Saffron – who scored global hits such as Ready To Go and Drop Dead Gorgeous with Republica – says No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani helped pave the way for her own band’s US breakthrough.
The British group formed in 1994 and broke into the UK mainstream two years later with a run of hit records from their eponymous debut LP.
Speaking in RETROPOP’s June 2024 edition, the singer reflects upon the “cultural and social revolution” of the Britpop era, admitting: “There were so many doors we had to kick down to even to get on a bill or to get time on the radio, because at the time radio refused to play women songwriters.”
She says it felt “like a ceiling has been smashed” when the group finally climbed into the UK Top 40 and it was much the same worldwide.
“It was thanks to Gwen and No Doubt – who had been going for 10 years and were ready to split up – that we made it in the States, because the month we arrived MTV put their video to Just A Girl on heavy rotation and they did the same with ours and Garbage’s as well,” she remembers. “So suddenly, women were being played on the radio and it felt good. Finally!
“But I, bizarrely, became friends with someone who went to school with Gwen and I when I was round at her house she was nearly in tears, saying: ‘I don’t know if I can do this anymore, because we’ve been going for all these years and they just won’t play us on the radio’.
“I remember saying, ‘No, you can’t give up’, because they were this amazing live band and just lovely people, and within that one month it changed. And they so deserved it…”
In the music landscape at the time, Saffron – who hits the road this month for a trio of Britpop Classical shows with other stars of the era – was one of the few Britpop leading ladies, alongside powerhouse performers like Skunk Anansie’s Skin, Elastica’s Justine Friscmann and Kenickie’s Lauren Laverne. But she was never intimidated in such a male-dominated arena.
“I loved it, because there were very few of my kind and I was just with my mates,” she beams. “We got in a band, bought some equipment, set it up in someone’s front room and taught ourselves. So the band went from there and it was the time of our lives, really. It was a dream!”
