"I love Geri... but I've never thought she was a great singer.  She's not
to my taste.  I'm not being a bitch, I'm just being honest"

And honesty is what's important to Mel C as she defines herself and her solo
career.  Mark Frith talks to the "other" Spice Girl who's prepared to risk
embarrassment and more as she strips herself emotionally bare.

So what did you do with your summer holidays? The Spice Girls did their solo
projects. And, in the week that the nation's children go back to school, the
Spice Girls are slinking back to work. Today, and for the next five weeks,
they're meeting up daily in a recording studio to work on their third album.
You can just imagine it - Victoria showing the girls her wedding snaps, Emma
talking about that gig she did in the park and Mel G tearfully asking the
rest of them why they couldn't scrape together enough cash to buy Word Up.

It seems weird them being back together. Their solo projects painted such a
strong image of them as individuals: Victoria - the society hostess looking
after baby and buying lovely, lovely things; Mel G with her Missy-style zoot
suits and hard r'n'b mates; and Emma still Baby Spice really, with her Hello
Kitty hair-slides and TV show about her and her friends' and her mum's
favourite music.
Those three alone make a weird combination, but then add on top of that Mel C
with her punk haircut, "proper live band" and Sex Pistols' cover versions.
Because, while Posh has finished her honeymoon, Scary has packed away the red
leather corsets, and Baby has finished all her party-going, Sporty - of the
four possibly the one most committed to her solo career - is, with the
release next week of first solo single Goin' Down, only just getting going.
So effectively she's living something of a double life at the moment.

Each weekday at 12 noon - after a fruit breakfast and gym visit - she gets
sent a car which takes her to their studio. They all meet up at about lpm,
have lunch together and then record. At 8pm the car comes back and collects
Mel who heads off to rehearse with her band (after playing a short set at
V99 they're set to embark on a fuller tour). Sometimes she has to leave the
other Spices to it (they were there till gone one in the morning the night
before we speak).
It's on the first journey, post fruit and gym but pre-lunch and studio, that
we find Mel today. The hour-long trip doubles up as interview time and she
can usually fit two in before she meets the girls. She's chatty, friendly
and rather candid, surprising because, after being the one in the background
for the last three years, she's had a lot of hassle from the press recently.
The Daily Mail ran one particularly scathing piece that attacked her for
everything from swearing to wearing skirts ("They showed a picture of me in
LA and said it was the first time I'd worn one - well, what the f*** did I
wear at school, then?" she says, disproving one claim but fuelling the
other).

But honesty is a big thing to the Sid Vicious Spice and what you're aware of
more than anything else listening to her forthcoming (rather fantastic,
actually) album is honesty almost to the point of embarrassment (hers and
ours).  We speak two days after the Channel 4 documentary about Mel, Northern
Star, was broadcast. Although as sanitised and PR-friendly as any documentary
produced by the star themselves, there are glimpses of a type of person you
wouldn't normally find in the most famous pop group on Earth. Someone not
afraid to be seen as fallible, lustful, self-dependent or even dead lonely.
There's no better example of this than the amazing part where Mel, in the
studio emoting and clutching headphones, sings about a bloke who goes to her
gym. "I've seen you every day/I've known you for a while," she sings. "You
always say hello/I love the way you smile/Do you have any idea what seeing
you does to me?/If I'm living any kind of life I'm living in a fantasy/I
wonder what it would be like if we turned out the light." You listen to this
and presume that it's some cheesy fantasy. But no, he exists alright. He did
go to the same gym as Mel, he was on the exercise bike while she did
scrunchies. She really fancied him and he never knew. Er, until now...

"With all the songs I've written I've been blatantly honest about my
feelings and emotions, so honest it's freaked me out a bit. I've been
worried that it's a bit too raw and that people would know what I'm
thinking." Does the guy know he's in a song? [Deep inhalation of breath]
"No, he doesn't! He doesn't even know I like him." So is she still at the
same gym? "I've just moved to a new one. Why didn't I stick around? He's got
a girlfriend. You leave off if they've got a girlfriend. Girl Power, man!"
"How did I find out? [She gets really coy at this point] I asked someone! I
asked around. God, I'm really stitching myself up here, aren't I?"

People always try to stitch Mel C up about her lovelife. Unlike the rest of
the band there's been no long-term boyfriend pictured with her out and
about, only vague rumours linking her to Jason McAteer, Kavana and Robbie
Williams (more of whom later). Frank Skinner made dyke jokes to her face on
his Christmas special last year and even her own documentary crew decided to
end the programme with a shot of her sitting on the beach, sun setting
behind her as she pondered her life - perfect except for the lack of perfect
man ("What a saddo, eh?").

