Blue by Antony Costa

Author:Antony Costa [Costa, Antony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

‘I AM WHO I AM’

Going It Alone – Lee

2005

LEE

I was the chosen one, was I? The golden egg? Well, what can I tell you? The gods had other plans. I was courted by top managers, producers, record labels … I got a solo deal with Sony BMG and, guess what? I ended up hating it. As soon as I was signed, it was clear the record company and I had very different ideas about what kind of music I should be making. I was young and naïve, and had no idea about the business, about the way things work. I wanted to do soul music, but my new bosses instead opened the pages of Music Week in 2005, saw indie, indie, indie, and told me, ‘You’re making an indie album.’ They suggested I look at the Top 10, and see where the future was headed. ‘Shit,’ I thought.

I spent ages trying to persuade them that there was a gap for a soul album, that they were just following trends and that there was other music to be had. But this was long before Amy Winehouse or James Morrison turned up, and they were more interested in the likes of Maroon 5. Basically, we didn’t see eye to eye, and I was told what to do. One exec. rang me up, telling me to record some terrible song about a stripper. When I refused, he shouted, ‘This isn’t Blue anymore. This is you on your own and you will do what the fuck I tell you to do.’

Ho-hum. It took three weeks to record Lee Ryan, the album, although it felt a lot longer. Don’t get me wrong, it did have some good songs on it – In July 2005 ‘Army of Lovers’ got to number three in the UK charts, and reached number one in our old stomping ground of Italy.

‘Turn Your Car Around’ would be a really good song to sing now I’m older, but it was a bit middle of the road for that time in my life, bearing in mind I was meant to be carrying with me a massive teenage fan base over from Blue. ‘Real Love’ was fun, and turned up on the soundtrack of the animation film, Ice Age: The Meltdown. That was a funny story, actually; my involvement with the music led to my meeting the dubbing guys from the film, which led to my being cast as – are you ready for this? – an elk in the British version of the film. I’m guessing that would be a spear-carrier in human terms. It got even better with the Italian version, where I was asked to voice one of the main characters, Eddie … in Italian. Somehow I carried that off, and I’ve turned up in the three later films in the series, all in Italian. And you thought EastEnders was a fluke?

Elk duties aside, that whole chapter in my so-called solo career was okay, but it really wasn’t me, it didn’t touch my roots at all, and I’m sure the people who listened to it could tell.

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