Ooh! What a Lovely Pair: Our Story Read online

  We decided to drown our sorrows. Our regular watering holes in Chelsea included pubs like the Man on the Moon and the Magpie and Stump, plus a sports bar called Shoeless Joe’s. I don’t know who Joe was or how he’d lost his shoes, but they had a huge screen, so we watched a lot of football there. Unfortunately, we had to stop going to Shoeless Joe’s. We watched a Newcastle game there one Sunday afternoon and, at the end of it, the owner started slagging off Newcastle United and, most heinously of all, Kevin Keegan. I took offence and started a bit of an argument with him. It ended up with me and the owner standing face to face, screaming at each other. At one point, I thought we were going to have an actual fight.

  For once, this wasn’t little-man syndrome, this was protecting Kevin Keegan syndrome – something all Newcastle United fans will be very familiar with.

  Ant and me did leave without any blows being traded and, in my mind, with Kevin Keegan’s honour restored. But a few days later we were in the Man in the Moon when the landlord said to us, ‘I see you’ve been barred from Shoeless Joe’s then.’ We didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. He produced that night’s Evening Standard, and showed us an article about celebrities who’d been banned from various pubs and clubs. On that list was ‘Ant and Dec – barred from Shoeless Joe’s in Chelsea.’ We must be the only people who’ve ever been barred from a pub via a newspaper. I wouldn’t want to drink anywhere that slagged off Kevin Keegan anyway. I did miss the big screen, though.

  After three albums, our three-album deal with Telstar was understandably at an end. We were starting to think it might be time to reconsider our career choices but, at the time, we had no other offers, so Dave Holly started trying to negotiate a new contract for us while we went back on the road. We had a long-standing commitment to do a tour of the Far East, a part of the world we’d never been to before, and a place where, for some reason, we’d been selling a lot of records. It seemed like it might be the last corner of the globe where people would actually be pleased to see us, so we packed our bags and headed for Japan, aware that this might well be our last throw of the pop-music dice. We were accompanied by John Knight, who worked for Dave Holly and was in charge of our schedule – he should have been knighted for dealing with that alone – and Mike Faux, who was our tour manager, which involved doing security and keeping hold of the DATs we mimed to.

  If you’ve never been, Japan is fascinating and, to us, as a couple of twenty-two-year-olds from Newcastle, it was like a different planet. It’s fast-paced, crowded, there are neon signs everywhere and, if you don’t speak Japanese, you haven’t got a clue what’s going on, or where you are. We got off the plane and were met by an interpreter and an MTV Japan crew, who had apparently been given permission to film a documentary about our time there. I’m not sure who’d given them permission, but I know one thing: it certainly wasn’t us. After twelve hours in the air, we got straight to work. We didn’t even know what jet lag was back then. I remember waking up for the first few mornings at 4.30, wide awake, and I’d ring Dec’s room, and he’d be up too. We’d go to the spa at the hotel, use the gym, jump in the hot tub and be sat there thinking, ‘This is great, you can get so much done getting up this early.’ Then, by 8.30, when all the interviews with magazines and radio stations started, we’d be falling asleep.

  While we were over there, we’d been booked to appear on what we were told was the biggest TV show in Japan. We soon discovered on this promotional trip that every TV show was ‘the country’s biggest TV show’. We went to meet the producers of this particular one, and they told us that they had a rule; any Western artist they had on the show had to perform a cover version of a Japanese pop track – in Japanese. Live. They suggested we did a track by a pop duo called the Kinki Kids. From what we could gather, they weren’t kids, and I don’t even know if they were particularly kinky, but then we’d spent years not being PJ and Duncan, so we already had something in common. Still, we told them we couldn’t possibly do it – mainly because neither of us spoke Japanese. Strangely, it hadn’t featured much on the Newcastle school curriculums of the eighties. Plus, we didn’t know the song.

