Pop icons East 17 set for a reunion show in Monroe's
Date Published: {J}
East 17 were, quite simply, one of the biggest British pop acts of the nineties. Hailing from Walthamstow in London, the quartet sold 20 million records between 1991 and 1997, on the back of hit singles like Deep, House of Love and Stay another Day. Original members Tony Mortimer, John Hendy and Terry Coldwell have reunited and will be playing Monroe’s Live on Thursday, December 1.
Speaking by phone during a break in recording, lead singer and chief songwriter Tony is in chatty form. Though East 17 have signed a new multi-album deal and will be showcasing new material on tour in 2012, the Galway show will see them draw from their top-ten littered back catalogue.
“We won’t put the crowd through stuff they don’t know, that’d be wrong,” says Tony Mortimer. “I’m really eager to move on, but I love the old stuff. I love it – it was like when we was children almost, that long ago.”
Those six years of colossal success saw the boy band tour all over the world; garner acres of press coverage and soundtrack many people’s teenage years. This, however, took its toll and Mortimer compares life in the band to a ‘marriage’ – albeit one that he’s still happy to be in.
“There’s lots of love, but there are also arguments,” he says. “Then it gets to a point where you appreciate what you was, you accept what you was and you don’t try to get away from it no more. You don’t want to say ‘well, we was in East 17, but now we’re just doing this’.
“We accept that we kind of are East 17,” he muses. “It seems to be our lives. We’re still friends – I met John 30 years ago, next year. So we must be doing something right!”
East 17 were pitched as bad boys, the antidote to the more clean cut and safe image that Take That portrayed. Was there a genuine rivalry, or was it something whipped up in a press office and feasted upon by the pop media?
“Whipped up, yeah – but I’m glad it was,” says Tony. “I don’t think either of us would’ve been as famous if it wasn’t for the other. We bounced off each other, so the media had something to write about. It was great times.”
For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.