Steps have addressed their 2011/2012 reunion in a candid new interview.
Singers Claire Richards, Ian ‘H’ Watkins, Faye Tozer, Lee Latchford-Evans and Lisa Scott-Lee opened up on the period of the band’s history on Kate Thornton’s White Wine Question Time podcast, admitting it “wasn’t an ideal scenario”.
“When we did the reunion in 2011/2012, we had different management then and it was only towards the back end of that I finally started to realise things weren’t quite right,” Claire explained.
“The way the business used to be run when we were in our early 20s, when we were with Pete Waterman and PWL and Jive, where we were pretty much just puppets that were told to go here, there and everywhere… That was our life for four and a half years.
“By that point [2011/2012], some of us had got married, some of us had started to have families – I felt a massive difference in the way I felt about how we should be treated…”
Admitting the group didn’t have much of an input around the time of the release of their Ultimate Collection, subsequent Ultimate Tour and holiday album Light Up The World, Claire continued: “Being in a pop group is great but it is a business and it’s our business.
“If nobody else is going to pay attention to the fine details then we can’t be upset if we don’t,” the Under My Skin singer continued, insisting the band is now more involved in the creative process and the direction of Steps.
“I think that, with the reunion situation, it wasn’t an ideal scenario and I think we were taken for a little bit of a ride,” she mused. “I made a vow never to let that happen again. Now we’ve got great management!”
The 2011 reunion saw Steps get back together for the four-part Sky Living documentary series Steps: Reunion, which saw the group reunite for the first time and discuss their 2001 split.
While the comeback was a hit, with the group selling out a massive UK arena tour and topping the charts with the best-of album, the show drew criticism for its editing, which some believed portrayed certain band members negatively.
Happily, Steps got back together in 2017 and, after Top 3 album Tears on the Dancefloor and two hit tours, they’ll release the follow-up, What The Future Holds, in November.
