Fact #160726
When:
Short story:
Propelled by its use in the film Rain Man, Iko Iko by long-defunct UK girl-band The Belle Stars enters the Billboard Top 40 Singles chart in the USA, where it will peak at No14.
Full article:
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE BELLE STARS?
(Interviews conducted by Johnny Black in January 02)
Lesley Shore (bass) : Two of us had started out in the Bodysnatchers, during the Two-Tone era. When Rhoda and Nicky left The Bodysnatchers, me and Jenny went on to form the Belle Stars. I auditioned through the Melody Maker, and Jenny went through her mate Rusty Egan.
We started off really as a live band, and our shows were a lot more raw than the records. It took us a while to learn to be a recording band.
I think wearing the tuxedos in the Sign Of The Times video had a lot to do with the end of the band. We ended up as two bands, really. There was the really hard-working live band and there was also the band that had the hits. As well as all our tv commitments in the 80s, we were out on tour an awful lot. We barely saw our homes for seven or eight years. There were occasional little punch-ups, and we had a big Hell’s Angels following in France, but we had a great time for eight years.
The Hell’s Angels was because we did all the festivals out there, and we played with The Clash, and with Elvis Costello. We once turned up in Paris and Elvis was playing but he didn’t have a support band. We were going over to do a gig of our own in France, and we’d just had a nightmarish four hour ferry crossing from Calais, during which we’d drunk all the duty frees, so we were all a bit worse for wear. We got to Paris, and went along to meet Elvis, then we had to get on stage and support Elvis.
People think that once you disappear in the UK, you’re not doing anything, but three years after you’ve had your hits here, you’re still trotting round the world doing them everywhere else. You find yourself going on a French tv show and they want you to wear the tuxedos because that’s what you wore in the video … so there were arguments over that sort of thing.
Also, it was big band, seven of us, and keeping a band that size on the road is very expensive, so that drained a lot of money out of us.
When that finished in 87, three of us stayed together – me, Miranda and Sarah-Jane – and we kept the name and we were by that time, with Trevor Horn’s company. All the Stiff Records stuff went over to ZTT, and we went out to New York to work with Fourth And Broadway. We had an apartment on Central Park, on record company expenses, for about two months. Really wild. We did a whole album out there and one track, World Domination, went to No2 in the American dance chart. The Americans were begging for the album but Trevor Horn wouldn’t release it. He said he was never happy with the mixing of it, but who knows?
We stayed together as a three-piece for about two years. Then I went on to do some dance music, studio productions, doing tracks for artists. We wrote and recorded a song on 48 hours notice from Chrysalis for the Arsenal Football Team, called We’re Back, and something happened the week it came out, like Nelson Mandela got released, so all the exposure we had lined up fell through.
Me and Jennie have continued working together and writing stuff all the time. I’ve been label managing for a distribution company, Independent, right up until recently, my first proper job. I’m living is Swiss Cottage and now me and my boyfriend are starting a PR company called Indiscreet, with clients like Brian Wilson, Mark Nevin and The Evangeline label, and for Jenny’s project. I am also planning to get a rockabilly band together, just to get out and play again.
Jennie McKeown (vocals) : While the band was going, I hung around with a lot of dodgy people which led me into a serious heroin problem. Fortunately, I had enough money that I was able to move to Miami, get away from the dealers and sort myself out. I was performing out there in 1989, and doing OK, and then the film Rainman came out, and they’d used our version of Iko Iko on the soundtrack. The first I knew about it was when I got a call from Hollywood to tell me it was on the charts, and could I get the band together and come out to California to make a video.
