POP group Steps are playing a game. Lisa Scott-Lee and Claire Richards are trying to work out who the Chancellor of the Exchequer was when they formed, almost 20 years ago, in May, 1997.
As they confer, a giggling Ian “H” Watkins, sits behind the pair, slyly tickling their backs.
Swatting him away, Claire correctly answers “Gordon Brown” to the delight of her bandmates, who fall about laughing.
It’s just one sign of the affinity and energy retained by the group, who split so acrimoniously at the turn of the millennium, when Claire and H decided they wanted to form a duo.
Since then, of course, things have been patched up, and the band reformed in 2011 for a Sky Living series and a string of concerts.
Now, more than five years on, with the exception of 39-year-old Claire, they’ve all celebrated their 40th birthdays, but that does little to deter their energy and positivity.
Hauling suitcases and carrying Pret takeaway bags, they bundle into the studio for a photo shoot.
The five, completed by Lee Latchford-Evans and Faye Tozer, start swapping make-up and hairbrushes and finding plug sockets to charge their phones, giggling and breaking into song before finally taking their seats.
I catch up with them after the release of Scared Of The Dark, the lead track from their first album proper in 17 years (they released a Christmas record of largely covers in 2012), and the fivesome have somehow grown even more excitable.
A Vice article declares Scared Of The Dark a “bombastic, ABBA-referencing pop beast”, declaring it “banger of the month”.
This reaction has come as a complete surprise, says Lee.
“We know fans love the old stuff, it’s been proven. But the new material, we thought: ‘The charts have changed, how they buy it has changed . . . ’”
But all that doesn’t seem to have mattered. The group recall leaving the BBC in Salford after an interview a day or two before, when staff members lined the glass corridors to catch a glimpse of Steps passing through.
Claire recalls: “There were loads of people asking for photos, and security told us they had never seen anything like it.
“They’ve had Bradley Cooper, will.i.am and all these really amazing famous people in there, and they said this never happens.
“I don’t actually know what is going on!” she adds, laughing.
The band take great delight in following Scared Of The Dark’s climb on the iTunes Store, and admit they share positions and updates via their WhatsApp group.
They listened to the song’s first play on the radio in the car together — almost 20 years to the day after they gathered to listen to debut release 5,6,7,8.
“It felt like we had started all over again,” reflects H. “There were tears, and shivers and love, and it was so amazing.”
“New music is the key for us to have a new energy,” says Faye.
“We couldn’t have asked the fans to come to see us again with just the old songs.
“I think it has breathed new life into us.”
They promise the new record, Tears On The Dancefloor, despite its name, will add some colour and light relief to a “grey world”.
“I think the world needs a bit of light-hearted fun,” says Lee.
Tears On The Dancefloor is out on April 21 while tickets to the Steps UK tour, Party On The Dancefloor, are on sale now. Visit www.stepsofficial.co.uk
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