- Your house is infested with ghosts!
- You have to make "small" talk with Prince Charles and Princess "Di"!
- You're always flying out of your bedroom window when you're asleep!
- And you're forced to sit in draughty warehouses all day talking to the likes of Tom Doyle...
Imagine how thoroughly exciting it is! Imagine belting through busy London streets in the back of a swank car on your way to witness the making of the T'Pau video for their new croonsome weep of a tune, "I Will Be With You"! Imagine how you will soon be engaging yourself in banter with a plethora of famous types for hours on end! Imagine the wondrous sight of troupes of dancing girls and the visions of glamour and sparkly bits that are the very heartblood of every pop video that you, yourself will be "privy" to in a jiffy!
As you can probably imagine, this is not in fact the complete picture, viewers. As we saunter into a huge, dingy and decidedly parky warehouse in South London at 9:30 on a dismal Friday morning, it becomes apparent with the "vision" that greets our eyes - i.e. sweaty building-site type chaps hammering away at various bits of a film set - that making pop videos isn't half as glamorous as you might have thought.
Through the door with "band room" written on it, we chance upon the blokes from T'Pau, no doubt pondering the finer details of the "concept" of this particular vid...
"It's going to be a bit arty really," explains Ronnie Rogers, the rather large bloke who strums the guitar and helps write T'Pau's songs with his "beau" Dame Carol Decker. "That construction out there is supposed to be, like, a passage which Carol's going to walk down, and we're going to be appearing in the windows. Sounds great, dunnit? Harooohoohoo!!!"
Do I get the "faint" impression that making videos cheeses T'Pau off no end?
"You could say that, yeah! Harharharooo!" shrieks Ron. "Making videos is about that interesting (indicates a space with two fingers that isn't very big at all really). They'd be quite good fun if we could get more involved in the making of them, rather than just turning up and performing, but we're always far too busy. In fact, I'll have to get back to you on that question ho ho ho."
Indeed, listeners. And it seems that the T'Pau chaps are more concerned about what they slip from the so-called tog department onto their hairy shoulders for their visual "extravaganzas"...
"It was bad enough that I had to get my long hair cut to join this band, without having to wear all this poncy designer gear as well," moans guitarist Dean Howard. "I come from the heavy metal scene, y'see."
"Listen to him, eh!" shrieks drums person Tim Burgess. "There isn't a particular T'Pau image, so the stylist girl just brings in clothes that we've never been filmed in before, otherwise it would be really boring, wouldn't it?"
So what's the song about then? "It's all about, er.... ha ha. Well it's just a slow one, isn't it?" burbles Ronnie knowingly. "Mmmmm, why don't you ask Carol about it? She wrote the words..."
Indeed. Why not? But at the moment, "Madam" Carol (known to the rest of the band as "The Moo") is "on location" in the awesome grey tunnel, twirping in a mimeful fashion, gazing meaningfully into space and on the whole shaking her "booty" for the benefit of the film cameras to what she describes as "just a simple love song". In between "takes", Carol keeps nipping off into a little side room to repowder her nose (as it were) or to play around with her hairdo, which gives us the perfect chance to catch up with her for a swift yap. She's in a chirpy mood and doesn't show any signs of being even half as "cheesed" off as the chaps in the band are...
"It's always less boring for me because I'm usually more involved in our videos than they are. Things tend to rotate around me. We had a fiasco this morning with the clothes. The stylists went out and brought back some stuff for me to wear. They brought me back a turquoise frock, but it didn't fit - mainly because I'm a skinny wee lassie - so it's been temporarily taken in, but I'm still having to stick out my chest when I stand up to try to fill out the bust in it. Things never usually go to plan on a video shoot."
But it's important that T'Pau complete the filming today, since they have to travel back to Holland tomorrow, where they'll continue the hard graft that will become their second LP, and especially since the original video for "I Will Be With You", shot in Vienna, was completely mangled up during the processing stage. So there's a lot of pressure on them - and they're aireadyfour hours behind schedule.
"We'll be here until midnight at least, and it's a very tiring process. When we're filming, because of all the lighting and stuff, I always have to wear a lot more make-up than I normally would, or else I'd just look like a dog heh heh. Obviously it has to be constantly touched up, especially since I'm plagued with allergies, and for some strange reason the make-up on my right eye tends to keep on running which gets to be a pain after a while. Thankfully, we've done all the close-ups now, so I can stop worrying a little bit about how I look. And later on, we'll get a couple of bottles of wine in, have a few beers..."
Indeed, I forgot. Carol Decker - Queen of the "quaff". But won't the video look a bit dodgy if you're "slightly" stewed?!
"Well I'm miming, aren't I? So people won't realise I've had a tipple. Anyway, you can't expect me to hang around on a film set for 18 hours without having a drink, now can you?"
And off again she "pops"...
While Carol's carrying on filming the "master shot" (i.e. the main bit in which all the other things in the video will be slotted in and around), it's time to check out what ver lads are up to. It turns out that they've decided to kill their boredom with a nice game of cards (all except Dean who's already "conked out"), but when we poke our heads around the door, they begin to show us T'Pau's "Amazing" Heatseeking Card Trick. What happens is, the cards are laid face-down on the table, then one of the band goes outside while we have to press down on one of the cards, and when he comes back in, he's able to tell which card you'd chosen just from feeling the heat left on the card you touched. It works! (Twice, in fact.) But it's probably a downright swizz and anyway, it's 2pm and the crew have just demanded another tea-break (their third of the day, not counting lunch), so it seems like an appropriate point in the proceedings to catch up once again with Dame Carol.
