Steps interview

After a break of nearly 10 years, multimillion selling BRIT Award winning popsters Steps are back with a new Greatest Hits collection and UK tour. Lisa Dunn caught up with Lisa Scott Lee and Lee Latchford Evans.

Welcome back! Over your career you clocked up two Number 1 singles, 13 Top 5 singles, two Number 1 albums, and, collectively, you sold 4.5 million albums... And that was all within four years!

Lisa: “It’s just amazing when you hear that! That’s not someone else’s stats, they are ours and we played our part in that. We’re very proud in what we achieved and it’s lovely to hear that.”
Lee: “That’s the key thing behind it all. It wasn’t over ten or twenty years so that’s quite cool. It’s hard to believe. It was like living in a bubble and even when we were going through it, people were shouting our names out in the street and I’d be thinking ‘I don’t even know you, I don’t get it!’ It’s the same with our stats, it’s like another world. It’s crazy!”

Did you realise what you were achieving at the time?

Lee: “I think it was after. We were so busy and it really was sixteen hour days, seven days a week and we barely got breaks or days off. When you’re that busy, all over the world, it’s hard to take grasp of it.”
Lisa: “I did really appreciate it at the time. I didn’t need hindsight. I loved being in Steps and it was very much a dream come true for me. I had been singing and dancing from the age of four and that was where I was always hoping to end up. Looking back you do pinch yourself and think ‘wow!’”
Lee: “We were so lucky living a life most people can only dream about. No one is realistically ever going to have that. I never thought I would have that in all honesty. It was a fantastic life.”
Lisa: “It was wonderful. We like to say that we were together for five years and we genuinely were good friends and had amazing experiences. It was really only at the end where tension mounted.”

It all started with ‘5,6,7,8’ and yet incredibly, it was supposed to be a one-off!

Lisa: “Yeah, we had a one single deal and it’s incredible to think we went on to release four albums.  We really did evolve as a line-dancing band. We started out with the help of Pete Waterman and the help of the public. The public really took to us and even though the media were negative at times we kept proving them wrong!”

The song reached Number 14 and remains one the best selling singles to not make the Top 10.

Lisa: “That’s really interesting! It wouldn’t go away and it was over the Christmas and New Year party season so that’s why it did well and the record company took notice and thought ‘Wow, quick sign them up!’”

Your first two albums were in the Top 75 for over a year!

Lisa: “Were they?! I didn’t know that! That’s great, that’s really good to know. I want to keep these stats!”

Tragedy / Heartbeat was your first Number 1 single and it sold over a million copies.

Lisa: “What was great is that we really appreciated it because it didn’t go straight in at Number 1. It took weeks to get to Number One and it was the first Number 1 of 1999. We were away on holiday but when we came back we all congratulated each other.”

How was it working with pop producer extraordinaire Pete Waterman?

Lee: “It was interesting and he’s a big character. Pete’s had a lot of success. It was phenomenal to be part of that PWL experience [Pete’s production company that bore many pop hits of the ‘80s including Kylie Minogue, Sonia and Mel & Kim].”

What do you think of music now and how it has changed?

Lee: “It’s cool. At the moment pop is creeping back in, The Wanted and The Saturdays for example. I think the likes of Gaga and Katy Perry have a different take on pop and it’s getting edgier.”

What do you make of Lady Gaga?

Lisa: “She’s weird and wonderful and I think it’s great she’s pushing the boundaries, a lot like Madonna before her. I do hear Steps within her songs, such as the chorus of ‘Judas’ and ‘Edge Of Glory’. I’m not saying we have inspired Gaga, but we can see where we would be musically now.”

We asked our Twitter followers what their favourite Steps songs were. What tracks do you think they voted for?

Lisa: “’Tragedy’ and ‘5, 6, 7, 8?’”

No! It was ‘One for Sorrow!’

Lee: “Oh really?! I would have put ‘Tragedy’, ‘One For Sorrow’, ‘Deeper Shade Of Blue’ and ‘5, 6, 7, 8’ in the Top 4!”
Lisa: “Thank you for all your followers’ questions and our stats. They were great to listen too!”

Steps new greatest hits album, ‘The Ultimate Collection’, is out now. The band will tour the UK next April. Dates are as follows: 

April 2012
02 Belfast, Odyssey Arena
03 Dublin, O2 Arena
04 Liverpool, Liverpool Echo Arena
06 Glasgow, SECC
07 Aberdeen, AECC Press And Journal Arena
08 Newcastle, Metro Radio Arena
10 Manchester, Manchester Evening News Arena
11 Nottingham, Capital FM Arena
12 Birmingham, LG Arena
13Cardiff Motorpoint Arena
15 Sheffield, Motorpoint Arena
16 Bournemouth, BIC
17 Brighton, Centre
19 London, O2 Arena

Tickets go on sale this Friday (October 14) from the usual outlets.