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THE TRUTH BEHIND THE MIS-TEEQ

How did you three come together as a band?

Alesha and Sabrina have known each other for eight years now. They got along pretty well. And I met them about four years ago and that's how we formed Mis-Teeq. It's been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. It all started with our debut single Why and everything has just grown from there. We have already got two albums out and another is due out in sometime. We have been doing quite well as a band.

Tell me something about your musical journey.

We first started with recording R&B songs. UK market wasn't really ready for an R&B group then. The market then was dominated by pop music. Also very big on the scene at the time was garage music, which is quite up-tempo uplifting dance music. So when we first recorded Why it was an R&B version and then we did a remix, which was a garage version of it. Soon DJs picked that up and before we knew it became a major hit on the underground scene. I think it was the push from the underground that made it hit the charts and made it really popular. Then we kind of switched to R&B.

Who have been your main musical influences?

My parents are from Jamaica so obviously reggae was always playing in the house. My parents were very much into Motown, so we also listed to a lot of Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye and people like them with very soulful voices. We also looked up to Whitney Houston.

What's the secret of Mis-Teeq's success?

I think it's the bonding between the three. This has come from travelling together all the time, doing music, even living out of each other's pockets in the beginning when we weren't making any money. So yeah I think it's the great friendship we share that has got us this far.

What's your most favourite video of all times?

I like Roll On/This Is How We Do It. That video was shot in LA so it was like working but still holidaying. That is my most favourite video. I also like Missy Elliot videos. She's very talented and always comes out with something very new and innovative.

If you could reunite one band living or dead, which one would that be?

TLC. We listed to a lot of TLC while growing up and were very influenced by their music.

How did Scandalous happen?

We were sitting in this studio and heard Stargate's music. They are from Norway, so, yeah we were listing to this track and kind of liked it and decided to write lyrics to it. So we sat down together, three of them from Stargate and three of us, and started throwing ideas out loud. And we ended up cutting that track. Just like that, in 20 minutes flat. It wasn't a hard song to write. Sometimes you get this 'last line syndrome' where you can’t think of the last line to finish the song with. But not with this track it flowed really well.

You describe your style as UK Urban. What kind of music is that exactly?

It's a bit of soul, bit of R&B and part hip-hop. Our music is influenced by all of these genres. It's quite popular in the UK at the moment.

You were planning to release Scandalous in the US. Has that happened yet?

That has happened and was a huge success. We re-edited the video for the US market, just to make it a bit racier, the way American videos are. They like a certain tempo, they like it to be cut in a certain way. Scandalous was selected to be the theme song of Halle Berry's Catwoman. So that also gave us that extra push. The track was number two on the dance charts in the US. It is a good feeling to be able to make it big in a country that already has so much talent.

You think it requires special preparation before you take your music to the US?

A lot of pop stars cut one album in the UK and they go to America. We had two multi-platinum albums in the UK before we went to America. After the first album we thought we were not ready for America yet. We wanted to establish a strong base at home first. US is also a huge country. You have to spend a lot of time there. It is very tiring and sometimes you have a really gruelling schedule, so we just had to make sure that we got to a point in our career where we could pick ourselves up from England and go to America for a period of time without being missed at home. So we gave the UK two albums and then went to America.

How does it feel when your are called the British version of Destiny's Child?

A little bit under pressure really, I mean Destiny's Child is the biggest girl band in the world at the moment and definitely a band we look up to. We would love to have even a tiny bit of their success. So yeah we'd definitely like to be as widely popular as they are someday. It's a great feeling to be called the British version of the group.

Tell us something about the experience with Paul McCartney when he asked you to stick to your day job at Buckingham Palace.

It was at the Queen's Jubilee Concert. There was this TV show, which was recorded on the Palace grounds. We were, making cucumber sandwiches on the show. We finished making the sandwiches and were showing them to the TV cameras flaunting our creation. Later that afternoon Paul McCartney walked past us and said he saw us make sandwiches on TV and suggested we stuck to our day job. He apparently didn't like the way our sandwiches looked.

Has life become a bit more difficult with all the media attention and celebrity status and what have you?

We always knew it came with the job so we were prepared for it. Besides we are very homely girls. You won't see us in the magazines and newspapers for things other than our music. We are not really interested in gossip or are camera hungry. We don't go out, get drunk and fall out of cabs where they catch pictures of us lying on the street or something. We just keep ourselves to ourselves.