Starstruck (3 page)

‘And
don’t think I didn’t see you snogging the face off Troy Reeves, Miss Wilde,’
she adds.

Troy
was on one of those terrible reality TV talent show things. He didn’t win but
when I interviewed him he told me that he was glad because he could make music
without a super-strict recording contract holding him back – he also told me he
wanted to sleep with me and we’ve been getting together whenever he’s in town ever
since.

‘So
how come you didn’t go back with him last night?’ Emily asks.

‘I’m
a lady!’ I protest, trying to give off Kate Middleton vibes but actually
sounding more like David Walliams in Little Britain.

Emily
gives me a look.

‘He
had to go,’ I admit. ‘They were travelling through the night.’

‘You’re
so bad, Nicole!’

‘The
Devil made me do it, now get out of my office, bitch.’ I laugh, totally
defeated.

‘Gosh,
Troy Reeves last night, Prince Charming today – it’s true what they say about
men being like buses, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah,
they’re dirty, anyone can ride them and they’re never there when you want one.’

Emily,
a dyed in the wool romantic, rolls her eyes at this.

Plastic
Rap are one of the biggest bands around at the moment. They’re mainly aimed at
the teen market, but loved by young girls and mums alike. Even a few boys admit
to liking them. At the moment they are touring the UK, and when tickets went on
sale all venues sold out within a couple of hours. I managed to score a place
on the guestlist months ago but all their publicity time was booked up. As far
as the music goes they’re not really my cup of tea, but this interview will be good
for the magazine.

‘Get
some work done,’ Emily says, leaving me alone in my office and closing the door
behind her. There are only a handful of reasons why my office door is ever
closed. 1. When Vicky is driving me especially crazy. 2. When I am in on my
own, and therefore scared something might “get me”. 3. When I actually need to
do some work. Despite today being a three, I have Googled Plastic Rap and am
casually clicking my way through their photos and mentally placing them in
order of hotness. This takes up about ten minutes that I don’t have and I
manage to burn another five flicking through the photos from last night on my phone.
It certainly was a wild one.

Now
officially in the PM, I click open my emails. The first one I open is from Dylan
King. Subject: Escort girl.

I
quickly scan through the email which informs me Dylan is “sixty-seven per cent certain”
he
didn’t
pay some girl for sex, although he is “eighty-five per cent
certain” he did “bang her”. The percentages make me laugh but somehow I don’t
think they were meant to.

Dylan
is a mega-star, so stories are forever popping up in the press about him
sleeping with some girl – and most of the time he
has
slept with them,
in fact I'm ninety-nine per cent certain.

As
well as being a super famous rockstar he is also my best friend. I met him on
my gap year when I won a competition to meet his band, The Burnouts. Back then
the bands I hung around with were small-time, so it was pretty cool to meet one
of the most famous bands in the country and to hang out in a proper backstage
room.

I
remember their manager came out to get me and as we were walking backstage he
said, “They’re going to love you, darling.” Back then I wasn’t the expert that I
am now when it comes to bands, in particular the inner (and outer) workings of
your typical band member, so I weakly asked him what he meant. “Blonde hair, big
tits. You’re just Dylan’s type, you wanna watch yourself with him,” he warned
me, making me even more nervous than I already was.

When
I was shown into the backstage room it was Mikey King, Dylan’s younger brother
who is also in the band, who I was introduced to first and he was lovely. Dylan
was always the one I’d had the crush on, but Mikey was just so down to earth
and charming. It’s no secret that Mikey is the real talent in The Burnouts,
he’s the guitarist and he writes most of the music, whereas Dylan is the
egotistical front-man with the pretty face and the shocking reputation. After
I’d chatted to Mikey for a while, Dylan came in and he was everything people
had warned me about. His ego was in full swing and I could tell he was going
out of his way to try and impress me - he even played me an exclusive clip of
their next single. Until that moment everything I had known about bands I had
loved, but being around this mega-famous arsehole was really starting to get on
my nerves, so when he played me their new song, despite it being amazing, I
told him it was crap – because that ought to bring him down a peg or two. Of
course I instantly regretted saying it but after a few seconds of
straight-faced silence he burst out laughing.

‘I
think you’re the only person in the world brave enough to say something like
that to me,’ he chuckled and apparently the kind of person who will tell you
your music is crap is exactly the kind of person you want to have in your life
if you’re a musician and we became pretty much inseparable. We’ve been best
friends ever since – although nothing more I hasten to add. This works well for
both of us professionally because if I am having a slow week with news he will
give me an interview, and he can always rely on me to give him a bit of good
press when everyone is reporting the negative stuff – like him “banging” a
female escort.

With
me living in Leeds and him all the way in London we don’t see each other as
much as we’d like, but we talk every day and we always have a blast at his
shows when he is on tour.

My
mind darts back to the “real world”. Sitting at my desk and staring at my
computer I realise that I’m not going to be able to concentrate today, I’m just
too excited. I go through the rest of my emails, clicking my way through the
masses of press releases we receive every day. There are a few good ones but
nothing too exciting, I’ll do them later.

One
exciting email I have received is from a band manager, asking to me to confirm
that I will be joining the band on their tour. These guys are also my good
friends, I used to tour with them when no one knew who they were, and now
they’re embarking on their first headlining UK tour as a signed band which is pretty
exciting. I send a quick message (something which feels weirdly formal
considering they’re my buddies) confirming that I will still be joining them on
the road and then crack on with my work.

After
four hours of replying to messages and writing items for the website I am more
than ready to go home. In what little time I have I’m going to pull out all the
stops for tonight. I only wish I had time to pick up something new to wear.

