Spice Girls No.1 made me £1m... but a con man took some of it

It took songwriter Eliot Kennedy just an hour to write 1996 hit song Say You’ll Be There for the Spice Girls – netting him more than £1million. Kennedy, 51, who has just released his first album, also co-wrote several other No.1 hits in the 1990s such as Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love, When You’re Gone with Bryan Adams and S Club 7’s Bring It All Back.

What did your parents teach you about money?

That I needed to work hard for it. My parents were terrible with money. We never really had any. I grew up in a mining village in the north [of England]. My dad worked for a steel blasting company in Sheffield and my mum was a nurse.

They had an amazing work ethic and worked seven days a week. But my dad’s job was tough. It involved a lot of manual labour and that led to him having a heart attack. After that, he was too ill to work for quite a few years and our family really struggled. We never went hungry and the bills were always paid. But I knew money was tight.

Things got even tougher when I was about 12. My grandmother died and it had a terrible impact on my mother. She ended up in a psychiatric ward for a year. That period of my life was stressful. Sometimes, I would go to visit my mother and she didn’t really know who I was. Thankfully, music helped me to get through that difficult time. But my childhood has made me cautious with money. I try to be careful with my finances.

Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?

Yes, when I was 45. I got taken in by a sophisticated con man and invested £50,000 in what I thought was a multimedia company. Other people I know lost far more. He forged realistic-looking documents and contracts from well-known corporations. I will never forget the dreadful day I found out it was all a scam. It’s the biggest money mistake I’ve ever made.

The scammer ended up fleeing the country and there is still a warrant out for his arrest. I had to take out loans and an extra mortgage to keep myself afloat. On top of losing £50,000, I hadn’t been working as much as usual that year. I started having sleepless nights worrying about my finances.

Have you ever been paid silly money?

Yes. There are some songs which have sold millions which did not take me a lot of time to write – some of my biggest hits, like When You’re Gone with Bryan Adams or Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love, seemed to fly together. The most lucrative was Say You’ll Be There by the Spice Girls. It probably took me and the girls an hour to write in my little house in Sheffield. They used to crash over at my place – all of a sudden it was like having five sisters. Writing was a fast process because they were so quickfire with ideas, throwing them at me lyrically and melodically. It was amazing. It was like having a hurricane in your house. Within an hour, bang, we had this great song. Single sales alone hit 3million and it was on their debut album, Spice, which sold 22million copies. So I’m pretty sure I have earned more than £1million from that one song.

What was the best financial year of your life?

It was 1997, the year after Spice came out. I co-wrote a couple of other songs on that album and I also had a hit with Picture Of You by Boyzone. I probably made a couple of million pounds that year.

The most expensive thing you bought for fun?

It was a convertible Jaguar XK8 in British racing green for £56,000. I bought it in the late-1990s after I got my first big royalty cheque.

Do you save into a pension?

Yes and have done so since I was in my 20s. As soon as I started earning money making records and had some cash to save, I decided to do it. I thought it would be important for my future, knowing there is not much security in the music industry.

Do you invest directly in the stock market?

Not outside my pension. I don’t know enough about it, I never gamble and overall I think property is a better investment. I’ve got a couple of buyto-let houses in Sheffield.

What is the one luxury you treat yourself to?

Diptyque Baies candles. They are posh French candles that smell like paradise. The ones I buy cost about £40 and I typically order five or ten in one go which feels decadent.

What is your number one financial priority?

To provide financial security for my two children who are 19 and 23.