Cool And The Gang

Whether or not Chill can follow Spice Girls into the charts or even into our affections remains to be seen. Either way, isn t it about time we at least said hello to Ireland s first all-girl bid for pop success in the 90s?
Happily, or sadly, depending on your perspective, they do not turn up for this interview either nude or semi-nude, which seems to be their preference in terms of publicity photographs. Instead, they re all well wrapped up in their winter woollies, taking a rest from rehearsals. Separately they all step inside the empty library in Lillie s Bordello, on a chilly Tuesday afternoon. And, yes, the door is closed as each sits in the hot chair for Hot Press, all noticeably nervous at this, their first real interview. So, fantasise on this, if you want to. It s you and a Chill-girl all alone in her lair.
And, no, I don t know who among them if any are gay, bi or sexually voracious. Though I do know that at least one revealed she would consider posing for Playboy and becoming Ireland s first centre-fold. Which one? She asked me to promise not to tell, so I guess you ll just have to work that one out for yourself. First into the room is the girl who recently presented the IRMA Awards.

Liz Bonnin: I m 21, half-French, half-Trinidadian, no Irish in me at all. In fact I originally came here for my schooling. I ve always wanted to sing. When I was in school I formed my first band not so much for fame as for the feeling I get while singing. I just want to get up there and sing and dance because it s what makes me feel good. That s why I ve gotten into this.
What about that rock n roll longing to get rich, famous and laid , to quote Bob Geldof?
I definitely don t want it for the fame, because I really love my privacy and don t know yet how I m going to react if people start pointing at me on the street and all that. Rich? Sure, but we ll see what happens in that respect? And as for men, if I get to meet Johnny Depp out of all this I ll be happy! But I don t know about all that, either. All the men who seem to get the models and so on, are rock stars like Mick Jagger, but does the same apply in reverse, to the same extent? Maybe it does, with bands like Spice Girls. And with the looks we have, we already have loads of guys around all the time. But I think it would be stupid for us to get it together with all the guys we meet.
But hasn t that become par-for-the-course for girls in rock with Melanie B, from Spice Girls, after a recent gig in Japan, allegedly lying on the bed with her legs wide open shouting, Right, who wants it first? , according to a report in, well, yes, Loaded.
Well, sorry but that s not what we re about, says Liz. That s like the pop-girl equivalent of how heavy metal bands carry on. But that s not where Chill are coming from. Even apart from our image, we re not those kind of girls. I know we are a pre-fabricated band, but why we re all into this is because we want to be in a band. It s a passion we all have. And part of this is that we do want to be taken seriously. And that definitely applies in relation to our attitude to blokes. So if what you say is what anyone expects from Chill, that s not what they ll be getting.
So, okay if not Melanie B, then who does Liz regard as a role model, musically?
Annie Lennox. She s amazing. And, in terms of the r n b type pop-dance avenue we re going to go down, someone like Janet Jackson. As in the whole package: the dancing, the singing. Jackson, TLC, Toni Braxton. Though I am also into Garbage and love Radiohead, even though this, obviously, isn t going to come across in Chill.
All of this sounds very sweet, and hopeful, but isn t it also true that, at the moment, all members of Chill are basically broke and have been for more than one and a half years since the group was first formed? Did the delay ever cause despair, desperation?
It obviously is frustrating waiting for the right deal to be sorted out, says Liz. Yet it was only last summer we all decided to give up everything else and go for this full time. We know it s going to take time, so we can hang in there. Especially now that we see light at the end of the tunnel, in terms of finally getting our break. Besides, if we were to keep our jobs just to have money, we wouldn t be able to give this thing the kind of attention it needs. So, sure, we re smashed. But we re managing. We all help each other out!
And what about the dictate imposed on boy bands, by which they must publicly declare the we don t drink, smoke, do drugs, don t even have time for girlfriends line?
Hopefully, we ll be allowed to be a little more truthful, says Liz. Yet, there s really not that much to lie about. We re five strong people and we will probably do whatever we want, anyway. We want to be seen as accessible, not as the kind of cool, sophisticated creatures that make other women hate us. Then again, we don t want to play up the guys in terms of anything like that Spice Girls thing you mentioned earlier. We want to appeal to kids, parents, the whole lot. But we re not going to lie and say we don t hang out, don t have guys or whatever.
But will Liz or any of the other girls be able to be upfront and say they advocate the use of E, say, on the dance floor?
None of us are into that and I m sure that was a factor in putting together the band, she says. Now, when we look back, we realise that Valerie (Roe, manager of Chill) really knew what she was doing when she choose these particular five girls. She knew we weren t the type to do drugs or go mental in night clubs. And the fact that she herself was in The Dooleys means that she knows the business, as far as girl bands are concerned. She s a strong woman and she ll take care of us, I believe.

