“It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it,” Bananarama sang in 1982 on their first top ten hit, “It Ain’t What You Do”, a collaboration with Fun Boy Three. Over the next six years, the OG girl-group of the UK (childhood friends Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward, plus Siobhan Fahey, a fellow rebel spirit from London’s post-punk scene) didn’t quite stick to the song’s lyrics. Because with Bananarama, it was what they did and the way they did it that felt special.
Obviously, their songs were fantastically quirky and catchy, “Cruel Summer” and “Robert de Niro’s Waiting” are two of the great early-80s pop singles. But Bananarama’s attitude made them stand out, too. They weren’t primped and polished like so many girlbands that followed. They were three mates doing it all for themselves because the thrilling culture of self-determination at the time made them believe they could. And they were really good at it, it turned out. By 1988, Bananarama had transitioned effortlessly into purveyors of sharp, sparkly dance-pop. Indeed, they took “Venus” to the top of the US singles chart a decade before the Spice Girls achieved the same feat with “Wannabe”.
Bananarama continued without Fahey (the group being a duo since 1991) but, until now, the group’s original three-member line-up had never done gigs together. Today, the trio has announced a one-off reunion tour that will criss-cross the UK this November and December. Last week, Bananarama met with i-D in North London to find out how their unexpected comeback came about.
I don’t think anyone thought this reunion would ever happen. So, how and why did it come together?
Sara Dallin: After Siobhan left, Keren and I carried on working and touring as Bananarama. And we thought, “What can we do this year that’s a bit different?” Someone suggested doing something with Siobhan. We’d never actually toured with her. The time was right.
Keren Woodward: I picked up the phone and called Siobhan. I think the first thing I said was something like: “Before we even consider it, you have to embrace the pop.” Because having done so many Bananarama shows now, I kind of understand what the audience wants to see.
Siobhan Fahey: I think you said that in our second conversation. The first conversation, you just put the idea to me in a personal and heartfelt way. But honestly, this is the last thing I ever thought would happen. We did have a drunken gathering a couple of summers ago where we ended up disco dancing in my kitchen until 3 in the morning — and there were protestations of undying love for one another and tears in our eyes. And I remember you saying, “You don’t know how much people love Bananarama, because you’ve never experienced it on stage.”
Does touring together feel like unfinished business in a way?
SF: We formed Bananarama out of a friendship, a love for music and being on stage, and a kind of rebellious attitude. It was like, “We don’t need to learn our instruments — let’s just do it like The Supremes used to do it.” We created Bananarama and it exploded. When I left the band, I didn’t realize at the time that I was leaving a massive part of myself behind.
SD: There were definitely people out there who just thought we were three bimbos.
It’s shocking how many old articles from back in the day described you in such a sexist and reductive way.
KW: If we’d been men, we’d have been called “rock ‘n’ roll” and it would have been acceptable. We were expected to smile all the time, and we’re just not naturally like that. At the time, we were painfully shy, so we moved everywhere in a group.
SF: We’d never have created such a body of work that evolved and stayed on top of the zeitgeist if we weren’t actually serious about our music, though. But we’re not pompous or pretentious people.
KW: We had a massive amount of fun while we were doing it.
SF: And there was strength in numbers. There’s something about a tight group of women together that people do find intimidating — or certainly did back then.
KW: People have said to us, “God, we were really scared of you.”
You were in control of your music too.
SD: We were never steered by anybody else — we always steered the ship. In the early days, we might have done the odd photo shoot with balloons and streamers —which totally wasn’t us —but we always knew where we were going. We would hear the music we liked and we would contact the producer who had made the song and arrange to meet them.
KW: When we started, the music business was very male-orientated. At the record label, you’d have an attractive female secretary and then a load of blokes doing the other jobs.
Did those blokes always listen to your ideas?
SF: Absolutely not — we were slapped down time and again.
KW: There were some guys who would be supportive and others who’d just say, “OK, whatever… now let’s have a vodka.” Like all we wanted to do was party and not really talk about what the band should do next.
SD: Most of the time, they would just let us get on with it because they could never work out why it was that we were successful.
Is it fair to say Bananarama kind of “accidentally” became a massive pop group?
SD: I mean, we were always going to clubs and we had friends who were in bands, so we’d just jump on stage and do backing vocals or whatever. And I think it was Paul Cook [from the Sex Pistols] who said, “Why don’t you put a group together?” So we did a few rehearsals for our friends.
