Here we are, the last day of January!
What better way to send the sloggiest, brain foggiest month towards the exit than with a chit-chat with comeback queen Betty Boo. She tells us all about her new single and much more in the interview below.
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Enjoy the edition,
Ted, Niall and Chris
Start The Week With… Betty Boo
Last week, Betty Boo released her first new single in 30 years. Titled Get Me To The Weekend, it’s a jubilant pop anthem that picks up where Boo, AKA Alison Clarkson, left off three decades ago. After originally emerging as part of West London hip-hop trio The She Rockers in the late 80s, Clarkson went on to huge success in her solo guise as Betty Boo. She had two megahits with Doin’ The Do and Where Are You Baby?, songs that she’d written and produced herself in her bedroom, and won a Brit Award. But, with an offer on the table from Madonna’s Maverick Records, she walked away from it all and has rarely been heard from since. Over the past few years, she’s tested the waters for a return with performances at nostalgic pop events before deciding during lockdown that it was time to make the comeback official and release new music. Niall got on Zoom with her to hear all about it…
Hey! How does it feel to be putting out new music after all this time?
It’s a quite a big deal really. I knew I’d do it one day, come back with a record and I suppose lockdown pushed me to do it. Turning 50 when I did, I just thought ‘if I’m not going to do it now, I’ll never do it’. But also, it doesn’t matter how old you are these days, it’s not like you’re over the hill at 23 as a pop star, which is what it used to feel like.
How did it come together?
Well, I started it before lockdown and met up with Andy Wright. I don’t know where he’s been all my life because we just gelled, he’s my co-writer and co-producer. We’ve written two albums in this time. He’s got a studio in Park Royal, this place called The Cube, there’s a lot of grime artists that use it, it’s a cool little spot. I did most of my vocals here at home in the bedroom and I edited them and then sent them through to him. It’s a great way of working because it meant that I could audition my ideas at home without feeling stupid. I used to record them and then make a little bounce of it and go in the car and drive around and see if it stuck. Sometimes, if I was waiting in the car park in Sainsbury’s, waiting for my husband to do the shopping, because do you remember in the early lockdown that they only let one person in at a time, so a lot of the time I wrote stuff in the car park just waiting for him. Haha!
Do you find that making music and writing music came naturally to you again?
At the beginning, I thought, ‘what am I trying to do? What am I? Who am I? Am I that person that I was when I was 19 and 20 writing Doin’ The Do and Where Are You Baby?’. It was Ian Broudie, actually, who just said, “the thing is, writing and being an artist is who you are, it’s part of your DNA, it is in there.” And I just thought, ‘well, he’s right.’ When I was writing for other people, I had to stop doing quirky stuff, I had to be really generic and I found that really quite boring, actually. Easy, in fact, coming up with any old crap! But I found myself just really getting lost in it and I don’t know where all the creativity came from. Get Me To The Weekend was the 12th track that we completed for the album. In the old days, the first song was always going to be the first single, or maybe the second one but somehow, it’s the 12th song that we’d written and that we decided that that was going to be the single.
How did that track come about?
We had this idea about the fact that lockdown felt like one long zoom meeting, and Saturday and Sunday or Friday didn’t feel like a weekend because everyone was drinking every night so we sort of thought about that as a title and we wrote the song. Then when we went back in to do a few overdubs and stuff like that, Andy said, “you know Love Action by Human League, that would really work with this, shall we try it out”? It gave it that extra warmth. I loved that record anyway, because I bought the Dare album when I was 11 or 12 and I was obsessed with it and I love that song. It’s got a wonky, out of tune synth, I loved it.
How did you feel when the song came out?
It was nerve wracking, but having an exclusive on Rylan on Radio 2 was great. It’s very different to how it used to be. In the old days, you’d put a record out, service it out to all the clubs and then you’d get the DJ feedback and your record label would make you read it! Sometimes you’d get some DJ from a megaclub or something in Wigan say something like, “Nah, fell flat on its face.” But these days, you have to work on impact day and gradually do stuff through social media and TikTok and that kind of stuff. I’m bringing it out on my own label as well. That used to mean that nobody wants you, that no record label wants you so you’re putting out yourself but that’s the smart thing to do now, loads of people are doing it. I don’t want to compete with the youngsters of this world, I just want to be able to make music for people that like it, and for me as well.
How would you deal with criticism now compared to how you dealt with it three decades ago?
I’ve been very lucky. So far, it’s been 100% positive feedback from people that used to buy my music, and they’re so happy that I’m doing something and I’m back. Somebody did say on my official Facebook page that he wanted to get his willy out and whack my face with it. My husband took that down. That was a bit weird. Then another person went on my Facebook and went, ‘what the fuck, this is shite’. But that was just two comments out of 1000s! So it makes me feel good that it’s made people happy.
What is Betty Boo’s ideal weekend?
Well, a weekend of drinking champagne, maybe vodka tonic? Mostly drinking. Playing loads of tennis. I play tons of tennis.
Ah yeah, when I interviewed you before, you were playing every day. Are you still?
Yeah, I just got back actually. I played this morning.
When did you get into playing tennis?
