Frankie Sandford

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Saturday girl Frankie Sandford prepares for a day at the races

Beverly Callard l Lawson l James l Michael Douglas

20 | June 6, 2013 | www.cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News

Music

F

RANKIE Sandford isn’t all that chatty. This is a serious issue when you’re trying to interview her on the phone.

Maybe she’s a bit sleepy (being in a girl band must be pretty tough, what with all the screaming fans and endlessly travelling about in tour buses), maybe she’s overwhelmed (just a week before we speak she announced her engagement to Brighton footballer Wayne Bridge), or maybe she’s just so excited about performing at Newmarket this weekend, her mind’s gone blank.

The 24-year-old from Upminster is one fifth of uber glossy girl group, The Saturdays. The girls – Frankie, Una Healy, Rochelle Humes, Vanessa White and Mollie King – who all stick to a stylish uniform of super long legs, super shiny hair and super pop voices, are performing at Summer Saturdays Live at Newmarket Racecourse with boy band Lawson.

And it’s all Frankie is really keen to talk about: “We just plan on having a good time. We’d love everyone there to get involved and have a good dance and hopefully it’ll be nice weather. We’re always up for a good time at those shows. We might watch a couple of races, do us a couple of bets, and there might be some new music that we’ll perform as well.”

Quick to giggle and very sweet, the singer started out as one of eight teenyboppers who won a CBBC competition to be in the S Club 7 spin-off, S Club Juniors (fellow band member Rochelle included), before joining The Saturdays in 2007. Carving her niche in the group with an elfin hair crop and kooky outfits, was becoming a pop star all she dreamed it would be? Hesitating for a second or two, she replies: “It’s great for us to get to do what we love for a living really and I think just getting around so many different places and meeting new people, it’s just so much fun. And in the summer, we love going and doing the summer shows – it’s so nice doing a show outside.”

See, I told you she was sweet, and that she can’t wait to come to Newmarket.

The problem is she’s also so carefully managed and manufactured pop through and through, that, if you ask her about the band she’s got all the answers; ask her about herself, and “Oh, I don’t know…” becomes a standard response. The band is in charge it seems.

The Saturdays’ music (think Ego, Higher and My Heart Takes Over) is the kind that, if you’re over the age of 14, you listen to exclusively in secret or while getting ready for a night out.

It’s hard to justify the cheesy pop melodies, saccharine lyrics and dance-tastic choruses otherwise, even though the epic, guaranteed key change that kicks in two-thirds into every one of their singles is pretty addictive.

They make brilliant, happy-go-lucky stuff; granted, they’re no Girls Aloud, but still, they’re not bad for a guilty pleasure, so it’s a wonder it’s taken them 11 attempts to (finally) nab their first No 1 single, What About Us. “Oh God, we were so excited,” Frankie squeals. “We had like a big party and we went for dinner and now we’re just like ‘I wonder how long we can drag it out for before it gets boring for everyone?’ We’ll be living off that No 1 for the rest of our lives! It just felt like five years down the line, we’re so lucky to get one, you know?”

And they are – they had to knock Justin Timberlake off the top spot to do it. Does she think they’re capable of getting another one?

“Ooh hopefully, but I’m happy with the one, if we don’t get another one at least we’ve got the one.”

Steering her away from talk of the group, the conversation dries up again. I try for some girly

Writer: Ella Walker ella.walker@cambridge-news.co.uk

As the glamorous girls gear up for Newmarket Racecourses’ Summer Saurdays Live, ELLA WALKER talks weddings, topping the charts and that Glamour interview with one fifth of The Saturdays

Frankie Sandford: “I’m so not a proper girl! I don’t know what I want!” ᔡ Summer Saturdays Live with Lawson & The Saturdays, July Course, Newmarket, Saturday, June 8, gates open at 1.45pm, music starts after the last race of the day. Tickets £15-£29 adults / £12-£16 children from 08445793010 / https:// newmarkettickets.thejockeyclub.co.uk/Online

wedding chat instead: Me: Congratulations on the engagement! Was it a surprise?

Frankie: Yeah it was a big surprise, and it was great so, yeah it was great.

Me: Have you started planning the big day yet?

Frankie: No, no, everyone keeps saying that and I’m like ‘I only just got engaged! I don’t know!’ but it will probably be next year. You know what? I haven’t got much of an idea of what I want. I’m so not a proper girl! I don’t know what I want.

