Parade

November 2011

My weekend: Bianca Claxton

ALL this week we’ve been doing Blackberry's Live And Lost. They dropped us in a cave on Sunday in Buxton and since then, every day we’ve had to get to a different location to undergo a challenge.

We’ve been using Twitter to appeal to fans to give us lifts and food and somewhere to sleep each night.

They gave us each a Blackberry and we’d just say “We’re stuck in Ipswich and we need a lift to Broxbourne; can someone give us a lift?” Whoever helped us would set a challenge once we’d reached each destination.

We had to play netball for one, which was really embarrassing. I hadn’t played since school. Another one had fallen out with is friend so we had to write a jingle and then sing it to her. She wasn’t very impressed, to be honest.

The worst was feeding creepy crawlies and lizards. Me and Sian were just a wreck.

We finished last night with a gig in London and it’ll all be shown on Channel 4 on Sunday.

Rizzle Kicks, Chipmunk, Professor Green, Example and The Wanted have all done it in the past. We were the first girls to do it so I think they expected us to be completely useless but we dealt with it quite well.

The hardest thing was not eating. We’ve been starving hungry. We normally eat a lot of carbs. And a lot of cake. Everyone always says how surprised they are at how much we do eat but because of the dance routines we do on stage, we need to keep the energy up.

Because we haven’t been able to do that this week, we were all quite ill, full of coughs and colds yesterday.

It’s been a bit crazy but we’ve had a laugh.

We wanted to have a sleep but we’re off to Blackpool today to do a signing for our album which was released this week. We’re really excited to have it out, finally.

It has the singles Louder and Perfume on it and the rest of the tracks have all the same kind of energy. So they’re girly anthems, not taking ourselves too seriously. But there are a couple of ballads on there as well as a clubby track. It’s a good old pop album.

Tonight we’ll be doing a gig in Blackpool for Children In Need, which should be a good one.

Tomorrow we’re doing another signing in London and Birmingham.

On Sunday I think we’ll be back home in London finding out how well ouralbum has done in the charts.

All five of us still live together and we’re still really enjoying it.

The only times we do argue are what to watch on TV. Jess watches MTV Base and all those car-bashing programmes and I can’t deal with them. They drive me mad. I always Sky+ Glee, America’s Next Top Model and X Factor.

I watched the Lion King on DVD the other day and had a good cry at that. It wasn’t the 3D version. I think that might freak me out.

We don’t get to see many gigs although me and Jess went to see Wretch 32 the other night. Most of the time we only see other acts who are performing at the same gig as us. So last Sunday in Ireland it was Jedward, The Wanted, JLS and we went on stage with Westlife.

So far we’ve supported Shakira, Alexandra Burke, Ellie Goulding and Black Eyed Peas at Alton Towers, which was amazing. We’ve also played with Shayne Ward, Boyzone, Westlife and at the weekend we did a gig with Jedward – and we love Jedward.

Next month we’re doing two shows with Mel C and I’m dead excited about that. We are all huge Spice Girls fans. They were just the best girl band.

Hopefully we’ll be doing our own tour next year.

At the moment our fans on Twitter are saying that we should support The Wanted on their arena tour next year. But I don’t think I could tolerate The Wanted on tour. They trashed our dressing room again when we were in Dublin. And of course it was Jay (McGuiness). It’s always Jay because he’s from Nottingham and that’s what we do.

Parade’s self-titled debut album is out now. You can see how Bianca and the girls fared with Live and Lost on T4 this Sunday or visitwww.blackberry.com/liveandlost