Kerry. Emily Herbert
It was typical of Kerry, in that she has always refused to apologise or be ashamed of some early activities that some people might consider a little sleazy. Indeed, those pictures would one day return to haunt her. They were not really her finest hour and, as so many famous women have also discovered, this is not a good skeleton to have in your closet. Moreover, because of her age, the pictures caused some controversy right from the start.
Had those pictures ever appeared, of course, then her life might have been quite different. While topless modelling can lead to a good career in showbusiness – Melinda Messenger is just one celebrity who has managed to turn it to her advantage – it can equally lead in other directions and take the model down a road that would be better not travelled. As it was, the pictures, as they always do, resurfaced when Kerry had become famous, causing her a good deal of embarrassment later on. But at that time she was still extremely young, unaware of the possible pitfalls, and keen to start out on her new career.
The tide in Kerry’s affairs, however, was beginning to turn. A spectacular career did indeed await her, but it was as a singer and television star, not a regular in the pages of glamour magazines. And, ironically, it was actually Kerry’s former misfortune, her background in foster care, that saved her. Social workers discovered that she had posed for the pictures, and had the pictures banned because she was still technically in Care. Kerry might have felt thwarted, but in actual fact they had done her a massive favour. When the pictures eventually did surface several years later, by this time she was less keen on a topless modelling career and Kerry managed to ban them herself.
In no way daunted, Kerry continued to cast around for ways to make her mark. When she was sixteen, she moved away from the Woodalls into her own council flat, although her relationship with the family remained extremely close and, her modelling career but a distant memory before it had even started, she began to look for ways to support herself. She had her much longed-for independence but, initially at least, was not entirely sure what to do with it.
Not that she was unprepared for work. Kerry had had jobs since she was fourteen, when she had worked in a shoe shop, and so now she proved herself ready to work in any number of jobs while she became established. There was a stint as a BT sales adviser, bar work and time in a sports shop, after which she took a job working in a fish and chip shop in Warrington, The Captain’s Table, to keep some money coming in. Kerry has always had a responsible attitude towards money; even in the earliest days of Atomic Kitten, she had jobs on the side, until her earning power really began to gather strength.
She was also popular wherever she went. Phil Pitt, the owner of the fish and chip shop, was pleased with his pretty new employee. ‘Kerry was always popular with the lads,’ he said. ‘Having her work for me was good for profits.’
Kerry herself was good-humoured about it in later years. ‘After closing time, the lads used to come in drunk and ask me for my number and I’d give them the number for Warrington station,’ she recalled. As for her popularity, she had a different explanation. ‘I could wrap a bag of chips with my eyes closed,’ she said. ‘I used to be very generous… I think that’s why I was so popular with the customers.’
Meanwhile, she was an enthusiastic devotee of the local club scene. Kerry had been a bit of an exhibitionist in her last years at school, and she was doing the same now when she went out dancing. ‘I’ve always been a bit of a show-off,’ she admitted. ‘I used to enter talent contests dancing like Michael Jackson and you could never get me off the karaoke machine. When I went to college, I didn’t know what I wanted to do apart from entertaining. The chip shop gave me some extra money to keep me going.’
She did something else, too, which, like the glamour shots, could have derailed her at the outset – she began to work as a lap-dancer at the Sugar Fantasy Club in Liverpool. But Kerry’s fortunes really were on the turn. What could have ended up as just another story of a girl from the wrong side of the tracks going nowhere fast, the club actually managed to provide Kerry with an opportunity. Quite apart from honing her dancing skills, which were shortly to become very useful, it got her noticed by a local record producer, which resulted in some of her earliest professional work. She was a good lap-dancer, too – she soon became one of the most popular girls in the club, earning up to £500 on a good night.
Of course, this background came to light as soon as Kerry became famous and, again, she refused to apologise or be embarrassed by it. Indeed, she took the line of a strong, independent woman. ‘I was very good at it, I have to say, and, yes, it’s very sexy,’ she said stoutly. ‘It wasn’t humiliating in the slightest.’ That was fortunate, as she continued with her lap-dancing in the very earliest days of Atomic Kitten, before the band really took off. ‘At the time, I was living on my own and I was in Atomic Kitten, but I wasn’t earning money,’ she said. ‘I had to do something to pay my rent. I am very proud of the fact that I was a lap-dancer.’
As Kerry became an increasingly accomplished dancer, she began to attract attention and it was when she was dancing in a club called Mr Smith’s in Warrington that she had her first big break. She was approached by someone who managed a Liverpool-based dance act called The Porn Kings, which, despite the name, was utterly above board. Would she be interested in joining the act? At first, Kerry was actually rather dismissive of her new fan, but eventually agreed to meet the rest of the group the next day. The meeting went well … and Kerry’s career had begun.
Indeed, The Porn Kings was an ideal outfit with whom Kerry could learn her trade. It was very much dance/techno music, but the group established quite a following, especially in Germany, and gave Kerry her first experience of performing in front of live audiences. It also enabled her to experience touring for the first time. The Porn Kings travelled across Europe and played to crowds of up to 10,000 fans, with a particularly large audience in Berlin. Word about the group was beginning to spread.
And so it was that, one night towards the end of 1998, a very famous musician was in the audience to see The Porn Kings. Andy McCluskey, who had been in the massively successful 1980s group Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, had been thinking of establishing an all-girl group for some time. Given the then massive popularity of the Spice Girls and All Saints, there was clearly a huge market for that kind of music and Andy was keen to set up a group of his own.
By the time he saw Kerry dancing on stage, she had also started making connections. Just before her eighteenth birthday, she met Liz McClarnon, who had initially planned to be a lawyer, but had by now discovered her love of showbusiness, and the two of them had become firm friends. Given that their ambitions were almost identical, the two of them had set up a partnership and were already discussing ways of furthering their careers even before Andy saw Kerry dancing.
On meeting them, Andy was convinced he had found two of the girls he needed, much to the girls’ great excitement. Kerry had only recently been getting used to applause as part of a large group; now there was the opportunity to become a star in her own right. They were soon joined by Heidi Range, although she was to leave before the band hit the big time, to be replaced by Natasha Hamilton. The trio were very young, even for the pop industry – Kerry and Liz were eighteen and Natasha only sixteen – but they were all determined to do whatever it took to succeed. And it wasn’t as if the idea of a hugely successful all-girl group was a ridiculous fantasy – there was already a precedent.
Of all the girl bands that started in the mid to late 1990s, the Spice Girls in particular had had a phenomenal impact on the music scene and every aspiring girl band member in the country was desperate to do what the Spices had done. What they did not perhaps realise was just how sophisticated the marketing campaign had been when launching the Spice Girls; it was therefore extremely fortunate for the new trio that they were being guided by someone who knew the music business as well as Andy McCluskey, who was under no illusions as to what had to be done.
By this time, Andy’s OMD colleague Stuart Kershaw was also involved, along with Martin O’Shea. Andy and Stewart were to write the songs for the girls and Martin was to be their manager. There was, however, that most crucial of details to sort out – the name under which the band would perform. And so, as the girls started rehearsals, a search for a name was on.
Initially,