Popstars Where it all began
With a new version of Popstars about to land, the world’s first made-for-television pop group are warning of the hidden dangers of reality TV superstardom. They talk to Chris Schulz.
Five young faces beamed from giant billboards, newspaper front pages and magazine racks. Their songs played constantly on the radio, their music videos rotated heavily on TV. When Popstars debuted, the coverage started immediately. For a full year, it didn’t stop.
‘‘We were in people’s faces 24/7,’’ says Megan Alatini, who, with Erika Takacs, Joe Cotton, Keri Harper and Carly Binding, formed TrueBliss, the world’s first made-for-TV pop group.
Popstars debuted in 1999, a show that searched for and found the five members of TrueBliss. Fame was instant.
‘‘The very next day after our first episode aired we walked down to [Auckland’s] St Kevin’s Arcade,’’ says Alatini.
‘‘These people came running up to us saying, ‘Oh my god – you guys are the girls from that show
Popstars. Can we have your autograph?’’’
The group’s popularity exploded ‘‘just catapulted’’, says Alatini. ‘‘It got bigger and bigger.’’
They had a chartered plane with the group’s name on it. Every show sold out. Fans would surround TrueBliss wherever they went. At one Bledisloe Cup match, they proved to be a bigger drawcard than the All Blacks, mobbed by ‘‘hundreds, then thousands’’ of people.
They needed bodyguards. ‘‘We had big burly men who looked like they might rip your head off and jam it down your throat,’’ says Takacs.
It happened so fast. Popstars put TrueBliss together and let the country watch them go through the highs and lows of a full-length music career in just a few months.
Cameras captured their every move – from learning dance routines to dealing with record labels to behind-the-scenes fights.
They wore sequins and struggled with stalkers. One young lad spent the day walking from Orewa to their Britomart hotel base to catch a glimpse of his favourite member – Harper, at 18 the group’s youngest member – before turning around and walking home again. ‘‘It was weird,’’ admits Alatini.
Back then, there was no precedent for any of this. Popstars was a world-first, a phenomenon that set off a wave of talent-based TV that’s still around today. The format was sold to 50 different countries, and morphed into American Idol and
The X Factor. Without it, there’d be no Simon Cowell, One Direction or Kelly Clarkson.
TrueBliss had to learn reality TV’s ropes on the fly. There was no instant reaction from social media, because Facebook, Instagram and Twitter didn’t exist.
From the outside, it seemed like a supercharged pop dream come true. Once Popstars finished, TrueBliss immediately released their first single, Tonight. It spent two weeks at No 1. Their debut album Dream, recorded in a matter of weeks, followed suit.
They embarked on a nationwide tour. They sold out the Auckland Town Hall and played on the back of a meat truck in Dunedin. TrueBliss would perform every song in their repertoire, and thousands of people would scream the lyrics back at them.
‘‘We performed in the biggest venues available to us. We did two shows a day,’’ says Alatini.
Takacs says they felt like the Spice Girls. ‘‘En masse, we were quite a force. This was the late-90s, everything was PVC, sequins, everything was shiny, big hair and crazy makeup. We did stand out.’’
Was it really TrueBliss? More like false promises. Twenty-two years on, Alatini and Takacs now admit their success was a mirage. It didn’t last, because it couldn’t. ‘‘The fame didn’t come because we were incredibly amazing,’’ says Alatini. ‘‘The fame came from being in people’s faces 24-7. The glam, if it ever appeared like that, wasn’t our reality.’’
At the time they became world-famous in New Zealand, Cotton was sleeping on a producer’s couch, selling CDs at a Sounds music store. Takacs worked in retail at a Newmarket shoe store, and Harper was a part-time graphic designer. Alatini, who was also raising a toddler with her partner, then All Black Pita Alatini, braided hair in the family business.
Money? They had hit songs, a smash album and a sold out tour. TrueBliss assumed cash was coming. ‘‘A career usually comes with compensation,’’ says Alatini. ‘‘I thought musicians and people on TV were rich and famous, not just famous.’’
The lack of money started stressing them out. ‘‘We’d get together and go, ‘Are you getting paid? What’s happening with that?’,’’ says Alatini.
They signed an agreement to pay themselves a small weekly amount, a loan based on future earnings, believing there’d be a much bigger payout coming once the album and tour earnings came through. It never did, and it became the problem that led to the break up of TrueBliss just a year after it all kicked off.
‘‘The challenge of working out where the trust and the loyalty and the support was, that was really marred by that experience,’’ says Alatini. ‘‘We were in it for the love of the music and each other. We didn’t want to be battling management and record companies.’’
Takacs believes the group was milked for all it was worth. ‘‘Nobody really knew what we were getting into and where it was going to go, but there were some people who were wiser to the industry than we were and went, ‘Aha, we’ve got something good here, they’re none the wiser, we’ll just keep moving along, and it will work out for us, and we’ll sweep it under the carpet.’’’
Alatini says the group sought guidance, but couldn’t get the support they needed.
Asecond season of Popstars begins screening on Monday, 22 years after the original. Kimbra, Vince Harder and Zed’s Nathan King are the show’s panellists, and they’ll be focusing on fostering genuine musical talent – not just good TV talent.
They’ll be supported by a who’s who of the New Zealand music industry – including Takacs and Alatini. They want their journey to act as a warning for those taking part.
‘‘We can at least share that part of the story, to be that support and guiding light for others. Young people have that information and access to support so much more than what we did. We can just say, ‘Hey, walk into this with your eyes a little bit wider open than ours were’,’’ says Alatini.
Are they bitter? No. Sitting in a TVNZ boardroom, Alatini and Takacs are more than happy to share their TrueBliss story for the umpteenth time.
While Binding doesn’t take part in the group any more, Alatini, Takacs, Harper and Cotton still get together, still perform regularly, still love each other’s company.
After all, Popstars kicked off an entire industry that’s still going today. The bad stuff? ‘‘It was just a small part of what was an incredible time,’’ says Alatini.
‘‘People don’t realise that all of that started here. The first in the world. It’s crazy. It’s nuts.’’
Popstars screens on TVNZ 2 from Monday.