  They told us that didn’t matter, they could write out the lyrics phonetically and put them on big boards next to the camera. Those boards are called ‘idiot boards’, which, looking back, should have started alarm bells ringing.

  We still said no, but then the record company came up with a compromise. We were scheduled to have the following day off, but they suggested we went into a studio, recorded a version of this Kinki Kids track, and then mimed to it on the show. That way we could be sure we’d get the words right, and avoid offending anyone by mispronouncing the lyrics. Plus, when it came to recording a track, getting an engineer to make it sound like actual music and then miming to it on TV, we were the best in the business. We agreed and spent our only day off in the studio painstakingly recording this track. There was us two, an engineer, a producer and an interpreter, so every time someone wanted to make a point, it had to go through three people. It was one of the longest days we’d ever spent in a recording studio.

  It came to the night of the show, and we arrived in the TV studio feeling confident – the hard work was done and now all we had to do was mime to the track and enjoy our Japanese TV debut. As usual, we did a soundcheck before it started. The backing track started playing, and it soon became very clear that this was just the instrumental version, not the one we’d recorded with our lyrics on. Our translator came over and said, ‘The TV producers want to know why you aren’t singing.’ We politely told her that it was because we were supposed to be miming. Suddenly everyone from the TV show looked very ashen-faced. They spoke to the translator, and she came over and said, ‘No one mimes on this show.’ It turned out that the record company had never cleared the mimed-track plan with the producers.

  We said again we couldn’t sing it live – we didn’t know the song and, strangely, in the forty-eight hours since our first meeting, we still hadn’t become fluent Japanese speakers. They told us there was no choice: if we wanted to appear on Japan’s biggest prime-time entertainment show, we were going to have to sing live. In Japanese. The words were written out on the appropriately named idiot boards, and the next thing we knew, we were on live TV, stumbling through a version of ‘Garasu No Shounen’, which included such lyrical gems as:

  Ame ga odoru bus stop,

  Kimiwa dare kani dakare

  Tachi sukumu boku no koto

  Minai furi shita.

  Good luck singing along at home.

  People tend to overuse the term ‘toe-curling’, but during that performance I honestly could feel my toes physically curling up inside my trainers. I remember there were only two English words in the whole song – ‘bus’ and ‘stop’. I don’t know if the Kinki Kids were ex-bus drivers, but it seemed like a strange choice. Either way, I just hope the Kinki Kids never saw it, I’m sure we must have ruined their song – well, apart from the bus-stop bit, which I’m proud to say we pronounced perfectly.

  Despite our Kinki Kids catastrophe, our Japanese fans were amazing. They’d buy us the most elaborate presents, and the best thing about that was that it’s off ensive in Japanese culture to refuse gifts. We’d get designer clothes, games consoles, sunglasses, CD Walkmans and, best of all, there wasn’t a teddy bear in sight.

  With the exception of getting very, very good at receiving expensive gifts, it’s fair to say we didn’t exactly immerse ourselves in the local culture. We’d never eaten sushi before, and we weren’t too keen on the idea of raw fish for dinner, so we tried our best to stick to our usual strict dietary regime – wall-to-wall junk food. We found out one of the receptionists at the hotel spoke English, so we got her to write the Japanese for ‘Take me to McDonald’s please’ on the back of a business card for the hotel. We’d leave our rooms, go down to reception, get a taxi, show them the card and then, when we’d bought our food, flip the card round to show the address of the hotel. It made getting a Big Mac fe
el like being in a James Bond film.

  But we couldn’t eat McDonald’s for ever, and one night we were taken to a dinner by the chairmen of Avex Trax, our record company, and some of his fellow executives. I think it’s fair to say that, when it came to observing Japanese customs, we weren’t the most sensitive of foreign visitors. We arrived at the restaurant and, as is the custom, everyone took off their shoes. One of the female executives who worked for the record company had a hole in her sock, which I immediately pointed out with a gleefully loud, ‘Look, you’ve got a hole in your sock!’ Our translator then took me to one side and said, ‘Please. You should not point that out. She will feel so full of shame now.’ We hadn’t exactly got off on the right foot, if you’ll pardon the pun.