Me: Are you starting to feel broody now Una and Rochelle are mums?

Frankie: I don’t know, not really, not at the moment (she laughs). I’ve got a wedding to plan!

Two weeks later, this pops up on her Twitter feed: “@FrankieTheSats: Some big news from me today! Wayne and I are having a baby. We are both SO happy and can’t wait for his or hers arrival! ” I feel hurt; I thought we were finally getting somewhere.

What Frankie is good at sharing and getting vocal about, though, is her on-going battle with depression. After having to take time off from the band before their All Fired Up Tour last

year, she agreed to do an incredibly candid interview with Glamour magazine about her illness.

“I think it’s had a bigger impact than I first ever thought really,” she muses.

“With Twitter I get so many people saying how it’s helped them and meet people all the time and it’s so nice, so rewarding for me, because I was so nervous about it and didn’t know how it was going to be received, and I think it just goes to show that more people need to talk about it really.”

She explains that the stress of the job, the nerves and everything else all fade away when she goes up on stage: “It’s great when you get up there. If you’re tired or in a bad mood, the minute you get up there it’s just great and all that (nerves) just goes out the window.

“Performing at Wembley was like a massive moment for me. I kind of can’t remember it all properly I was just so over excited.”

The Saturdays have a summer packed with outdoor gigs (Newmarket included, of course), their fifth album, and hopefully a tour in the new year as well as: “Rochelle’s new baby, so we’ve got everything going on!”

So I finish by asking what Frankie has planned for herself, where does she see herself in five years? “Oh goodness, God knows what I’ll be doing in five years’ time. I think the last few years have shown me that you never know what’s gonna happen so I don’t think I could even plan for five years.”

Cambridge News | www.cambridge-news.co.uk | June 6, 2013 | 21

FYI: The Saturdays won best band at the Glamour Awards this week where Frankie showed off her bump and new hair extensions, plus promised the band will be staying together despite becoming mums

Lawson

Lead vocalist and guitarist Andy Brown tells LOUISE MARTIN about his life-saving brain surgery, his painful split from The Saturdays’ Mollie King and Lawson’s first gig in Cambridge – that only three people turned up for.

SATURDAYS ON SATURDAY: Frankie Sandford and the rest of The Saturdays, inset, will be at the July Course, Newmarket, this weekend

>> On Lawson’s first encounter with Cambridge – a gig at The Portland Arms that had an audience of three: “That night is pretty famous in Lawson’s journey. It would have been good if there had been people there but it was very early days.” >> On why he got into music: “My dad used to sing Beatles songs and old 60s classics and I used to sit there and be fascinated by that. I was like: ‘How do you do that? I’d love to be able to play and sing like that’. My dad taught me a few chords and then after that I taught myself. I owe everything to my dad really because he’s the one that got me into music. My mum can’t sing a note, she’s tone deaf! >> On forming the band in 2009: “It was a bit of a strange coming together really. Out of the blue Adam had stumbled across my acoustic Myspace page. He’s a great drummer, so I just thought: ‘Why not?’.”(They were joined

by Ryan Fletcher – a friend of Andy’s from music college – and Joel Pleat, a friend of Ryan’s from school. >> On his life-saving brain surgery aged 19: “That was a very difficult time in my life. It was like being in a film because it just didn’t feel real. I

was in hospital for three months, which was quite difficult. Because I had lost hearing in my right ear I suffered really bad dizziness and vertigo. You don’t realise it but your ears are a massive part of your balance, which enables you to walk, and when you lose one side your brain basically doesn’t have a clue what’s going on, so you have to learn to live with one ear, which can take a while.” >> On their debut album, Chapman Square, which charted at No 4: “You never know how people are going to take your first album but I didn’t read any bad reviews. I think people appreciated the fact that we wrote it ourselves and it means a lot to us. It’s very personal.” >> On writing the album, drawing on his break-up from The Saturdays’ singer Mollie King: “It was sort of a healing process for me. I was down for quite a while and I used the inspiration and the sadness to write songs.

Personally that helps me, but everyone’s different. I find lyrics come easier when you’re writing about something that’s happened to you. Mollie’s a lovely girl.

I’d never have a bad word to say about her. We did have an amazing time and I think she likes the album. I think she’s a bit of a Lawson fan deep down!”