Next in is Aisling Ryan, 21, who, despite what Liz has just said, looks a little hungover but happily jokes Alka Seltzer is your best bet, believe me! She s from Tallaght and is a spicy woman all right. So, why does she want to be part of Chill?
Same old story, I guess. As a kid I always wanted to be a star . I was brought up listening to musicals and was a bit of a looper, actually, as a kid. Dancing in the kitchen, y know? I just liked the oul bit of attention, or whatever. Still do. In fact I love the idea that people could get a buzz from watching us on stage. And from watching me! That s a feeling I got, for the first time, when I played Eliza Dolittle in a production of My Fair Lady, as a kid of eleven, twelve. So, as I say, this is what I always wanted to do. And, in pop, nowadays, I really admire someone like Madonna who always fought for her ideals, never conformed, followed her own path.
So would Aisling do a Madonna-like Sex book?
Not just yet! she says, laughing. Though maybe if the money is right! Ah no, I ll be murdered for saying that! I ll be kicked out of the band. I m only joking, Valerie! Don t give me my walking papers. Jesus, my mother ll kill me, too, for saying that. I didn t mean it, honestly! Though maybe she d accept it if it was done tastefully. But, moving on . . . I also love En Vogue because they are four individuals who blend beautifully together. They re really good on the harmonies, which is probably going to be the thing we do best.
Cynics may scoff at such claims. But this reporter was present during an already legendary record company party last year where visiting music moguls asked the girls to sing a cappella and they did, silencing the room in a second.
We sang two songs that day, Talk To My Baby and Love Is So Blind though we didn t know we d be asked to sing, Aisling recalls. Yet the point is that five out of five of us can sing. What we had to learn is to blend our voices, get harmonies, not have one voice shouting out there in front of everyone else.
But doesn t there invariably come a time in every band when one singer needs to shout or move to the front? Are Chill ready for that?
Yeah. We ve recorded demos with different lead vocalists and that s how we realise we have five very different voices, but you do have to think in terms of being part of a group, not being a solo artist. This is your job and you can t be thinking of only what s good for yourself. And all of us, to tell you the truth, have had to be hauled back from thinking that. And we ve sorted that out.
And, seriously, this is a dream, for all of us, just to be part of a girl group. I don t think any of us are thinking of anything else, at the moment. What concerns us most now is that we get fit enough so that when we do go on stage we will last for a half hour session, or whatever. And I really do think we could be brilliant live. Maybe because we ve taken so long to get to this point. Some days, when you re doing rehearsals, you go oh God, here we go again. Are we ever gong to make it? But we re lucky in that there s five of us and we re friends and that helps. Sure, we fight among ourselves but not that much.
Is it true that tensions arose when certain members were approached to leave Chill?
Two of the group were asked to join another group, with all that we ll make you big stars stuff, Ashling confirms. But we said no though that was a very tough decision. Especially because we did start out as total strangers, almost. And before you really get to know someone you can go, she s a total psycho, let me out of here . But after you talk to each other and become friends you realise we re all in this together. So, now, it really is very much a group thing. Now we all really do believe in Chill.

Aisling steps out, Sinead Cantwell, 18, steps in. She s the baby of the group, the girl who always dreamed of being somebody and now can t quite cope with the fact that something like that is starting to happen . Her voice is low and tentative. She immediately begins to speak of her favourite singers. Again, it s the Jacksons, as in Janet and Michael.
But what I love is the emotion involved in singing, in music, she says. That s why I love soul music, in particular. And dance. That s what we re going for with Chill: funk and r n b and pop. I love that kind of stuff. And what s great about the fact that we ve been together quite a long time is that, although we were put together out of auditions we ve grown together as a group. So, already, I see us as Chill rather than as a carbon copy of anyone else.
At eighteen, can Sinead deal with the possibility that her career in pop may be over by the time she is twenty-one?
Yes. I think of that all the time because I don t want the world crashing in on me at that age, she responds. But all of us in Chill are very realistic about this. Because we have been together a while, it hasn t been easy and we have got a lot of knocks. And we know it won t be easy, when we get started. We know there are so many people out there waiting to knock us down, because we are a fabricated group, or whatever.
Sinead is originally from Cork and now lives with Valerie Roe. So does Valerie veto the men in Sinead s life? And does Sinead herself go along with the classic teen band dictate of pretend-you re-available-even-if-you-have-a-boyfriend ?
No, Val doesn t veto anything! , she says, laughing. But the whole thing of pretending you re available is part of the illusion for fans, isn t it? But Boyzone were forced to lie, in the beginning, about that, though it doesn t seem to matter now. That was a management choice, not their decision. But, for me, I think it s going to be harder for us to choose the right guys, when the fans do come chasing us! Because you don t know who genuinely likes you and who just wants to be with a girl from Chill , to tell their buddies, or whatever. And this scares me, to be honest with you. Because I am a very affectionate person and trusting and I don t always pick up on this when that s where a guy is coming from. But to just go and sleep with any man who comes on to you like that, because you re in Chill, is a way of going downhill fast, as far as I m concerned.

