The Saturdays

June 2011

SHE is the posh blonde one, the daughter of an accountant, the one who wanted to be a singer since she was seven years old. And Mollie King admits it took her dad and mum (a doctor’s secretary) some convincing that pop music was the right career for her.

“I’ve got two older sisters,” says King, who turned 24 last weekend.

“One is a lawyer and the other is a banker, so when I said I wanted to be a pop star it was a bit...”

Of a disappointment?

“(Laughs) No, not at all. It was more like ‘where did this come from?’ Mum thought it was a brilliant idea but for my dad it was more ‘gosh, how are we going to go about this?’ My family’s not at all in the performing arts world, so it was a complete shock.”

The turning point for dad was seeing his youngest daughter in his daily paper.

“My dad reads The Guardian and there was an article about us, so he was impressed then.”

She adds: “And now they really are The Saturdays’ No. 1 fans. They come to everything they can possibly be at... hang on just a minute...”

King is hopping from one car into another. Where is she off to?

“I’m actually going to, erm... I’m going to see... I’m going to, erm...”

She turns to her best friend in the seat beside her.

“Kate, what do you call it where we’re going to? The horses? The races.”

You’re going to watch horse racing.

“(Laughs). You can tell it’s my first time going.”

It’s a rare day off for her and the rest of the group who have been working on their next album.

“We’re writing and recording that at the moment. It’s the first time we’ve been allocated a lot of time to write the songs. On our last one we did write one of the tracks but this time we’ll be writing a good percentage of them, which is nice because the album now feels really personal to us.

“At the end of June we’re going in for a week’s writing camp with producers and writers from all over the world coming to see us, which is really cool. We are still beginners when it comes to writing so it’s nice for us to be working with such talented people.”

The album won’t be released until November but the first single from it, Notorious, was released last month. It’s their tenth hit in three years, following the likes of If This is Love, Forever Is Over, Missing You, Ego and Higher.

The Saturdays’ Frankie Sandford had plenty of column inches in the tabloids when her relationship with Dougie Poynter from McFly broke down but what is the situation with the rest of them?

“Four of us have boyfriends and Vanessa is single,” says King.

“My boyfriend’s a model. It’s actually very new. It’s been two months.”

And how he’s adjusting to the attention?

“He’s used to being photographed with his job but he didn’t really realise how much we get photographed in The Saturdays.”

She adds: “I’m really busy but he’s equally as busy so we do have to make time to see each other. But that kind of makes it more special when we are together. We plan to spend nice days together and to do things that are fun.

“If you really like somebody you can always make it work.”

Although singing is her priority, she does harbour ambitions to act and had a taste in Hollyoaks.

“We made a little appearance, which was funny. And we were acting but it was only a very small part. One of the characters was hitting on me and I had to give him a ‘back off’ look.”

Ahead of the next session of writing for the new album, The Saturdays appear alongside the likes of JLS and McFly at Alton Towers Live on Sunday June 19.

Says King: “I’m so excited because I haven’t been to Alton Towers before. I hope that I get to go on the rides. I’m told they have the scariest rides in the country and I’m quite a daredevil, I’m quite up for it.”

Tickets, including theme park entrance, are £55. The concert starts at 4.30pm. For more details visit www.altontowers.com.