Terry Coldwell of pop group East 17 has said he doubts a reunion of the band's original line up “will ever happen”.
Now living in Hemel Hempstead, he still performs live shows with East 17, though he is the only founding member. When asked if the band could reunite for the 30th anniversary of 1994 number one Stay Another Day, he revealed: “No-one talks in the band, not one member.”
The father-of-six added: “As you get older you have to be on the same page and we're just not on the same page.”
“I've tried getting the band together so many times, spent so much energy doing it, but it's never come about,” he added. Mr Coldwell, 49, also said he put “a lot of blood sweat and tears” into East 17 during the last 10 years and did not want to disappoint the newer members.
Robbie Craig, previously the singer of the Artful Dodger, and Joe Livermore, a break-dancer and film stuntman, now complete the current East 17 line up. The band is booked for almost non-stop dates across November and December with Mr Coldwell adding “we keep the name alive and all the hits alive”.
He said the band had previously got a bad reputation for cancelling gigs and now the new line-up had “made the name East 17 good again, so I don't think it's [the reunion] ever going to happen now”. Between 1992 and 1997, the boyband had 11 top 10 hits, including Stay Another Day, their only UK number one.
The song was Christmas number one in 1994 and its famous music video was memorable for the band wearing their big winter coats. Next year will mark the 30th anniversary of the track's release, which songwriter Tony Mortimer penned about the suicide of his brother Ollie.
The track was never intended to be a Christmas single but Coldwell said producers added the bells sounds during production. On Christmas Day, he was eating dinner at his mum and dad's house when he heard the news they had got the hallowed number one spot.
“All these years later, it's played a million times as I'm getting my shopping in Tesco, I put my cap down a little bit,” he said.
“That's the legacy that gets left behind when I'm long gone, which is hopefully not too soon,” he joked.
— CutC by bbc.com