Angie Brady, 18 is from Raheny. She, too, comes from a musical background with my mom being a dancer with the Royalettes and my dad being a drummer. As with her namesake Aisling, she herself has been dancing since was a child, and says this is why she doesn t get camera shy. She is totally certain that being in a group is what she was meant to do in life.
Four, five, standing there in front of the mirror, with a hair-brush in your hand, singing, what else are you going to turn out to be! she jokes. I went through a stage in school where I thought maybe I should be more academic and not be a dancer but that passed. Maybe it is hereditary, because I really do have an absolute passion for performing. And the older I got, the more I realised I also could sing. So I really do want to perform, just for the sheer pleasure of it. Music always has been my life and I love the idea that, even for a short while on stage, or wherever, I can remind people that music should be a major part of their lives.
This may sound like Angie is reading aloud her part from The Sound of Music but, believe me, she is sincere. As for her musical heroes?
Mariah Carey. Big time. Because she has a fantastic voice, even if she does go on and on a bit! We all know how well she can sing, so she doesn t have to remind us of that fact every time she opens her mouth! And though I love her, in terms of her intonation, ad-libbing and producer, every song is the same. She also goes from the bottom of her range to the top, which is admirable but she could use that in different ways. I have two octaves, like most people; she has three. So I really envy her for that. And in terms of singers, two of us don t have stage experience, as such, but, in time, will probably walk all over the rest! has a wonderful voice, for example, and producers always say she has a lovely tone, a real huskiness. But she is shy and doesn t think she s that good. Louise also is very talented because she comes from a musical family, has a good ear and gives us a lot of the harmonies.
Can Angie accept that a lot of rock fans will think bullshit, these babes were chosen for their looks and nothing else .
Yeah, but that s so obvious a thing to say that it s boring, by now, she responds. And I have to admit that when I saw the rest of the girls, I went, Jesus, they re gorgeous, I haven t a hope in hell. I just couldn t believe I was on their level at all, which is me, judging the group totally on looks. So people will do that. But the more we get into this the more it becomes a thing based on music, singing, being part of a group, learning our trade. The rest really doesn t concern us now. Because, let s face it, the looks are there, but that s not enough to build a career on, obviously. Though sometimes you do see, during photo shoots, that certain people move out front. Yet that s probably because one or two of the girls have modelled before. Louise and Sinead. They re obviously more photogenic. But that doesn t bother me anymore.
Of course the other boringly obvious criticism that will be levelled at Chill is they don t even write their own songs as though physical beauty allied to act of singing and dancing counts for nothing.
People will say that but I m into songwriting, she counters. I ve a couple of songs written. So has Liz. And the rest add verses here and there because we do want to write our own songs. But, again, that s something we have to learn. We all know and accept that.
And what about the reaction of friends and/or boyfriends to all this?
My real friends have stayed loyal, others say oh she s so big-headed , whatever. But I just see this as my job, like being in any other industry. As for boyfriends? There have been, in the past. And my best friend is a guy, who is a boyfriend, I guess. And no matter what happens with the band he ll always be there, I know. And I have become wary of guys coming onto me after five minutes because I m in a band. They re telling you they love you before they even know you re second name. So you just think yeah, right, good-bye . But I m not in this for the guys. I like being admired, sure, but you don t have to be in a pop band to get that! Or to get a man. Or men.

Louise Loughman, 19, is from Templeogue. As Angie said, Louise used to model and comes from a musical family. She also sounds older than her nineteen years.
Well, I have a strong personality, that s for sure. And, no, before you ask me, I don t have a boyfriend! she says, laughing. Okay, as a woman who obviously cuts to the chase, how does Louise really feel about guys? As a model is there that tendency in her to be manipulative, to think all men are fools foaming at the mouth for even a glimpse of beautiful female flesh?
That may be true of some models but it s not true of me, she says. I don t have the normal modelling attitude. As in feelings like that about guys. Sure I can look at a guy, listen to him for a few minutes and know if he s just into me because I do modelling, or look good. You can spot them a mile away! Besides, I m old enough to know the difference between that and someone who really is attracted to you for who you are. But I don t fall in love easily. And I myself would only give my heart to someone for who they are, not for what they do in life. So if all this happens more and more when we make it big, I ll be well able to handle it, believe me. I come from a very down-to-earth family and that s a great grounding in terms of stuff like that.
Louise comes from strong, traditional, fiddle playing great-great- grandfather type family. She elaborates.
So this is a new tilt to the whole thing, because I also play fiddle myself! Maybe, in time, we could bring that Irish aspect into the music. Like Boyzone did She Moved Through The Fair and look at the Corrs. I m very proud and patriotic and love the way these Irish elements are becoming so popular. In fact, even in terms of a group like Chill, I think it s really important that we differentiate ourselves from, say, British girl groups and show that we are Irish. And a part from writing lyrics, which I ve begun to do, I want to compose music. That s why I m really serious about this. That s why, as well as groups like TLC, I love a band like Oasis. Because of their songwriting. And Aerosmith, Gary Barlow, for the same reasons. I really have great admiration for songwriters and composers, more than anything else. That s why I just laugh when anyone says we re only in this for the fame or the money. I love music and even if I wasn t in Chill I d probably end up playing music anyway.
Does Louise think that people who are prejudiced against Chill might be basing that prejudice totally on the fact that the five girls look so good?
Sure, but when people say that I was only chosen for my looks, I m going to have to deal with that, I guess, she concludes. But I know I ve been given a chance to prove myself in a group. And it s up to me to do that. And I will. So will we all. I just know we will. n