  We sat down, and they all started handing their business cards over to us, which we later discovered you have to take with two hands, because taking them with one hand is disrespectful. Apparently, using them to pick bits of food out of your teeth is disrespectful too, but we weren’t to know that at the time, were we?

  The restaurant didn’t have menus, and the waiters suddenly appeared with tanks of live seafood. Me and Dec just looked at each other, thinking, ‘Why have they brought their pets to work? Where’s the food?’ The penny dropped when we were asked to pick which one we wanted to eat. It looked like we weren’t going to be the only fish out of water at this meal. The idea was that you’d put the food you chose into this huge bubbling vat of boiling water and cook it yourself. We couldn’t have looked more worried if they’d asked us to perform the entire Kinki Kids back catalogue live.

  They also brought out some strips of raw beef, or Beef Shabu Shabu, as it’s known in Japanese cuisine.

  ‘Japanese cuisine’? Someone’s been on Google. The beef was good, and eventually we were persuaded to try some of the seafood, which, despite our reservations, was delicious. Throughout the meal, we’d keep getting little bits of important cultural advice from the translator: ‘Don’t play drums with your chopsticks’ – that kind of thing. Japan is such an amazing place, and such an exciting culture, and I’d love to go back now but, in 1997, I’m sorry to say, it was wasted on us.

  Our tour of the Far East also took in Taiwan and one of the most luxurious hotels I’ve ever stayed in. When we arrived, the manager and the whole staff were lined up in the foyer waiting to shake our hands – I felt like the Queen at the Royal Variety Performance.

  Then there was Singapore, where we had a whole floor of the Raffles Hotel to ourselves. We had an enormous suite each, and our own twenty-four-hour female butlers outside. We’d keep ringing each other’s rooms and saying, ‘Have you used your butler yet?’ ‘Nah – have you?’ ‘Nah – I can’t think of anything.’ I think, in the end, we sent them out to get some chocolate, just to give them something to do. And yes, before you ask, it was a tube of Smarties and a bag of chocolate buttons.

  The next stop was Indonesia, where we’d been booked to do a gig at the Hard Rock Café in Jakarta. We might not have been hard, and we certainly didn’t rock, but we were partial to a cup of tea and a bacon roll, so at least we had the café bit sorted. On the day of the gig, we were scheduled to do a press conference.

  Throughout the tour, we’d had a different artist-liaison representative from each record company in each country. Their job involved organizing our schedule as well as being the main point of contact for the duration of our visit. The guy who was in charge of us in Indonesia was, to put it bluntly, an obsessive fan, so you don’t need me to tell you he was a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. It’s highly unlikely he’ll be reading this book, so I’ll tell you exactly what he was like – he was short, chubby and had a smarmy little grin that would test the patience of a saint. You’d look round in the car on the way to a gig, and he’d just be staring at you, smiling, with a slightly maniacal look in his eyes.

  On our way to one press conference, he snapped out of his silent trance and remembered he was at work and started to brief us. Then he said: ‘AntandDec, you sing a cappella for them.’

  What?

  ‘What?’

  ‘AntandDec, you sing a cappella for the press.’

  ‘We don’t sing a cappella.’

  ‘But the press will love it, AntandDec. The Backstreet Boys did it here last week, AntandDec, please sing a cappella.’

  We told him again and again, getting more exasperated every time. We were professional singers and we had principles – the main one being ‘Don’t let anyone find out we’re terrible singers.’

