Girl power grows up

IS THERE life after Spice? Melanie Chisholm certainly thinks so.

Despite being one of the less striking members of ultra successful girl group the Spice Girls, she has managed to emerge from their disintegration as the coolest and most credible artiste among them.

While some of her former fellow group members have to rely on their private lives to keep them in the public eye, Melanie does it with her music.

She followed up her multi-platinum debut album Northern Star with Reason, which came out last month and has already spawned a top ten single, Here it Comes Again, and she's currently on the road on a solo tour which brings her to Southampton Guildhall next month.

But her success as a solo artist hasn't come close to the global domination of the Spice Girls - perhaps one of the reason why so many rumours circulate about the possibility of them getting back together, something which Melanie is swift to deny.

"I've just got absolutely no interest in doing it because the Spice Girls were fantastic at the time but I think to go back to it would be a huge mistake.

"I don't think we could ever do it justice and I'm just not really interested," she says.

"I'm so happy doing what I'm doing now that I don't want to do that again. And it was hard, although being in a band, there's a whole new set of pressures.

"If they reformed I'd say good luck to them but none of the Spice Girls are interested in getting back together and all the speculation in the press is just comical. I think they're just short of column inches."

Although Melanie isn't interested in reforming the Spice Girls, that doesn't mean that she regrets her time with them.

"I wouldn't change a thing," she says of her career history.

"I'm so proud of having been part of the Spice Girls and it has enabled me to go on and have a solo career."

And she's also proud of the girl power label that the group touted, taking a watered-down, consumerist version of feminism to teenagers across the globe.

"It was very important," she says of the tag.

"That all came from when we originally got a record deal. When we started going out and promoting, people wouldn't take us seriously because at that time boy bands were the big album sellers. The majority of record buyers are young girls and they thought that girls couldn't sell to girls and we just found that really frustrating.

"That's why we started with the girl power stuff and we went on to be more successful than even the boy bands. We proved everyone wrong and we were doing it for women, do you know what I mean?

"I'm very proud of that fact."

Melanie might be proud of disseminating the idea of girl power, but she's surprisingly reticent about identifying with the principles at the root of the concept.

"I wouldn't use a word as strong as feminist," she says. "I'm just - I believe in equality and I think it's important to be a strong female and I think it's important to be a strong male, do you know what I mean? I look at people as individuals."

Whatever Melanie's feelings about feminism, it's clear that she is an important and influential figure to a lot of girls and young women.

"A lot of my fans are quite young teenagers and I get a lot of letters from depressed fans and people who are having problems at school or have lost a parent or something and you get lovely letters saying how much your music has helped them through really difficult times.

"It's something I don't take lightly. My time with the Spice Girls was when I realised that you do have to take on the responsibility of being a role model, even if you don't always feel like it."

One of the reasons why depressed fans may particularly identify with Melanie is that she has been through a very public period of depression herself.

"When the depression thing first came out I was quite ill and it was actually leaked to the press. I made a decision that I wasn't going to deny it. Hopefully something good can come out of it, if there are other people suffering. So anything bad that happens to me, I like to turn it round and help other people."

And depression wasn't Melanie's only problem.

"I had insomnia for a long time - it was one of the symptoms of my depression," she says.

"It's horrible. There's nothing worse than sleep deprivation - it drives you mad.

"Everything came at once really - depression, insomnia, eating disorders. But I'm well on the way to recovery now so I hope it will stay at bay."

Melanie used alternative therapies, particularly acupuncture, to help her through her depression and is the first to admit that being in a relationship has also played a significant role.

"It's been really good for me, actually, because I've had a few problems over the last few years and being in a good, steady relationship has really given me a lot more confidence, because I'd lost a lot of my confidence."

Melanie is fairy open about herself, although she admits that she tries to be careful about what she says.

"I like doing TV interviews because people see how you mean what you said. Sometimes if you're just having a joke, it doesn't work in print and you get into trouble.

"I don't really like talking about my personal life too much," she says, "and although I'm very open about my depression and eating disorders, I get a bit worried if I keep being asked about them because I don't want to keep going on about it so that people are like, 'Ah, is she ever going to shut up about that or what?'," she laughs.

"I'd like people to think of me as, 'the honest and understated Melanie C,' but my epitaph will be, 'Too honest for her own good.'"

Melanie C is at Southampton Guildhall on May 7. Tickets are priced £17.50. Box office: 023 8063 2601.