So what, er, do you think of bees, Carol?
"Bees? Oh... em, well when I was doing the Smash Hits cover session while everyone else was having their lunch, I spent a long time trying to stop a cardboard one hanging on a piece of string from turning around the wrong way, so that was a bit of a pest. But real bees, I love. The busy bumble bee. I think it conjures up a pleasant image, whereas a wasp doesn't because they're usually bad-tempered and skinny."
"No, I've never been stung by a bee, but I was once stung by a wasp on the foot - maybe that's why I don't like them. What would I do if a bee stung me? I'd flatten it! But I wouldn't hold it against its colleagues hoohohoo..."
Has anyone ever mistaken you for a bee by any chance? Em, because of your long red hair of course...
"Frequently. Especially when I'm wearing my black and orange stripy jersey. They just walk up to me in the street, and swat me over the head with a rolled-up newspaper teeheehee."
She's obviously gone barking mad has "our" Carol. Most probably because T'Pau have been "on the road" for over 15 months now.
"Talking of bees actually, I remember we once got a massive great fluffy, stuffed bee thrown at us one time when we were onstage. It was homemade, orange and black, and had dangly beige legs that didn't go with it at all. I can't remember what happened to it though...
"People are always chucking gifts at the stage and shouting things at us, and I can take my fair share of wolf whistles. But I remember one time when we were playing an army base in Germany, and there was this squaddie shouting totally obscene things at me all through the show. So eventually I got so annoyed that I jumped off the stage and bashed him on the head with my microphone! The crowd all started cheering me. It was terrible."
Certainly not the type of thing one does when one is performing at The Prince's Trust "do" in front of Princess Di and "Dame" Charles themselves, as T'Pau did recently.
"We were given a chance to be introduced to them before the show and I was really terrified, pacing up and down before they arrived. Diana was really nice though - she asked me about the acoustics in the Royal Albert Hall, which of course I know lots about ho ho, and about how it felt to be the first group onstage. Charles didn't know who the hell I was though and said 'Are you singing here tonight?' What a poor chap, I don't think he was very comfortable about the whole thing."
All very rum you might think - catching big fluffy bees, bashing perv blokes on the head with microphones and having snoot-chats with royal types. But you do have to pity the poor girl. Being away from home so often is bound to invite spooks into your brain. The spook connection doesn't end there though, for while the group have been jaunting around the universe, the house that they've bought recently - by Carol's accounts a Victorian "job" with revolting lino and disgusting wallpaper that she and Ron haven't yet had a chance to decorate - has become a stomping ground for ghosts...
"We've got a feeling it's haunted because there's a door that keeps opening on its own, and the hood-thing on the old-fashioned fireplace always seems to have lifted itself up again every time we've left it down. But that's OK because we had ghosts in our last house too. We lived above a boating club in a building that was over 100 years old, and some of the other people there have seen the ghosts of oarsmen dressed in traditional costume - y'know, long-leggings, sideburns and a little cap. I've never seen them myself, but I've felt their presence. I've often been alone and felt as if I wasn't alone, and sometimes I've thought I've heard someone whisper my name in my ear. It's not very scary though... I'm far more scared of rats."
Mmmmm, rats eh? Did you know that a bee can cruise for four million miles on a single gallon of nectar?!
"What a load of rubbish! Did you just make that up? I'm not falling for that one! Buzz off! Hahhaahaa... buzz off... heh heh..."
Have you ever felt that you could fly after a spot of the old amber "nectar"? (snicker).
"No, but I have travelled through astral planes. No seriously, I've had an outer body experience twice, but the best time was when I floated out of my bedroom window while I was fast asleep, and floated all over the River Severn, then floated back through my window, saw myself lying asleep in my bed and floated back into my body again...
"How many bees do I reckon there are in America for each person? Oh! There's nothing like changing the subject quickly, is there?! For each person? Um... let's say a million bees per person. There's actually 500 million per person, are there?! Wow! Where do I reckon they go? Oh, Washington 'Bee' C, probably hohhoohoo heh heh hee!!!"
Ho ho ho!?
By now, it's time for the chaps themselves to get togged up and do their acting bits - one has to carefully pour wine into a glass, another has to casually open a fridge full of red shoes (?) etc. etc.
Carol watches on as her "fancy man" Ron, struts his stuff with a geetar and sings along in front of the cameras. My, he is a big chap is "our" Ron...
"I'd prefer to describe him as rugged myself," chortles Carol. "I like rugged men - people like Mel Gibson or Bob Geldof. Do I fancy Bros? Not really. The one who plays the drums... he's probably the one I'd go for if I had to make a choice. But he'd never go for me since I'm probably about 12 years older than him hoohoohoo. They're a bit too perfect-looking for me actually. I like a bit of rough, y'know. Well, Ronnie's a bit of rough, innee?! Heh heh heh."
Time to go, methinks. Bzzzzzz...