published by Cambridge Newspapers.

Bill Wyman: “Glamorous stories? There aren’t any. It’s glamorous from the outside, not the inside.”

Bill Wyman

Ella Walker grapples with former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman over his  crazy past, the Stones and his current tour with his band, the Rhythm Kings.

So, what exactly do you ask a former Rolling Stone when you’re told – in no  uncertain terms – not to ask about the Rolling Stones?

This was the conundrum I faced pulling together questions to ask legendary  bassist Bill Wyman who’s visiting Cambridge Corn Exchange with his classic  rhythm and blues band, the Rhythm Kings.

One friend said to just start by asking him: HOW ARE YOU SO AWESOME? (Capital  letters not optional).

Twitter responded in a slightly less fangirl manner i.e. Ask him about going  out with teenagers when he was 50; ask him about The Beatles; and one clever  clogs said: “Please end every question with ‘Bill, why man?’” Safe to say that  wasn’t an option.

In the end I went for the old lure him into a false sense of security tactic,  and then hit him with questions that should stir up memories of his Stones years  (all 30 of them). It was that or get hung up on.

So, the Rhythm Kings… Wyman’s been touring with them for 12 years now and is  upfront about the fact: “It’s not a career move for me by any stretch of the  imagination. It’s not a money earner either. We just do it for the love of  playing together and for the love of the music.

“It’s just a joy. That’s the only reason I do it.”

They’ve got Geraint Watkins on piano (“Bob Dylan’s favourite British  pianist,”), Georgie Fame on organ and “the great” Albert Lee on guitar, plus  special guest Maria Maulder (Bill sings her most famous song, Midnight at the  Oasis, gruffly, but sweetly, down the phone).

And I figure that’s that then. We can move onto other topics.

However, at 76, it turns out Wyman’s still pretty wily and is an absolute  expert at turning anything and everything back around to the Kings and his other  projects – of which there are oh so very many, from photography and archaeology  to designing metal detectors and writing books.

For instance: Life on tour must have changed quite dramatically since your  early days in the music business (read: during the Stones’ heyday)? “[It’s] more  pleasurable, not as crazy,” he admits. “Not as violent, not as loud, not as  aggressive, not as mad – I mean mad as in crazy girls leaping all over you and  doing two chords of a song and then it was all over because they all poured on  stage or something. It’s not like that obviously.” He says it with only a  grazing sense of nostalgia, before cutting swiftly back to today’s pre-approved  topic of conversation: “It’s much more pleasurable now because we play to an  audience that really appreciates us.”

It seems facetious to suggest you couldn’t get fans more appreciative than  Stones fans, but this is the problem with not being able to ask outright about  his former band: despite Bill publicly announcing he still considers them  friends, you can’t help but hear hard edges to every vague reference he makes to  them. From whether he feels like he’s different since those mental early days: “I feel the same actually,” he says laughing. “I’m still next to the drums  playing bass, I’m not a frontman, never was.” To what he’s most proud of: “I was  proud of my 30 years in the Stones and I really love the 12 years I’ve had with  this band. It’s very easy going, there’s no pressure on having hit records or  charting, or anything like that.”

And then, just as you feel you’re getting somewhere, he’ll fox you completely  by going on a bizarre tangent about the struggles of getting your laundry done  when you’re performing in a different town every night. This alone shows he must  have changed since his Stones days; surely he didn’t give a toss about clean  shirts when he was bedding those 1000 women Maxim magazine feted him for?!

“People have to do it themselves, they do their undies, hang ‘em up in the  bathroom, I don’t, I just bring more than I need,” he chatters. “That’s probably  the most difficult thing when you’re travelling on tour – it sounds absurd but  it’s a fact. You’re laughing!”

I was expecting glamorous stories I tell him. “Glamorous stories? There  aren’t any,” he says raising his voice. “It’s glamorous from the outside, not  the inside. The glamour is two hours on stage every night, that’s where the  glamour is. The rest of it is hard work and boring stuff, travelling in a bus  for four hours.”

Despite the slight digs at his old band mates, filtered through passion for  his current ones, Wyman did join the Stones onstage for their 50th anniversary  gigs at London’s O2 Arena last November. Disappointingly he was only asked along  for two songs, didn’t get invited to Glastonbury and told the Huffington Post  afterwards: “I’ve always maintained that you can’t go back to things, and they  can never be the same.”

He’s adamant his comments weren’t presented in quite the right way though. “I  never said that. Mick always says that, he don’t like looking back and the past.  I do because I write lots of books, I keep diaries, so I have to refer back,” he  says, unable to not mention those nine books of his. “I have no problems about  looking back into the past at all. The hard thing is looking into the  future.”

So I press him on the past. Of all the people he’s recorded with,  photographed and written about, who has been the most inspiring and exciting to  work with? “That’s difficult. There’s so many,” he says before proving his point  by reeling off the likes of Supremes’ Mary Wilson, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler,  George Harrison, Chris Rea and Paul Carrack (no Jagger you’ll note).

You get the feeling he could never run out of names to drop, or projects to  keep him occupied, and he’s a family man too (“Who am I listening to at the  moment? My wife telling me how good the girls are doing at school,”).

Next up he’s writing another solo album: “Which is a bit crazy at my age but  it’s turning out quite nice actually, quite different, I like it. I’m singing  very low, friends of mine like Bob Geldof are saying it sounds a bit like Tom  Waits, J.J. Cale and people like that.”

He’s also working on a continuation of his life story, because his first only  told up until the end of the sixties. Does he ever see himself retiring? “I see  no point really. If I’d thought of retiring I’d have retired 20 years ago, I  just enjoy continuing with five, six, seven projects, taking them to wherever  they’re going to take me. Whether it’s finishing a book, or doing a photo  exhibition, or upgrading the restaurant or doing archaeology, or whatever I do,  you know? I just do it and get pleasure out of it. I’m very lucky.”

He sure is that.

First published by the Cambridge News: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Whats-on-leisure/Choice/Bill-Wyman-Glamorous-stories-There-arent-any-Its-glamorous-from-the-outside-not-the-inside-20131031060000.htm#ixzz2jm8NT0qp