It was hilarious. I remember sitting in a big board room in Hollywood with all these movie executives up one end of the table and me at the other. They were saying, “Well, what do you need?” And anything I asked for, they could get it. Like, they got us twenty of Madonna’s dancers for the video. There was no real possibility of getting the band back together, so we ended up with a video in which I was the only Belle Star, but I made sure everybody got a share of the cash. Through Rain Man, which was about autism, I became interested in working with disadvantaged children and I’ve continued to do that, but I had a re-lapse into heroin when my boyfriend died during the 90s, which led to me ending up in a hostel, where I really had to re-assess what my life was all about. Since then, I’ve been able to start a project in Camden called S-teem, ) which is sponsored by the Department for Education and Skills, providing arts and other creative opportunities for disadvantaged or socially-excluded kids. I’ve also founded the Listen Moving Theatre Company.
Clare Hirst (sax/keyboards) : “After the band ended, I did a lot of session work for people like David Bowie, Communards, Mica Paris and Maxi Priest. In 1994 I started The Clare Hirst Quartet, which I’m still running. We have a CD out, Tough And Tender on 33 Records, and we run a jazz club every Sunday night in The Bedford, Balham. I live in Clapham, and my husband, Alan Barnes, who also plays sax, is the BBC Jazz Musician of the Year.”
Stella Barker (guitar) : “Shortly after the band ended, I moved to Paris and met a Frenchman who I married, and we had a daughter, Olivia. I lived in France for almost nine years, until we divorced and I’m now a corporate events manager, living in Cheltenham in the Cotswolds. I’ve also recently completed a book about the band which Dave Robinson, our old boss at Stiff Records, is trying to help get published.”
Miranda Joyce (saxophone) : “Stella, Sarah-Jane and I are still in touch. I left the music biz after the Belle Stars broke up and joined the fashion biz instead, swapping my sax for a mascara wand!”
Sarah-Jane Owen (guitar) : “Sarah-Jane has found her spiritual home in Los Angeles,” says Stella. “She’s been out there for about ten years, and she lectures in fashion at the University of Southern California, as well as teaching yoga and aromatherapy. She’s also designed her own line of yoga clothes.
Judy Parsons (drums) : “Judy was always the brainbox of the band,” says Lesley. “She had a PhD and only got into drumming because her boyfriend was in a band. She’s living in Edinburgh now and has had research papers printed in the Times, and does technical writing for computers.”
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(Interviews conducted by Johnny Black in January 02)
Lesley Shore (bass) : Two of us had started out in the Bodysnatchers, during the Two-Tone era. When Rhoda and Nicky left The Bodysnatchers, me and Jenny went on to form the Belle Stars. I auditioned through the Melody Maker, and Jenny went through her mate Rusty Egan.
We started off really as a live band, and our shows were a lot more raw than the records. It took us a while to learn to be a recording band.
I think wearing the tuxedos in the Sign Of The Times video had a lot to do with the end of the band. We ended up as two bands, really. There was the really hard-working live band and there was also the band that had the hits. As well as all our tv commitments in the 80s, we were out on tour an awful lot. We barely saw our homes for seven or eight years. There were occasional little punch-ups, and we had a big Hell’s Angels following in France, but we had a great time for eight years.
The Hell’s Angels was because we did all the festivals out there, and we played with The Clash, and with Elvis Costello. We once turned up in Paris and Elvis was playing but he didn’t have a support band. We were going over to do a gig of our own in France, and we’d just had a nightmarish four hour ferry crossing from Calais, during which we’d drunk all the duty frees, so we were all a bit worse for wear. We got to Paris, and went along to meet Elvis, then we had to get on stage and support Elvis.
People think that once you disappear in the UK, you’re not doing anything, but three years after you’ve had your hits here, you’re still trotting round the world doing them everywhere else. You find yourself going on a French tv show and they want you to wear the tuxedos because that’s what you wore in the video … so there were arguments over that sort of thing.
Also, it was big band, seven of us, and keeping a band that size on the road is very expensive, so that drained a lot of money out of us.