SF: We were actually living in his rehearsal studio in Soho at the time because we had no money.
KW: Well, before that, Sara and I had been living in the YWCA near the British Museum — but we were asked to leave for “keeping late hours”. They got fed up with us constantly coming in late. But we were living in walking distance of all the clubs in the West End, so of course we were always going out!
SF: We were just obsessed with music and dancing. And we were part of this underground eruption that was happening at the time. It was after punk. You felt like you could define your own life for the first time. You didn’t have to just do a 9-5 job. It didn’t matter if you were poor. It wasn’t like we thought, “Let’s become pop stars and go on Top of the Pops.” We just wanted to get up on stage and make music.
But when you did end up on Top of the Pops for the first time, how did you know what to do and what to wear?
KW: Oh, it was horrifying.
SF: As you can tell when you watch it!
SD: It was with the Fun Boy Three and they insisted we were grey ra-ra skirts — which we hated, hated, hated! It was like, “How do we know when the cameras are on us? And what do we do?” It was so embarrassing and we were just shuffling around in these hideous outfits. But I was sick with excitement! I just thought of all the girls who’d bullied me at school and thought “Fuck you!” And I never thought I’d be on Top of the Pops again. I thought it would be our only time.
Why do think it worked?
KW: I think it’s because we were very different to anything people had seen before or after.
SF: We were very anti-showbiz.
SD: Basically we’d had no training -— and we were thinking, “What the hell do we do now?”
KW: And I think people could identify with that. When we meet women now, who are in a certain age bracket, they’re beside themselves because they used to watch us on TV. And they sort of thought, “Oh my God, look at those girls doing it.” It was like they could do it too.
SF: It was destiny, in a way. We did three rehearsals, made a record [1981’s debut single “Aie a Mwana”], Fun Boy Three contacted us, then we did Top of the Pops.
Was there ever a moment where you thought, “Shit. We’re pop stars now!”?
SD: Even when “Cruel Summer” went to the top ten in America, it was thrilling, but I still didn’t see myself in that way. I didn’t see myself as Whitney Houston. I mean, I didn’t sing like Whitney Houston.
SF: I do remember coming out of the Sunset Marquis Hotel in L.A. to get the bus to go to the beach and Mike Tyson was just there, sitting on the hood of his limo and singing Cruel Summer to us.
KW: I can’t believe we were catching a bus in L.A. — after we’d had hits in the States! I mean, no one gets the bus in L.A! Why was no one looking after us?SD: We probably didn’t have management — often we didn’t have management. It was a DIY operation for the most part.
Why do you think it ended for you, Siobhan?
SF: Literally, we were together 24/7 for nearly a decade. We lived together — I remember writing Robert de Niro’s Waiting at the public housing apartment we shared. It was like a very intense marriage. It lasted longer than most modern marriages and it produced great music again and again. I’m very proud of what we achieved together. When Keren rang to ask me about the tour, it made me very emotional. She was like, “Don’t give me your answer now.” but I was like, “Oh my God, I think I feel like doing this.”
KW: — But I knew she’d want to think about it long and hard.
SF: When George Michael died that was it for me. Because at our inception, there were a bunch of bands like us and Wham! who all went to the same clubs — it was a scene we were part of. It was all young kids who had come out of punk who were just totally defining their own lives in a sort of hedonistic but innocent way. They were all obsessed with making cool pop music.
KW: When you see something like that [George Michael’s death] happen, you just realize that life’s too short. You don’t know what’s going to happen in life so you need to embrace it fully and do as much as you possibly can.
Without wanting to get too sentimental, what do you hope Bananarama means to people now?
SD: Great music. I’m not going to say “girl power”, but I do think we were very much at the forefront of opening doors for women in our particular field.
KW: We were independent spirits and I think we set a really good example. We didn’t pander to men in any way, shape, or form. The way we dressed and the sort of strong spirit we showed — without the sex element coming into it —that was very different. And people actually found us attractive in spite of…
SD: The donkey jackets.
SF: We were all about dungarees and donkey jackets!
KW: I always find it extraordinary when someone says, ‘I had a poster of you on the wall.’
SD: Liam Gallagher said that to us, didn’t he?
KW: I’m always like, ‘Why did you have a poster of me on the wall? I looked like a small boy.’ But with Bananarama, it was all done on our own terms and we were successful doing it. And I think that’s a really good example to set to anyone, really.
Credits
Text Nick Levine