That's a favourite expression of T'Pau's Carol Decker, that 'feisty, flame-haired temptress' with the considerable voice to match. She's the driving force behind the first British rock band with a female singer to make it big on both sides of the Atlantic. Betty Page goes to Shrewsbury to see what makes T'Pau tick. Scenic shots by Joe Shutter
Step into Carol Decker's parlour and she'll greet you with a firm but welcoming handshake. This is characteristic of this forthright, intelligent and sharp young woman whose fiery spirit has helped steer T'Pau to the top of both the British and American charts. But today, she's more concerned about making sure the washing machine doesn't leak again, and showing off the letter from her bank manager congratulating the band rather unctuously on the success of 'Heart And Soul'.
Carol lives with guitarist and co-songwriter Ronnie Rogers in a delightful flat overlooking the River Severn in Shrewsbury. Of course, the fact that T'Pau's rise to pop chartdom started in downtown Shropshire and not, as might suit their brand of commercial rock, somewhere in Cleveland, Ohio, is now the stuff of legend.
But it's actually a misconception, fact fans, that the whole band are Shrewsbury born and bred. Bassist Paul Jackson and keyboard player Michael Chetwood hail from Telford, and drummer Tim Burgess and lead guitarist Dean Howard are both Londoners. "Exclusive truth!" exclaims Carol in that voice of hers that means business. "T'Pau not all from Shrewsbury shock! I think we've got the headline!"
You may gather from this comment that Carol has a healthily cynical attitude toward the press. This is fairly understandable considering T'Pau did a Dick Whittington; knotted hankies on sticks, trooped off to America to make their fortune, come back home to do the same, all without very much critical support. All the more admirable then, that they've got this far; all the way from Young Farmers do's to a number one British hit single, 'China In Your Hand'.
Carol remembers her early days with limited fondness. "The band I was in, our staple diet of work was Young Farmers functions. You'd go and play in Wales at a farm and they'd hose out the cowshed, and you'd play on a trailer. They were the highest paying gigs, aren't I right, boys?" (The boys chorus in agreement, something they do quite often with Carol.)
"They certainly weren't genteel events. I think if I'd known that eventually it was going to be OK, I'd have enjoyed it more, knowing I was going to get out of it, but at the time I used to be really miserable about it. Looking back there was actually scope for a laugh here and there, but I didn't have one, unfortunately. You enjoyed it didn't you Ronnie?" (Ronnie nods in agreement.) "Ronnie enjoys everything. He'd enjoy dying, I think."
Carol and Ronnie tried to build a reputation locally by performing their own material, which was really going against the grain. They made more money in a cover band doing songs like (wait for it) 'Save All Your Kisses For Me' and 'Obladi Oblada'. There are, says Carol, still a lot of bands gigging in the Shrewsbury area, but they'd probably make more money selling dried flowers. Maybe soon they'll be doing cover versions of 'Heart And Soul'. "I'd die to see that," says Carol, "I'd love to see someone round here trying to do the rap!"
Ah, but how life changes. Now T'Pau are opening CD factories with Richard Branson, making documentaries about how a Midlands band made good, and 'routining the act' with a top American stage choreographer, in preparation for their first headlining tour of the UK in December.
"He helps people get used to a big stage," says Carol. "On the Nik Kershaw tour when I first stepped out onto one of the larger stages, Ronnie and Paul seemed miles away from me, and I was standing by them all the time. You have to learn to work a stage, and we needed help with that. Footwork - huh, you think Five Star can dance? Wait till you see our new act - wonderful! The tendency is to overdo it, which is what we were doing. I was like a hysterical chicken running round. We haven't got it right yet but it's given us some good pointers."
Onstage, Carol looks tiny and fragile, but don't let that fool you. She has an impossibly large voice which had no trouble filling Wembley Arena when they supported Bryan Adams. This volume somewhat disturbed one American writer who took a particular dislike to Carol's singing.
"We got a right slagging off in LA, me particularly, this guy was going 'what a din, she was screaming her head off, a bloody noise' and I felt like writing to him and saying 'bit loud for you, was it, love? You should have been at home with a book'. This man shouldn't have been at a rock concert, for crying out loud."
