When the Spice is right

While it's a relatively safe bet to predict that the year 2001 will see the Spice Girls splinter, it's an equally safe bet that…

While it's a relatively safe bet to predict that the year 2001 will see the Spice Girls splinter, it's an equally safe bet that the year will witness Melanie Chisolm consolidating her position as the group's most successful solo member.

Her debut album, Northern Star, still maintains a healthy presence in European pop charts, the singles from it greeted with open arms by an audience weaned on Spice Girls material but eager for something a tad more muscular. The sole glitch in an otherwise spiky advance of a career outside the Spice Girls was Mel's foray into punk rock (cover versions of the Sex Pistol's Anarchy in the UK have been known to surface in a live setting). However, she soon gave up such a nonsensical idea and has since cruised to the upper regions of the charts with a mixture of pop, R & B and ballads.

In an expensive hotel, Mel C greets me with a smile and a ream of chat that is as ordinary as the day is long and as far removed from the upper echelons of pop stardom as you can imagine. Yet her very ordinariness dictates that what she says is quite ordinary too. She displays a selection of interesting tattoos and a real gold tooth, and that's about as exciting as it gets.

Born in Widnes, Cheshire, in 1974, Mel C was raised in a council estate that boasted nothing if not uniformity. When she was three, her parents split up, quickly remarrying other partners and providing her with a gaggle of half-brothers and sisters. At school, she was what you could only term a model student, becoming a prefect and taking a strong interest in acting and dancing. She loved Adam Ant, reckoned she could resolve George Michael's sexual orientation if only he'd give her half a chance and adored Madonna.

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Madonna's career is something that Mel C aspires to as a solo artist, something fairly obvious when you take into consideration her all-styles-served-here approach. As a seven-year-old, Mel C was the sort of young girl who sang in front of the mirror with a hairbrush, shy and pushy at the same time, acting out her fantasies and daydreams but only in a solo capacity. "As a kid, you don't envisage being in a band. You always see yourself on your own. Of course, I never dreamed I'd be so lucky to be in a band like the Spice Girls. As for a solo career, Madonna's career path wouldn't be a bad one to take."

Of course, with the likes of meeting Madonna and being in, to date, the most famous girl pop group of all time, there is the accompanying problem of relationships to consider. The rumour mill has spewed up liaisons with Robbie Williams, footballer Jason McAteer, yesterday's pop star Kavana and Anthony Kiedis (of Red Hot Chilli Peppers). Looking back to the men she knew when she was growing up near Liverpool, could she see herself dating one of them now, or is her lifestyle far removed from that?

"Gosh, I don't know," she replies. "It doesn't really matter what people do. It's important for me to associate with people who have normal lifestyles as opposed to people who have the same lifestyle as mine, because I never call this a job. I love doing what I do.

"At the end of the day, it's my work, and all my friends know that. I spend more time in Liverpool now. The whole Spice Girls thing was massive. We were out of the country for almost a year at one time. I miss my family, my old school chums a lot. They're teachers and students and unemployed people, so it's the same little clique, except that I get them into the private members' bars!"

Does she think the public perception of Mel C makes her a threatening proposition to men? Inevitably, she reckons the image created by the media is misjudged. "Sections of the media make me out to be this tough, mouthy northern bird with muscles and tattoos - probably a dyke 'cos she's got short hair. You know, that's very wrong, because I'm dead soft. Most people are. But even I have preconceptions. I had ideas about Red Hot Chilli Peppers. I thought they were big blokes, really tough. But when I met them, they were gentle, very sweet, kind and generous.

"As for the men thing, I haven't felt that they were put off by my fame. But you know, if there were any men who felt that they just wouldn't be the right guys, would they? You can't form a relationship if there's a sense of intimidation because of your success, can you?"

Some time ago, it was suggested that of all the different types of Spice Girl, it was Sporty who was specifically generated to appeal to lesbians.

HER response is justifiably laugh-out-loud. "I'm straight," she says, and you can virtually taste the weariness with which she says it. "I don't take offence at people saying that I'm gay. What I do take offence at is people assuming my sexuality - or anyone's sexuality, for that matter - by appearances. I think that's really rude. How dare they say what a lesbian looks like. What does a murderer look like? There's no set way you look.

"Those media myths and rumours really bug me. Especially the lesbian thing, because they kept on and on about it. It did affect me for a little while. I wanted to get on the rooftops and shout out I'm not gay, but that would have been offensive to gay people. I've got no problem with people being gay, but it can get very frustrating when they're printing lies about you. But you know what? I can't complain. I've had an easy ride compared to the others.

"When I look at Victoria and Mel G, they're being hounded by the press. A person's personal life is what they're interested in and my personal life isn't that interesting, so they tend to leave me alone."

Whenever she is the subject of tabloid or magazine exposure, she yearns for normality. When she returns to her family home, she says she makes a point of seeing her friends, who work nine to five, Monday to Friday - good, solid, grounded people who go to each other's houses for dinner at the weekend or go to the movies, clubs, the pub.

"I think a routine like that would be fine, but in reality I'm at that for about a week and I'm ready to go back to the work I do. So the routine I prefer doing is the routine I'm doing now. But the grass is always greener, isn't it?

"I have a good solo career going on now in tandem with the Spice Girls stuff, and I'm pleased with the way it's gone so far. I hope and expect it to get a lot better. I've got so much more to give. I want to go on the road and tour the album. It's not about record sales and chart positions, but at the end of the day, you've got to sell records to make more records. Musical freedom is what I want."

Mel C plays the Waterfront Hall, Belfast, on January 28th and the Olympia Theatre, Dublin, on January 29th