Scary no more
'Rent' gets jolt of Spice Girl power
By REBECCA LOUIE
DAILY NEWS FEATURE WRITER
Ex-Spice Girl Melanie Brown, above and second from r. below, has joined cast of 'Rent.'
She's now the Spice of Broadway life.
Melanie Brown, best known as Scary in Britain's fab five pop group the Spice Girls, is the new star of "Rent."
"If it weren't for the Spice Girls, I wouldn't be here right now, sitting here on this stage," says Brown, aka Mel B.
At 28, she still radiates the explosive energy that helped sell more than 35 million albums, rake in $25 million (the estimated fortune of each group member) and make "Girl Power" a global slogan during the late '90s.
"I wouldn't have traveled the world, I wouldn't have much money."
Band mates Melanie Chisholm and Emma Bunton (Sporty and Baby Spice, respectively) are expected to visit New York in the next few weeks to check out her performance as the H.I.V.-positive drug addict and erotic dancer Mimi, based on the tragic heroine of Puccini's opera "La Bohème." However, the reunion is not a resurrection of the group - not yet.
"We will probably do something together as a group, but not for a while," says Brown, who tends to gesticulate as quickly as she speaks.
"I think they are going to release a [greatest-hits] album, and hopefully we will all get together and write a song for it.
"We keep on talking about it, but everybody has branched off to do their own thing." Brown's thing now is her role as a Broadway star in "Rent" - and that has brought with it a hint of stage fright.
"Right now the singing bit is the one that I am not 100% about," says Brown, who had to postpone her opening night several days due to a case of strained pipes.
"There are certain notes and certain melodies that I'm not used to singing.
"I mean, I was in a group with five girls. If the note was too high, someone else would sing it. I was very sheltered in that way.
"This is so much more of a challenge for me."
Brown took acting and dancing lessons as a child in Leeds, England. Before answering an ad that would eventually lead to a career with the Spice Girls, she unsuccessfully auditioned for productions of the roller-musical "Starlight Express" and "Miss Saigon."
After her reign as a pop queen, she decided to focus on acting and taking care of her daughter, Phoenix Chi, now 5, with Spice Girls backup dancer Jimmy Gulzar.
But she vows that her six-month gig in "Rent" won't keep her away from the music biz.
After a several-year break, Brown spent January writing and recording acoustic songs in the kitchen of her L.A. home.
"I had been on a long holiday in Mexico, and you know how you get all relaxed and in that mode?" she asks.
"Well, I came home and wrote like 15 songs in my kitchen, just jamming out on the guitar, and recorded them on my friend's computer in 10 days.
"I don't have a deal, not signed to anyone. This is just for me."
She describes the set of songs as "less angry" than those she wrote on "Hot," the solo album she released in Europe during her messy divorce from Gulzar.
She says she wants to test her music at some small clubs while she's doing "Rent." "When you come from almost over-exposure, and you've been out there on every magazine and TV advert, it's quite nice to pull the reins back and do something independent and small," she says.
Among her Spice-mates, Chisholm and Bunton have each pursued solo careers.
Posh Spice Victoria Beckham has become the rumor-riddled wife of soccer celebrity/superstar David Beckham. The golden couple is dealing with reports that he has been unfaithful.
Geri (Ginger Spice) Halliwell bailed out in 1998, leaving the four remaining members to follow up the group's hit albums "Spice" and "Spiceworld" with the mildly received "Forever."
Like Brown, Halliwell recently moved to L.A. to act. Brown insists that the two are not feuding.
"Of course they are going to pick on the two girls in the group who were the loudest, saying they hate each other," she says of their friendship, which included sprees of boob-flashing on various highways in England.
"That's what I would do if I were a journalist. But it's stupid; we don't." In her 2002 autobiography, "Catch a Fire," Brown writes candidly about her wild exploits - including X-rated behavior and concerns about being a mixed-race child. Now she wonders how she'll react when her daughter enters the rebellious years. "I'm sure by then I will be more cynical and rigid, like a nun," she says with a grin. "I sneaked out the bedroom window when I was told to go to bed at 8 and was out to 2 in the morning.
"But the thing is, I have done everything and more than she could possibly think of, so hopefully I will be one step ahead.
"I'll have the windows nailed shut."
from The New York Daily News
I must be at Rent when Emma sees it. If I am not, it would be one of the most tragic things to ever happen to me.