Yes, as I said, Carol has little time for unreasonable critics. "They only love you when you're down and out," she says. "When we were on the Nik Kershaw tour and 'Heart And Soul' was out for the first time, I hardly saw a bad review. The most negative thing was this bloke who said 'I don't like it but it's going to go top five both sides of the Atlantic'. When we got the press down it was like 'wow, a new discovery', but when we started having success on our own it was 'oh, God, they've sold out'. It's just so predictable, we were just waiting for it to start. It was like 'can we have a release date for the slagging please, just tell us when, I want to be sitting down'. It's a real shame. If you're in the Screaming Shits reading your diary over arty chords on an old Moog, that's OK. These people are in a timewarp."
"It's the same with the reviews of our album," adds Ronnie. "OK, maybe they thought it wasn't very good, but you can't expect anything else. It's the first thing they do - band with a successful single, so knock it. If it was the Three Johns or something, it'd be all right."
"What I can't stand," continues Carol, getting into her stride, "is huge great pompous theories from artists and journalists on pop music, because for crying out loud, we're not doing anything important, we've got no deep and meaningful reason for doing what we do, we just enjoy it, but they try and find the gravity and credibility behind everything, and there isn't. You're in rock music, you're getting paid - if you make it - a lot of money for doing an hour's hard work a night. The rest of the time you're staying in nice hotels, travelling, meeting people - just like Miss World - very nice. So why does everyone have to analyse it?"
In America, they particularly enjoy the sport of being pretentious. Carol and Ronnie were once approached by three gay kids who wanted every last full stop in the lyrics of 'Heart And Soul', because one of them was about to split up with his boyfriend until he heard the song, which he decided had been written for them. They put all the lyrics on their computer, and when any of their friends were depressed, they'd send a printout of the lyrics to 'lift them spiritually'.
"I'm sorry, but I could hardly stop laughing," admits Carol, running across the room to get a letter they'd sent to her. "This gives you a brief idea of how the average American fan thinks:
'To the brilliant creative force with and/or among T'Pau that gave life to 'Heart And Soul'. The commercial success of this song is and will be a mere characteristic of the inner scheme of things... The beauty and perfection of this song are tributes to it that cannot be matched by money, ratings or even congratulatory statements. In the language of time, you have offered to a world of people who seem to be increasingly locked into negative perceptions a clear message in support of themselves and one another..'
"The Yanks in particular are very, very sincere, they're full of crap, and you can't just stand there and say 'I can't believe what you just said', you've got to go 'thank you, I'm really pleased my song meant so much to you'. Give me a break, that's ridiculous. I don't want it analysed to death, 'cause we're all very lucky. I haven't gone round telling everyone I'm going to change the world."
Still, Carol enjoys being popular, and reading nice articles about herself. That doesn't include the constant references in certain newspapers to the state of her relationship with Ronnie. "The thing is that we're very boring - we're very happy together, we work well together, live well together, but that's not what journalists want to hear, they try and bring things down to something really sleazy, and that's really annoying. I don't mind people knowing I can have a drink and a good time and I have a giggle and swear, but maybe I'm a bit precious about my own intelligence, and I don't like it demeaned, unless I do it myself."
"I think maybe that is a very feminine defence, and I don't want to be perceived in that way. I don't mind people knowing I'm not an angel, but I don't want to be perceived as some kind of bimbo."
Not much danger of that, despite the constant reference to her being a 'flame-haired temptress'.
"A friend of mine walked into this party I was at and said 'it's luscious, gorgeous, flame-haired'... and I went 'oh, shut up', and he was going 'oh, let me touch you!'. I think it's more like 'horrible, bad tempered, bitchy, flame-haired etc'... flame-haired was probably the only one that was true, ha ha!"
So, if you're a self-possessed female fronting a rock band, you must be a sultry songstress, or at the very least another Pat Benatar. Carol has had them all thrown at her.
"Apparently I sound like her, and Heart, and Maria McKee, and all these women sound incredibly different from each other, but I sound like all of them, which is quite interesting, really. Got a voice like a Kenwood Blender, me."
Annie Lennox was previously perhaps the only strong female rock singer, but not even she has red hair now. If you've got red hair, you must be feisty, eh Carol?
"I am actually, so maybe that is true. I definitely don't have a long fuse."
Light blue touchpaper, stand back... and T'Pau... This lady's not for turning.