I took it up when I retired from music, so when I was 25/26. I started late but I played every day and I’ve played with coaches and stuff like that. It’s just been part of my life. You know when retired footballers take up golf, I don’t know if any other retired pop stars take up tennis but that’s me. I have a coaching team actually, I’ve got three coaches.
Wow, that’s proper.
Yeah, I just love hitting a ball. I used to like boxing, but it really hurts your hands after a while if you do it when you’re a bit older. I was thinking of taking it up again, actually.
Do you ever get angry on the court?
I laugh if I make a mistake. Although when I’ve played matches, because I was playing in the Wiltshire League, it’s a bit annoying playing people that think they’re really, really good and they think they’re professional and they’re not, they just work in a bank or something. I get cross at that because I just think, ‘you’re not Sharapova, are you? Whatever’.
When you play, do people know that you’re Betty Boo?
No, because I just go around in tracksuits. I suppose if I went round in a silver tennis outfit or if I had a wig on, people might think, ‘oh, yeah, that looks like somebody that used to be on the telly’. Although one person did get a bit excited once and said that they’d met Belinda Carlisle and that was a highlight of their life.
We interviewed Terri Hall in The New Cue last week and she recalled bumping into you the night you won a Brit Award. What are your memories of that night?
I felt on top of the world. But I was very, very tired. It’s an unnatural thing to be a youngster and be travelling all around the world and having all this success and people just loving everything you do. I got quite sick with exhaustion, because I was working 15-16 hours a day, not getting much sleep. I remember flying in from LA and it was one of the coldest winters we’d had, so coming from the sunshine and everyone was knee deep in snow, it was a bit of a shock to the system. It’s not what the Brits is today where people can buy tickets and go, in the old days it was just industry people and it was quite stiff. Because I was triple-nominated, they told me that I’d won three awards, Best Female, Best Newcomer and Best Video, so I thought, ‘yeah, I’ll come back from LA to do that!’ And on the day I only got one!
What a stitch up!
Yeah! But it was an amazing thing. I had to pretend I didn’t know I’d won so I did a ‘oh my God!’ when it was announced. I think I thanked Des O’Connor, or gave him some props, because they were taking the mickey out of him, saying that music had moved on since tacky crooner music. They did a VT on Des O’Connor, really taking the mickey out of him, and I thought ‘that’s really mean, I like Des O’Connor’, so I said “God bless Des O’Connor” in my speech.
In terms of the industry, as a female DIY artist who’d written and produced your own music and taken it into the mainstream, did you feel accepted?
Not really. I was signed to an independent label and they really had faith in me whereas, as a Eurasian rapper, a major wouldn’t have signed me. They thought rap music was a novelty back then. I think it was a big deal to have done things my own way, style myself and write my own music because PWL was such a big thing in those days, where artists would just turn up at their studio and sing the songs - or not, actually, I think they had lots of ghost vocalists. I love PWL, don’t get me wrong, I love the songs, I love the Kylie stuff and the fact that they wrote them one after another, it was just incredible. At the Brits, I was up against The Las, The Charlatans and Happy Mondays and I beat them to it in the Best Newcomer category. I just thought, ‘that’s alright, isn’t it?’. I was considered to be an indie artist because I wrote my own stuff and I was on the front cover of NME, which was unheard of as well.
You’ve been back doing live events for a few years now. What are those nostalgic pop gigs like?
You know what, they’re really good fun because everyone’s there for the right reasons. They want to go back in time, they dress up in 80s stuff, people turn up with Limahl wigs and things like that, it’s funny. But the great thing is that most people know your music. When I look out to the crowd, when I’m performing things like Doin’ The Do or Where Are You Baby, they know all the words.
What’s the vibe like backstage between all the artists?
Well, I think it’s a bit like Extras, the Ricky Gervais show. You can hear Toyah in the next room going, ‘yes! I got six million views from getting my tits out’. Have you seen that video, Toyah and Robert’s Sunday Lunch?
I haven’t, no.
Oh my god, I’ll send you a link in a minute. It’s her and her husband, her husband is playing the guitar and they’re doing a version of a Metallica song but she’s on one of those Peloton bikes and she’s got the most pert baps and she’s doing this and doing that and you just can’t take your eyes off her boobies. And she’s got six million views on YouTube!
Wow. So that sums up the literal tittle tattle going on backstage?
Yeah! The last one I did was in Leeds and Tony Hadley went on first and he came offstage, he’s a brilliant performer, and he went to the hospitality bit where all the artists are and went ‘awight Betty! Every time I do these shows, you’ve always gone and I never see you” and I’m like, ‘I haven’t actually met you before, but hi, how are you doing?’. It’s like Extras, people picking their noses and smoking.
Haha. What are you proudest of in your career?
My publishing company printed a lyric and music book of Boomania, my first album, with all the parts and everything. When I was looking at the words and music at the top, on Where Are You Baby?, it just had “written by Alison Clarkson”, no other writers or anything like that. I felt quite proud of that. I didn’t use samples or anything, it was just written by me in my bedroom. And that was it. Still to this day, I love that record. I’m proud of all my songs.
ND