On March 4, 1994, around 600 young women followed an advertisement for an audition at the Danceworks studios in London. Three of the participants who tried their luck there 30 years ago became world famous as the Spice Girls. Two made it into the most successful girl group via detours.
The young entrepreneur Chris Herbert saw a gap in the pop market in the early 1990s. At that time there were many successful boy bands, especially Take That, who had just made their breakthrough and conquered the charts. However, there was no comparably successful girl group. Supported by his father Bob Herbert, an experienced talent manager, Chris, aged just 23, placed an ad in the industry magazine “Stage”. Participants were asked to bring sheet music or a cassette with background music.
“Mel B was the first one to impress me”
Melanie Brown came from Leeds, around 270 kilometers away, and wanted to take part in another casting in London – for dancers on cruises. The then 18-year-old sang Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love Of All”. “Mel B was the first one to impress me,” Chris Herbert recalled in the three-part documentary “Spice Girls: How Girl Power Changed Britain.” “I liked her attitude. She came in like she didn’t care at all. I kind of liked that. She was totally confident.”
20-year-old Victoria Adams-Wood (now Beckham) from the London suburb of Harlow sang “My Lord” from the musical “Cabaret”. “Brilliant,” Herbert thought. “Victoria was more classic. She had a bit of grace.” In his notes – he gave points from 1 to 10 – she didn’t do particularly well: “Dancing: 6, singing: 5, looks: 7, personality: 5.” 20-year-old Melanie Chisholm from Whiston near Liverpool tried “I’m So Excited” by the Pointer Sisters, but didn’t make it to the final selection.
Geri Halliwell with a bold strategy
Geri Halliwell (now Horner), who at 21 had already had a few castings under her belt, pursued a somewhat bold strategy. She canceled her participation in the first auditions several times over the phone at short notice. “Every time she had an excuse,” said Herbert, who suspected a tactic and wasn’t so wrong. “I think I wouldn’t have passed the audition because my vocal technique wasn’t that good back then,” Halliwell later admitted. So she made it to the final twelve candidates. “I was a little loud then.”
The final choice fell on Victoria Adams-Wood, Melanie Brown, Geri Halliwell, Michelle Stephenson and Lianne Morgan. Shortly afterwards, Chris and Bob Herbert decided again. “I was selected, but a month later I got a letter,” recalled Morgan, who was 23 at the time. “They wrote that they liked me very much, but I looked significantly older than the others.” So Melanie C got her chance because she was younger and the managers thought she would fit better into the band structure.
From then on, the five young women lived together in one house. The Herberts and co-financier Chic Murphy organized singing and dancing lessons. They then invited hot songwriters and other music industry executives to the studio to introduce them to their budding pop stars.
Tensions between Michelle Stephenson and the others
But tensions arose between Michelle Stephenson and the others, who accused her of a lack of commitment. There are different stories about whether the 17-year-old left the band or had to leave. According to Spice Girls biographer Sean Smith, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
The singing teacher Pepi Lemer, hired by the Herberts, suggested one of her former students as a replacement. Emma Bunton, who had starred in commercials and TV series, moved into the band house on a trial basis, where she quickly became friends with everyone. The girl group was now complete again.
Chic Murphy, an old-school mover and shaker, had warned against giving the group a contract too early. He feared they would lose their ambition. That turned out to be a fatal misjudgment. In March 1995, the determined women quickly looked for new management. Simon Fuller, who later invented the casting show “Idol” with the German offshoot “Deutschland sucht den Superstar”, signed the Spice Girls, who were actually supposed to be called Touch, and thus became world famous himself.
“We were friends before”
After their breakthrough, the Spice Girls initially denied their origins. “We were friends before,” Emma Bunton claimed in an MTV interview at the time. At the time, Mel C also denied that there had been a casting. “We knew each other for a long time,” she said. “We were dancers and singers and we met again and again. That’s how we became friends. And finally we decided to move in together.”
Chris Herbert, whose father lost the pop duo Bros to another management in a similar way shortly before their breakthrough in the 1980s, says he has made peace with it. He said this in 2019 on the occasion of a Spice Girls reunion tour. Herbert later achieved respectable success as manager of bands like Five and B*Witched. “It was good for my career,” he said of the Spice Girls, and expressed his delight that they continued to be successful. “That makes me very, very proud.”
