Beatgirls career a real wild ride
Amy Jackman talks to Beatgirls founder Andrea Sanders about Pauatahanui, performing in America and the Olympics.
Did you grow up in Wellington?
I grew up in Plimmerton, then moved into town before going to Australia for a few years. I never thought I would end up back out here in Pauatahanui. My partner had to convince me to move, but now I’m here I love it. We have a property on the hill that looks out over the inlet. It’s just beautiful. The town has a great community, a rural feel and is only a 25-minute drive at the most into [Wellington]. Were you always a singer? I started off as a dancer. By chance I moved into singing and found that you can make a living from singing. People want music in bars, even if it is just a duo, but they don’t necessarily want dancing. We would make a bit of money that way. The switch was great. It would be my advice to any dancer. If you can sing as well, really hone that skill. It will serve you well. How did the BeatGirls start? We started 16 years ago. It came out of a show my partner Billy Watkins and I did at Downstage. It had a four-piece band and three female singer/dancers. It worked really well, so we decided to run with it and do all Beatles songs. We got into the corporate scene very quickly. We then started to incorporate 70s music. Then when we moved to Australia they were very passe about the 60s and 70s. It was all about the 80s and 90s. From there we’ve just kept expanding.
Did you think the BeatGirls would last so long?
I never really thought we would still be going 16 years later. We have had 28 BeatGirls. Because everyone does a lot of other things, like theatre, dance or backing vocals, you have to be able to let them go. When that happens you have to train someone else. We currently have two girls in Auckland and six in Wellington.
Why did you move to Australia?
It came out of the work we did during the Sydney Olympics in 2000 when we played at the Sports Illustrated parties. We made a lot of contacts there, so decided to capitalise on that. We auditioned a couple of girls over there.
Have you travelled to other places?
Yes it’s great. We travel all over New Zealand and used to fly to America all the time. We had this group of bankers from all over America who would fly us out to perform for one night for two hours. We would do one performance and then another group of bankers would contact us and offer to fly us out for their event. One time in Florida it was for a 20-minute performance at a charity event, which we thought was a bit ridiculous. I mean, it was America. There must be millions of people they could have been hiring. It all stopped when the recession hit. Did you get a stopover? Yes. We would take a couple of days in San Francisco or Los Angeles and go shopping for costumes. There were just shops everywhere with the most incredible stuff. It was cheap, too. I would go to Haight St in San Francisco the most. What were the
parties like? We performed in this huge marquee just across from the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in 2000. They had all these amazing guests, like Muhammad Ali, Chelsea Clinton, lots of famous athletes. There were mobile performers, people on stilts, dancers. We had to have security checks because of the people who were there. Because we did well there, they invited us to Athens in 2004. One night Al Roker and Katie Couric from the Today show in America were there. They said they were broadcasting live from the stadium the next day and asked us to do some live numbers. That was how the bankers noticed us and then invited us to America.
What was it like being in those cities at those times?
It was fantastic. We knew Sydney quite well, but Athens was a different kettle of fish altogether. We lived in a part of town where no- one spoke any English. It wasn’t touristy. The history of the place is amazing. They also cleaned it all up for the games. It is a shame how it looks now compared to how it was in 2004. I remember one thing that was odd was we couldn’t flush toilet paper down the loo.
Did you travel while you were over there?
When we had some time off we went to the Greek islands and got this great taste of Europe. After the closing ceremony we went to Italy and stayed in Rome for a while. There’s no way I would have done that without singing for my supper. It’s been a wild ride and we are still travelling a lot. It’s very humbling that we are still selling out shows.