By REBECCA LOUIE
DAILY NEWS FEATURE WRITER
Ex-Spice Girl Melanie Brown, above and second from r. below, has joined cast of 'Rent.'
She's now the Spice of Broadway life.
Melanie Brown, best known as Scary in Britain's fab five pop group the Spice Girls, is the new star of "Rent."
"If it weren't for the Spice Girls, I wouldn't be here right now, sitting here on this stage," says Brown, aka Mel B.
At 28, she still radiates the explosive energy that helped sell more than 35 million albums, rake in $25 million (the estimated fortune of each group member) and make "Girl Power" a global slogan during the late '90s.
"I wouldn't have traveled the world, I wouldn't have much money."
Band mates Melanie Chisholm and Emma Bunton (Sporty and Baby Spice, respectively) are expected to visit New York in the next few weeks to check out her performance as the H.I.V.-positive drug addict and erotic dancer Mimi, based on the tragic heroine of Puccini's opera "La Bohème." However, the reunion is not a resurrection of the group - not yet.
"We will probably do something together as a group, but not for a while," says Brown, who tends to gesticulate as quickly as she speaks.
"I think they are going to release a [greatest-hits] album, and hopefully we will all get together and write a song for it.
"We keep on talking about it, but everybody has branched off to do their own thing." Brown's thing now is her role as a Broadway star in "Rent" - and that has brought with it a hint of stage fright.
"Right now the singing bit is the one that I am not 100% about," says Brown, who had to postpone her opening night several days due to a case of strained pipes.
"There are certain notes and certain melodies that I'm not used to singing.
"I mean, I was in a group with five girls. If the note was too high, someone else would sing it. I was very sheltered in that way.
"This is so much more of a challenge for me."
Brown took acting and dancing lessons as a child in Leeds, England. Before answering an ad that would eventually lead to a career with the Spice Girls, she unsuccessfully auditioned for productions of the roller-musical "Starlight Express" and "Miss Saigon."
After her reign as a pop queen, she decided to focus on acting and taking care of her daughter, Phoenix Chi, now 5, with Spice Girls backup dancer Jimmy Gulzar.
But she vows that her six-month gig in "Rent" won't keep her away from the music biz.
After a several-year break, Brown spent January writing and recording acoustic songs in the kitchen of her L.A. home.
"I had been on a long holiday in Mexico, and you know how you get all relaxed and in that mode?" she asks.
"Well, I came home and wrote like 15 songs in my kitchen, just jamming out on the guitar, and recorded them on my friend's computer in 10 days.
"I don't have a deal, not signed to anyone. This is just for me."
She describes the set of songs as "less angry" than those she wrote on "Hot," the solo album she released in Europe during her messy divorce from Gulzar.
She says she wants to test her music at some small clubs while she's doing "Rent." "When you come from almost over-exposure, and you've been out there on every magazine and TV advert, it's quite nice to pull the reins back and do something independent and small," she says.
Among her Spice-mates, Chisholm and Bunton have each pursued solo careers.
Posh Spice Victoria Beckham has become the rumor-riddled wife of soccer celebrity/superstar David Beckham. The golden couple is dealing with reports that he has been unfaithful.
Geri (Ginger Spice) Halliwell bailed out in 1998, leaving the four remaining members to follow up the group's hit albums "Spice" and "Spiceworld" with the mildly received "Forever."
Like Brown, Halliwell recently moved to L.A. to act. Brown insists that the two are not feuding.
"Of course they are going to pick on the two girls in the group who were the loudest, saying they hate each other," she says of their friendship, which included sprees of boob-flashing on various highways in England.
"That's what I would do if I were a journalist. But it's stupid; we don't." In her 2002 autobiography, "Catch a Fire," Brown writes candidly about her wild exploits - including X-rated behavior and concerns about being a mixed-race child. Now she wonders how she'll react when her daughter enters the rebellious years. "I'm sure by then I will be more cynical and rigid, like a nun," she says with a grin. "I sneaked out the bedroom window when I was told to go to bed at 8 and was out to 2 in the morning.
"But the thing is, I have done everything and more than she could possibly think of, so hopefully I will be one step ahead.
"I'll have the windows nailed shut."
from The New York Daily News
I must be at Rent when Emma sees it. If I am not, it would be one of the most tragic things to ever happen to me.