  Eventually, he gave up, we presumed he’d got the message and we went to the press conference. The journey had rattled us a bit and, when we arrived in a hot room with broken air conditioning and dozens of stern-looking journalists and TV crews, things weren’t looking good. The first few questions didn’t go too well, but then I made a crack about Dec looking like Michael J. Fox, and it brought the house down – people always found that funny in the Far East. Before long, they were all laughing along with us and, at one point, we even got a couple of rounds of applause. Suddenly the room didn’t seem so hot and the journalists didn’t seem so unfriendly.

  Despite the presence of this annoying little superfan, we’d given the press exactly what they wanted and we’d won them over with our dazzling charms. We stood up, triumphant and ready to leave. We must have been about halfway to the door, with the applause of the journalists still ringing in our ears, when we heard a familiar voice echo across the room.

  ‘AntandDec, before you go, maybe you could sing a cappella for the press?’

  We turned round, and there he was – his fat face full of girly glee. We couldn’t believe it. The whole thing had gone perfectly, we were a couple of paces away from safety and now this little nutter had ruined it. The room started to feel hot again. Maybe no one else had heard him and we could pretend we hadn’t either?

  We took a quick glance over our shoulders and the entire room was on its feet, clapping and chanting, ‘A cappella! A cappella! A cappella!’, while our man grinned like some evil pop-music genius. I eventually managed to bring a halt to the chanting and said they should all come and see our show that night – I thought that would calm them down. Miraculously, it seemed to work. We had almost made it to the door when that sound echoed across the room again.

  ‘AntandDec, please sing a cappella for the press!’

  The press started chanting and clapping again and staring at us expectantly. It was excruciating. Things were now getting really tense, and I could feel sweat running down my back. There was only one thing for it: me and Dec turned our backs on them and walked out of the room – fast. By the time we reached the door, the whole room was a cacophony of booing – and it was all the fault of Indonesia’s biggest PJ and Duncan fan.

  We stormed down the corridor and went back to our dressing room. We were livid. How could this smug little stalker stitch us up like that? We were still sitting there, fuming, when there was a knock at the door and we heard that voice: ‘Antand-Dec, can I come in? AntandDec, pleeease let me come in.’ His whining got progressively more desperate. Despite still being furious, we decided to give him the benefit of the doubt – he obviously had seen the error of his ways and wanted to come in and apologize. I took a deep breath and opened the door.

  ‘AntandDec, AntandDec, please let me come in… I’ve left my coat and my bag in here.’

  Something in me just snapped. Ant had to physically hold me back from hitting him in the face. I threw the coat and the bag into the corridor and told him that there was no way we’d be doing the gig that night. If it hadn’t been for him, the press conference would have gone off without a hitch, and we’d ended up being booed out of the room – it was degrading and humiliating.

  Still furious, we went back to the hotel and did something we’d never done before, something that was very out of character for us two and something we’re not proud of. We had a game of tennis. There was a court on the roof of the hotel, and smacking a few tennis balls ar
ound was a great way to get rid of our frustration. We were in the middle of the first game when we heard a voice.

  ‘AntandDec, I’m sorry, AntandDec, please come to the Hard Rock Café, AntandDec.’

  At first I thought I was hearing things, but it was him all right – he had his mouth poking through the wire fence at the side of the court. Dec and me just started laughing our heads off at the ridiculousness of the situation. The more he pleaded, the more we laughed. As we walked off the tennis court, the last thing we felt like doing was a gig at the Hard Rock Café in Jakarta, so we did what anyone else wouldn’t have done in that situation.

  A gig at the Hard Rock Café in Jakarta.

  The whole Far East tour lasted about six weeks – it was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. When we got back, everything was still up in the air with music. Dave was still negotiating with Telstar and various other record companies who were interested in signing us. We were in a taxi when we got a phone call from Dave telling us Telstar had offered us another deal. He said, ‘It’s not a great deal, but it’s a deal.’ By this point, we weren’t exactly seen as the next big thing. I listened to what Dave had to say, told him we’d think about it and put the phone down. Then we had a conversation that changed the rest of our career.