0The Daily Express: The Coming Together of the Spice Girls

They are now the newest and hottest of groups. But The Spice Girls have come a long way - in fact they couldn't sing and couldn't dance when Ian Lee first met them. Caitlin James hears the real story...

THE legend of the Spice Girls has them all meeting up at auditions, all desperate for a break and out of work, with two of them commuting from the North down to London.

Stories of how they decided to team up, live together and form an all-girl-power group abound.

The generally repeated story of their beginnings says that for two years the five girls were writing songs and laying down the foundations for the Spice Girls, and after managing themselves, they met their current manager and the bidding war began.

The rest is history.

Not quite. One man who knows how the band really came to be has come forward, Ian Lee, 50, helped the Spice Girls realise their immense ambitions. He runs the charity-funded Trinity Studios in Woking, Surrey, where he helped groom the band - which was originally called Touch.

Ian spend time with the girls every day for a year, sat at a piano with them and helped them to train their voices.

The generally circulated Spice Girls’ story talks of an advertisement being placed in The Stage, the trade paper for the performing arts, asking for dancers, to which they all replied to in 1993.

But according to Ian Lee, the girls never clapped eyes on each other until June 7, 1994. He says: "I couldn’t believe it when all these stories came out about how the girls did everything themselves.

"They were a put-together band. They’d never met until they were picked from 400 others and Emma Bunton and Geri Halliwell weren’t even considered for the original line-up.

"They couldn’t sing and they weren’t the greatest dancers but they had one thing in common and that was blind ambition.

"They spent a year working like slaves to get things right and once they got things sorted, they dropped everyone and took themselves off."

The whole idea of a girl band to rival boy groups such as Take That and East 17 was dreamed up by Chris Herbert who, together with his father Bob, owned a management company - which was originally called Heart and later, Safe.

The Herberts have since been contracted by the girls’ new advisers, 19 Management, and they are legally bound not to speak of their involvement with the Spice Girls.

What actually happened was that Herbert, 26, went to dance schools and drama colleges in London and the South-East with a rather cheap black and white flyer, asking for girls who could both sing and dance, and who were streetwise, ambitious and dedicated.

On March 4, 1994, girls turning up at a studio in London were given 30 seconds to perform and marked out of 10 on their ability to dance and sing, as well as their looks and personality.

The 400 hopefuls were whittled down to 10. Among them were the two Melanies, along with a middle-class girl called Michelle Stephenson, who had received the highest score. Victoria was also picked.

According to Ian, Geri Halliwell entered the picture on April 28 when the management team were choosing the final five.

Geri had missed the first audition because of a modelling job, but had begged with Chris Herbert on the telephone to give her a try.

IAN recalls: "When she walked in, everybody could see she was a bit older than the rest of the girls so Chris asked her how old she was. Her reply was a classic Geri. "She said: ‘I’m as old or young as you want me to be. I can be a 10-year old with big tits if you want.’ She got the job.

"On June 7, the girls came to the studio to work together. Chris had put them all up in a local B&B, and for a week they got to sing and dance together."

Ian smiles to himself as he recalls his first impression of the girls. "They sounded absolutely awful. Geri had problems singing in tune and none of them could move together.

"After a few days you could see something gelling, but it was no overnight miracle. It was bloody hard work."

After a week they were told they’d got a fortnight to think things over, to decided if it was something they really wanted to do.

They all agreed and Chris moved them into a house in Maidenhead and asked Ian to allow them to use his studios on a daily basis at a cost of £100 a week. The girls were given expenses, but no regular wage.

In a bare, bleak dance studio with paint peeling from the yellow tongue-and-groove surrounds, the girls got to know each other.

"Geri and Melanie Brown were instantly singled out as the leaders," says Ian.

"They always had a opinion and they both wanted to be in the driving seat. They used to fight like cat and dog."

Ian adds, "Geri would freely admit she wasn’t a great singer or dancer, but she was a dammed hard worker.

"She’d spend hours on her own perfecting her singing or working on her dance steps. She was determined to succeed.

"She kept saying: ‘Time’s running out. This is my last chance and I’m going to make it.’ She was a tough nut."

Geri penned a song called Release during her year working at Trinity Studios. The chorus goes: "Babe I’m gonna make it, Boy I’m going to take it, If I haven’t got it, Then I’m gonna fake it."

It perhaps reveals her feelings at the time.

All the girls were pulled into line by the Herberts and their financial backer, a 50-something entrepreneur called Chick Murphy who claims to have managed The Three Degrees.

THEY were told that 100 per cent commitment was needed, or else. However, the real problem was that Michelle just didn’t fit in.

"She was quite reserved and pensive and wouldn’t always agree to do the things the rest of them wanted," says Ian.

"Then, in August her mum got cancer and she was offered a place at university, so she quit the band.

"Chris held a panic audition and Emma was picked. She was far more suited to the rest of the girls.

"Melanie Chisholm, who is the real talent in the band, would spend all her spare time watching football.

"Melanie Brown and Geri were the ones who’d do all the partying. And even though they’d do most of the fighting, they were the ones who’d go off together."

Ian goes on:

"Mel would come in on a Monday morning and discuss all the men she’d been with. She loved sex and loved talking about it.

"Geri never did. We all used to tease her, then on Christmas Eve we were sitting in the Garibaldi pub across the road and she said that she hadn’t had sex for two years and that she was a born-again virgin.

"Everybody fell about laughing, but she was serious."

While staying in Maidenhead, the girls would perform for visitors to Trinity, including Surrey County Councillors and local dignitaries.

"They got their name from Tim Hawes, who co-wrote a song with them and titled it Sugar And Spice. They were sitting around afterwards and he said: ‘There’s your name. It’s perfect because you’re a bunch of spicy bints.’ They loved it."

The girls got to know other executives in the music business after performing a showcase for publishing companies and songwriters.

GERI emerged as a consummate networker and tried to make as many contacts who would help them on their way as she could.

"She was the one with the clearest vision," Ian smiles, "the one who knew exactly what she wanted for the band. If she saw an opening she’d go for it."

The last time the girls were at Trinity was in April 1995. They were negotiating their contract with Safe, and problems had arisen. Until then the girls had not signed a contract but were held by an informal agreement.

"By that stage they’d become really good," Ian says. "Chris was a great artistic director.

"The way they look, dance and sing together today is exactly the way he got them to, even down to the way they stand.

"He wanted them to be sassy and sexy. You could see that they were going to make it. And they started to act like real pop stars."

Still, Ian was surprised at how the girls took their leave of him and the Herberts.

"They were working in the studio when suddenly there was this massive row.

"The whole building could hear them screaming and shouting at each other and then they all burst out of the room and stormed off."

They never came back. "The next thing was that we read in the music press was that they were signed up by Annie Lennox’s manager, Simon Fuller, and had done a deal with Virgin.

"I was really pleased when they got to Number One and I tried to contract them to do something for Trinity, and support the charity organisation which is here to help young artists get on their feet. But I was blanked by their management."

He sighs. "All Emma wanted was to be on the cover of Smash Hits and the rest of them wanted to be on Top Of The Pops.

"They’ve done all that now, and good on them. They worked hard and they deserve it. It just seems that in a few short months the business had made them hard enough to brush aside their past and make out none of us ever existed. Considering all we went through together, that is such a shame."