When that finished in 87, three of us stayed together – me, Miranda and Sarah-Jane – and we kept the name and we were by that time, with Trevor Horn’s company. All the Stiff Records stuff went over to ZTT, and we went out to New York to work with Fourth And Broadway. We had an apartment on Central Park, on record company expenses, for about two months. Really wild. We did a whole album out there and one track, World Domination, went to No2 in the American dance chart. The Americans were begging for the album but Trevor Horn wouldn’t release it. He said he was never happy with the mixing of it, but who knows?
We stayed together as a three-piece for about two years. Then I went on to do some dance music, studio productions, doing tracks for artists. We wrote and recorded a song on 48 hours notice from Chrysalis for the Arsenal Football Team, called We’re Back, and something happened the week it came out, like Nelson Mandela got released, so all the exposure we had lined up fell through.
Me and Jennie have continued working together and writing stuff all the time. I’ve been label managing for a distribution company, Independent, right up until recently, my first proper job. I’m living is Swiss Cottage and now me and my boyfriend are starting a PR company called Indiscreet, with clients like Brian Wilson, Mark Nevin and The Evangeline label, and for Jenny’s project. I am also planning to get a rockabilly band together, just to get out and play again.
Jennie McKeown (vocals) : While the band was going, I hung around with a lot of dodgy people which led me into a serious heroin problem. Fortunately, I had enough money that I was able to move to Miami, get away from the dealers and sort myself out. I was performing out there in 1989, and doing OK, and then the film Rainman came out, and they’d used our version of Iko Iko on the soundtrack. The first I knew about it was when I got a call from Hollywood to tell me it was on the charts, and could I get the band together and come out to California to make a video.
It was hilarious. I remember sitting in a big board room in Hollywood with all these movie executives up one end of the table and me at the other. They were saying, “Well, what do you need?” And anything I asked for, they could get it. Like, they got us twenty of Madonna’s dancers for the video. There was no real possibility of getting the band back together, so we ended up with a video in which I was the only Belle Star, but I made sure everybody got a share of the cash. Through Rain Man, which was about autism, I became interested in working with disadvantaged children and I’ve continued to do that, but I had a re-lapse into heroin when my boyfriend died during the 90s, which led to me ending up in a hostel, where I really had to re-assess what my life was all about. Since then, I’ve been able to start a project in Camden called S-teem, ) which is sponsored by the Department for Education and Skills, providing arts and other creative opportunities for disadvantaged or socially-excluded kids. I’ve also founded the Listen Moving Theatre Company.
Clare Hirst (sax/keyboards) : “After the band ended, I did a lot of session work for people like David Bowie, Communards, Mica Paris and Maxi Priest. In 1994 I started The Clare Hirst Quartet, which I’m still running. We have a CD out, Tough And Tender on 33 Records, and we run a jazz club every Sunday night in The Bedford, Balham. I live in Clapham, and my husband, Alan Barnes, who also plays sax, is the BBC Jazz Musician of the Year.”
Stella Barker (guitar) : “Shortly after the band ended, I moved to Paris and met a Frenchman who I married, and we had a daughter, Olivia. I lived in France for almost nine years, until we divorced and I’m now a corporate events manager, living in Cheltenham in the Cotswolds. I’ve also recently completed a book about the band which Dave Robinson, our old boss at Stiff Records, is trying to help get published.”
Miranda Joyce (saxophone) : “Stella, Sarah-Jane and I are still in touch. I left the music biz after the Belle Stars broke up and joined the fashion biz instead, swapping my sax for a mascara wand!”
Sarah-Jane Owen (guitar) : “Sarah-Jane has found her spiritual home in Los Angeles,” says Stella. “She’s been out there for about ten years, and she lectures in fashion at the University of Southern California, as well as teaching yoga and aromatherapy. She’s also designed her own line of yoga clothes.
Judy Parsons (drums) : “Judy was always the brainbox of the band,” says Lesley. “She had a PhD and only got into drumming because her boyfriend was in a band. She’s living in Edinburgh now and has had research papers printed in the Times, and does technical writing for computers.”