We chat with author Sandie Jones about her latest release I Would Die For You, which is infused with the sounds of the 80 and explores the chaos that the frenzy of fandom can provoke.
You’ve said that you and your friends followed around Duran Duran during your teenage years, even meeting members of the band. How did you get started as a groupie? Was there an incident that changed you into a groupie from a garden-variety fan?
It hadn’t occurred to me that there was any other type of fan other than the garden-variety and I was happy collecting posters and recording their TV appearances. But then I went to my first concert. I’d won the tickets in a newspaper competition that were giving away a pair of tickets to 100 people, on a first-come, first- served basis. I wasn’t prepared to have my entry amongst the thousands of others in the following morning’s postbags, so as soon as I finished school, I got on a train to London and hand-delivered my self-addressed envelope to the Editor’s office. Funnily enough, a couple of days later, I received two tickets to the concert in Birmingham!
I was amongst the first in the queue – happy to wait the six hours until the doors opened – if it meant I could get a spot in front of the stage. And then, once I was there, I held my ground for another three hours, refusing to drink so I wouldn’t need the toilet, and making friends with like-minded fans.
The excitement was at fever pitch when the lights went down and John Taylor strummed the chords of their opening number. The crowd surged forwards and before Simon Le Bon was even on stage, I’d passed out!
Thankfully, security pulled me out and hauled me over the barriers, before taking me to a backstage area to recover. And it was there that I got my first glimpse of the band behind-the-scenes. I would have rather stayed there, than go back out front. And that was when I realised that there was more to being a fan than collecting badges and Christmas annuals.
Are you memories of your days following the band to interviews and events mostly positive ones, or was there ever a dark moment?
I put myself in some really questionable situations, which when I think of now, I realise I was lucky to have come away from unscathed. I’d certainly not allow my fifteen-year-old daughter to be gallivanting all over the country, but to be fair to my mum, she had no idea where I was or what I was doing half the time – and no way of finding out.
The most precarious position I found myself in was when my friend and I followed Simon Le Bon down to the south coast of England where he was taking part in the FastNet boat race around the Isle of Wight. He’d become quite the sailor and was part of a crew on board a yacht called Drum, and they were moored up in a tiny village called Hamble. Unable to afford anywhere to stay, we’d set ourselves up in the toilets in the marina, preparing to settle down for the night, when the Canadian team passed by on their way back from the pub. They asked if we wanted to sleep on their yacht for the night and, given the alternative, we said yes! So in the pitch black, we all got into a dinghy and cut through the inky waters to their boat that was anchored out at sea. They gave us a couple of beds in an empty berth and took us back to land the next morning – thankfully proving to be the perfect gentlemen.
The next night we were trying to sleep in a bus shelter, when Simon’s brother Johnny came by and said that they’d rather we slept in the house they were all staying in, than out in the cold. So, we stayed on the couch in their living room – only to be woken by a banging on the door at 2am. I sleepily went to open it, and Simon was standing there, singing to me, asking to be let in because he’d forgotten his key!
They were mad times, but it didn’t ever occur to me to be on-guard – I think that cynicism only comes with age. Or maybe people were just different back then?
In I Would Die For You, that extreme level of fandom becomes something misguided at best, or even dangerous at worst. Did you research any groupie disasters for this book?
Groupies had a revered cult status in the 70’s and 80’s – none more so than the likes of Pamela Des Barres who Dave Navarro called “rock’s premier groupie and sexual muse.” And Lori Mattix, who was one of the renowned ‘Baby Groupies” of the Sunset Strip in LA, having earned the rather unsavoury moniker for being under-age. They all have fascinating, eye-opening tales to tell of their times spent with David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. But the most disastrous groupie-rock star pairing was that of Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols and Nancy Spungen, the latter allegedly leading Sid into a world of drugs and sex. They were said to be madly in love, however a few short months later, Nancy was found stabbed to death in a hotel bathroom in New York and Sid was charged with her murder. Though he never got to prove his innocence as he died of an overdose whilst awaiting trial.
You’ve mined a wonderful vein of tension in this book by setting it amid a touring band, and one that looks like there’s a messy breakup on the horizon. Is this kind of elevated tension common in the world of rock stardom? Or are we just attracted to the stories of band animosity when it does appear?
I think there are very few bands where tensions aren’t fraught. It may look like all glamour and success from the outside, but it’s such a surreal and intense existence for those living inside the bubble. Even the bands that have grown-up together – and actually like each other – struggle to live in each other’s pockets 24/7. Their schedules are crazy, they often don’t know what country they’re even in, they’re surviving on little to no sleep, so it’s a pressure cooker waiting to explode. Then add in who’s most popular with the fans, who’s the most dominant songwriter, who’s earning the most money…and it’s like a bomb going off.
So, it’s no real surprise that so many of the big bands break-up, normally preceded by a member walking out. It only takes one to topple the carefully curated image they’ve spent years perfecting – and they never seem able to come back from it. And the fans are left to mourn the loss as if they’re grieving for a loved one.
There’s so much to unpack and get under the skin of in real life, let alone in a fictional one, so it was a fun ride to research and write I WOULD DIE FOR YOU!
