New Fame Game
Highgate, where Fame
Academy is based, is a rather salubrious area in north
London that often leaves me cold. Heavily populated by rather smug,
satisfied types braying in their four-wheel drives, it can make sitting
in the pub on the green a little toe curling. Not when you're with
David Grant though. He could charm the birds out of the trees, sell
snow to Eskimos and get home in time to make your tea. I mean, he
lavished me with compliments with such sincerity I almost believed
him.
If you haven't watched Fame Academy then shame
on you, because it's
fabulously addictive. The formula is simple but effective: a group
of wannabe pop stars are held captive in a house and put up for eviction
on a weekly basis.
Their fate depends
on the vote of the public and four judges, who include David and his
wife Carrie Grant. The pair also act as voice coaches to the young
hopefuls. David is the voice of reason, while Carrie is firm but fair.
Both are adept at serving `insult sandwiches' (cushioning a criticism
between two veiled compliments). They're a marketing team, the funky,
multi-racial version of Richard and Judy.
"I'm really glad
I'm doing it with Carrie," says David. "Last year she was
doing it on her own, which was really hard. She'd get home exhausted
and have all this baggage to unload, and I'd just listen to her for
an hour or so.
"We have to be
their tutor, their mentor, mother and father. But we can get into
the car at the end of the day, talk about it for a while and move
on to other things." Like being a mum and dad to Olivia, 9, and
Talia, 2.
David and Carrie have
been doing voice coaching since 1993, when they got their first break
with Take That. They have since helped S Club, Will Young, Gareth
Gates, The Spice Girls, Atomic Kitten and Charlotte Church.
What does David think about their music abilities? "Well, some
of them are very talented and others are talented in areas other than
singing.
"There are bands
with four to five people - one can sing, the other two can dance and
one's a great publicist, so as a group they really work well together.
It's when they start to pursue solo careers that the dog doo hits
the fan."
Talking of dirt, I
tried to get him to dish some on the fledglings he's trained - but
he merely points out: "It would be unprofessional to say so."
However he adds: "But
sometimes I feel like a herdsman on the Serengeti, seeing all those
lovely young gazelles leaping and frolicking. Then I look through
my binoculars and see a pride of lions coming down the hill. What
do you do - save them, or let them learn the hard way?"
A good analogy, but
then he knows about the feckless industry that is the music biz. He's
been there, done that, banked the bucks, laid low for a while and
has been enjoying a steady renaissance for the past ten years.
David began his career
as a performer with '80s band Linx, having tried his
hand at journalism for a while.
He worked at Island
Records as a publicist before forming the group. "I went to audition
for numerous bands from Melody Maker and nobody would have me so I
decided to form my own," he says.
Showing commendable
entrepreneurial flair and indomitable spirit - something he attributes
to his Jamaican mother, who he clearly adores - he made his first
hit single, You're Lying, on a shoe-string budget.
They borrowed £1,000,
printed off 1,000 copies, took them to a specialist
record shop on Wednesday, it was played on the radio on Saturday and
by
Monday all the record companies were phoning up wanting to sign them.
"We signed to
Chrysalis because they didn't have a black music department
and no other black artists, so we thought if we sign to them, they'll
market us like Blondie.
"We wanted to
be the first black band with to have a Top 10 album and the
first black band on the front cover of the NME. We achieved both of
those
objectives."
It was while he was
surfing the crest of pop fame that David met Carrie. He
was a guest on her TV show, Freeze Frame. They married in 1988. Now,
15
years on, they are a successful husband and wife team - the most expensive
voice coaches in the business.
He still had time to
buy me lunch, pay me compliments, give me careers
advice and perform a live rendition of my favourite song of his, Intuition.
I've decided this has now set the precedent
for all interviews.
