East 17 were one of biggest boybands of the 90s. They sold over 18 million records worldwide, and enjoyed a beloved Christmas No 1 with “Stay Another Day.” But the four band members hardly saw a penny.
“We were on £125 a week after signing a £1m contract,” Terry Coldwell, now 50, tells me. “Every three months it went up £25. John (Hendry) was roofing before the band and he was earning £350 a week.
” “It’s like you’re a can of baked beans on a supermarket shelf,” he adds. “The manager is there to just sell you and get his 20 per cent. Don’t get me wrong, it could be great.
But it was ruthless.” Coldwell is one of the contributors to a fascinating, revealing BBC Two documentary, Boybands Forever , which exposes what it was really like to work in the pop industry of the 90s and early Noughties. This was a time when East 17, Take That , Five, 911, Damage, Westlife and Blue ruled the charts.
They enjoyed a glamorous lifestyle of wild success, world travel and adoring fans – but also intense pressure, unreasonable workload, lack of remuneration, tabloid intrusion, addiction, breakdowns and the reality of what happens when the hits dry up and the public moves on. The death of former One Direction singer Liam Payne has put the focus back onto what we expect from our pop stars, and Boybands Forever – produced by Louis Theroux and featuring interviews with Robbie Williams , Brian McFadden, Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh – is an illuminating account of t.