She's really good about all the ribbing - although she remains shocked by
the intensity of the unfounded lesbian rumours - but having gone through
that you'd think she'd want to be seen publicly slagging it around town (or
seeming as though she is) to prove her sexuality. But she doesn't, which is
dignified. In fact, it takes a lot to get the truth out of her about the
most heavily rumoured liaison of all - the one about her and Robbie
Williams. She's always denied it - until now.

The rumours about Mel and Robbie began to surface about two years ago. Both
of them were in the States at the time, she on tour, him hanging out. They
were never photographed together but the stories were heavy-duty - there was
an affair, one of them played around with someone else, it ended. Neither has
really spoken about it - in fact, most of the time the Spice Girl has
outright denied it. But the speculation never died down. Probably the most
candid revelation until now came in a Robbie Williams' interview in The Face
late last year. Williams clearly hinted that they did have a relationship
(it was referred to as "ill-fated romantic shilly-shallying" ), it didn't
end on the best terms and even suggested that there was still - a year on a
lot of bad feeling between the Robbie and Spice Girls camps.
So, Mel, is it at all true?
[Sheepishly] "Maybe him and myself do have a little bit of history."
Did you snog him?
"Might have done."
Did you sleep with him?
"Might have done."
It didn't end brilliantly?
"Mmm... but he was just being himself. He was being Robbie The Boy."
And do the rest of the Spice Girls really give him a hard time?
"Well, you know, your mates always look after you. They absolutely give him
a hard time whenever they see him."
So how many people have you slept with?
[Screeches] "I don't know! I don't count! Doesn't that sound better saying I
don't count? That seems like loads."
Did you do the sleeping around bit in your teens?
"Yeah, I think it's fair to say I had more relationships when I was younger -
I think because you have more time on your hands." [She laughs.]

The last two months have seen the least talked about Spice Girl become the
most talked about one. Although necessary to hype the album it has had the
effect of highlighting the press's prejudice towards them. Mel, the one with
the voice who can cut it live, is unveiled as Talented Spice. Weird for the
Girl who once came a resounding last in one magazine's "most popular Spice
Girl" poll. It wasn't much fun being seen, unfairly, as the "other one" in a
group of pin-ups. Says Mel: "When I was young it really upset me because
there's been so much crap written about us but as I've got older it's worried
me less and less. It can change by the day though some days you feel great
and that you can conquer the world, and then other days if you're feeling
tired and down it can hurt."
Apart from that most of the bad stuff recently - more than a year after it
happened - still centres on the split from Geri. Geri has kept a mature
silence about other members of the band but the two Mels have been quite
critical. "We're gobby northerners, aren't we? I love Geri, Geri was one of
my best friends for years - we used to sign on the dole together. No one can
ever take that away but I'm just being very honest: the album's OK, it's
pretty good, I love the Number One and I'm really glad for her. But I've
never thought she was a great singer. She's not to my taste. I'm not being a
bitch, I'm just being honest."
What about solidarity? Girl Power?
"Part of Girl Power is being honest. I'm not going to be a hypocrite."

Whatever her deficiencies Geri Halliwell certainly proved a useful catalyst
for the rest of the band to think solo as well as as a group. Halliwell felt
she couldn't do it within the Spice Girls' structure; the other four clearly
feel they can. And it's Sporty whose image and individual projects are
possibly the most distinctive. It's easy to be cynical about the concept of
"rock star" Mel and her band and she's quite honest about the fact that she
didn't put the group together herself (that was done by Spice Girls
percussionist and musical ' director Fergus Gerrand) and doesn't know what
the band did before they joined up with her.
But the eclectic taste in music is for real: she's just getting into David
Bowie's Diamond Dogs, was thrilled that Left Eye from TLC agreed to rap on
one track and couldn't believe her luck when, in LA, she bumped into someone
who used - that's used - to be in the Foo Fighters. And the songs that have
ended up on the album - although heavier on ballads than you'd have guessed -
all work effortlessly. She means it, man. And if people don't like it? "I
love music, I love making music, if other people enjoy the music I make,
great; if not, sod'em."

Next week, with Goin' Down finally in the shops, you can make up your own
mind about the new Melanie C. But don't worry too much if you don't think
she's pulled it off - she's got a day job.