Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We never came into the business with a plan beyond the next three months. It's all been a natural thing for us to go off and travel and then maybe record an album.
I guess that people can't imagine three girls just getting up off the streets and making a career for themselves without someone to help them - which is what we did.
We wouldn't ever sit down and pretend that our friendship didn't fall apart back in the late '80s. It wasn't like there was a massive bust-up. We just drifted apart.
We were very creative. There was nothing contrived about us. No one telling us what to do, what to wear, what to sing. We wrote our own material, chose our producers.
When you're in a band it's a 24/7 thing. If you don't get on or like each other things will fall apart very quickly, which is what it seems happened with Fifth Harmony.
We were expected to smile and be flirty to everyone. But we acted more like a male rock band. We never mastered the niceties. We were more interested in having a good time.
People thought we were intimidating, especially once we'd had a few drinks, but when I look back we were virtually on top of each other, holding hands. We sounded so stupid.
We did 10 years of working and travelling constantly, and we were just knackered. I thought: 'I've got to take a break.' I felt like I was going mad. I decided to move to Cornwall.
We have never wrapped ourselves up in our own world thinking we are the only people who know what is doing. We listen to other things and see what we would like and what would suit us.
The band is our whole lives and we are completely dedicated, but if you get too serious you'll have a lot of problems and if you don't enjoy what you are doing you shouldn't be doing it.
Thank god magazines like 'Heat' weren't around in our day. The thought of someone catching you unawares on a beach and publishing photos of your cellulite… it's so hurtful, causes so many problems.
After a few years, we realized that you did have to put some work into it. That's why the bimbo comments make me angry. After seven years, people have to realize we have a certain amount of talent.
It seems to me that most good protagonists are both clever and resourceful. They are intelligent and can fix things, both little and big. They can come up with inventive solutions others would never think of.
I definitely think we paved the way for other girl groups. We did it very much on our own terms without kowtowing to all the men in the business or being told what to do by anyone. For that we feel very proud.
We had no money, and we had to go through 'punk' school. We ended up living in the rehearsal room that used to be the Sex Pistols rehearsal room at Malcolm McLaren's office. So we had this sort of interesting beginning.
We had to pose with towels wrapped around us, holding rubber rings, that sort of thing. The turning point came when a photographer asked us to get on a fur rug and crawl like cats. We said no, because it was sexist and disrespectful.
If people want to compare us to the Shangri-Las, then that's all well and good. But those groups were put together. They were told what to sing, dressed up, neatly packaged. We're like the '80s version in that we're more outgoing, more involved in it.
The '80s don't seem to have gone away. Most weekends in the summer we're off doing a festival in front of 10,000 or 15,000 people with a load of other '80s acts. It was just such a great era for music, for individuals and characters. It just had a spirit.
I just felt very young and unprepared. I didn't know anyone who'd been pregnant, and I didn't know anyone who'd had a baby. Because everyone around me didn't really get it, I just kept on as though nothing was happening, even though I was slightly scared and throwing up everywhere.
We spent a couple of years trying to be what we thought people wanted us to be, what the press thought we should be, doing what the company wanted. Finally we just said 'Sod it. This is what we do best. We're best at making pop records that people enjoy and having fun and entertaining them.'