‘Don’t
mind if I get off a bit earlier do you, team? Big night tonight,’ I say, making
my way towards the door.

‘Last
one in, first one out,’ Jake jokes. ‘Lucky for some.’

‘Of
course we don’t mind. If you do pull one of them be sure to text me,’ Emily
says excitedly. I think she may be even more excited than I am.

‘I
don’t think so,’ I call back as I make my escape. It’s not that they are a bad
looking band but my priority is the interview and I’m certainly not going to
mess this up by getting my goals mixed up.

I
feel so old right now, and I’m only twenty-five. I’m at the Plastic Rap gig and,
apart from a handful of parents and their young kids, I am surrounded by
excited teenagers, most of them female. Unsurprisingly I haven’t bumped into
anyone I know so I have been entertaining myself. I’ve knocked back a few
drinks and messed around on my phone quite a lot – very important to keep the
good people of Twitter and Facebook up to date on what I’m doing - not to show
off, you must understand.

Plastic
Rap are currently playing their last song and for the millionth time since I
got here I am checking my bag for my Dictaphone. Absolutely nothing can go
wrong tonight.

Looking
up at them on stage I have to admit that I can see exactly what the thousands
of screaming girls see in them. They’re good looking in a goody goody pop kind
of way, not a tattoo or piercing in sight which is something I actually quite
like, it’s not that often you find a musician without one or the other these
days.

When
the gig is finally over I make my way to the hotel next door where our
interview is taking place. Before I know it I am plonked down in front of the
band, who are eagerly awaiting my questions.

All
five of them are so chatty, they’ve got bags of character and they’re
definitely saying all the right things.

Sometimes
the really famous ones are rude or awkward and I hate it when there’s a
particular subject I’m not allowed to ask about, but that’s not the case with
these guys.

I’ve
asked all the music related questions that we’re expected to ask so it’s time
to get down to the juicy stuff.

‘So
are you boys allowed girlfriends? A lot of bands with a large teenage fan base
are told to keep their girlfriends a secret.’

Sam
(the hottest one in my opinion) is straight in there with an answer.

‘Yes,
we’re allowed girlfriends and we all have a girlfriend at the moment. Our fans
are the most loyal fans in the world, they certainly don’t mind us having them.
It’s all about the music.’

Fantastic
answer, although I have to disagree. It’s partly about the music, but their
fans are genuinely in love with them. Hearts will break when they read this,
that’s for sure.

Eventually
we wrap up the interview. I pose for a few photos with the band and I’m not going
to lie, these are for Facebook. I’m still a band lover at the end of the day.

Sam
moves to stand next to me and slides an arm around my waist as we continue to
pose for the camera.

‘We’re
having a bit of a party if you’d like to stick around,’ he says between smiles.
Before I have chance to reply, in walks the band’s tour manager with a group of
ten young looking fans. They’re maybe fifteen or sixteen-years-old so I assume
they’re here for a meet and greet before the party starts. For someone who has been
hanging around bands for so long, that’s a pretty naive assumption it turns out.
As if to remind me exactly how these things go, Carl the bassist walks straight
up to one of the fans and sticks his tongue down her throat. Maybe it’s his
girlfriend? Sure she looks a bit young, but who am I to jump to conclusions?
Then again, if it was his girlfriend he probably wouldn’t be kissing the next
girl in the line right now. Or the one after that.

Now
I really do feel old. When I was sixteen I certainly wasn’t hanging around in hotels
with taken men.

‘Thanks
for the offer, but some of us have got work in the morning.’ I try to sounds
friendly, jokey, anything but shocked and appalled.

‘I’ll
give you my number, yeah?’ He’s persistent, I’ll give him that. ‘We’re back
here again in a few weeks, we’ll have to meet up, babe.’

This
is the second phone number I have been given today that I have no real
intention of calling - unless we ever need another interview, of course.

As
I gather my things and walk towards the door I take one final look back at the
band, just as they are working out which band member gets which girls. Ten
girls - that’s two each. It reminds me of when we used to pick teams during PE
at school. I bet a couple of those girls still have to do PE, how creepy is
that?

The
band’s chubby, bald tour manager stops me on the way out to ask a few questions
about the magazine, I answer and politely thank him for his time. As I go for
the door he puts his arm up like a barrier blocking an exit.

‘These
girls are all over sixteen, so don’t go putting this in your magazine,’ he
warns me – protesting a little too much if you ask me.

‘Wouldn’t
dream of it,’ I reply bluntly, waiting for him to move and let me past.
Eventually he does. I can’t wait to tell Emily about this, in fact I’m actually
dialling her number before I’ve even left the building. It doesn’t take me long
to relay the nights events to her as I walk home.

‘I
cannot believe it!’ she squeals.

‘I
know, right? No wonder their fans don’t mind them having girlfriends, it
really
really
doesn’t matter.’

‘Well
yeah, that
is
shocking, but I can’t believe you didn’t stay. You were in
there, Nic!’

‘No
way! You’d have stayed? Those girls were the same age as your little sister.
God, I felt like a prudish old woman.’

‘Would
have been quite the scoop for the magazine though, wouldn’t it?’ she says
coldly, but I know she doesn’t really mean it. She’s right, but not only did I promise
their tour manager that I wouldn’t blab, I don’t really want to be pissing off
a band that I will probably want to interview again in the future.

‘We
need to keep our heads down, Em. Trying to ruin the reputation of a huge band
like Plastic Rap would probably just get us sued. Right, I’m at my door. I
trust we’ll be keeping this little discovery between us?’