“I actually came up with six in a row,” says Maddie, proudly. “I was literally just spurting them out, like, “Say That! Say Truth! Say… Now.” By that time, although, they’d been by means of so many names that virtually the whole lot anybody mentioned sounded a bit naff. So, they did what any affordable group of girls would do when making an necessary determination and determined to sleep on it. Once they wakened the following day within the flat they share collectively in London, as Amelia places it, they “were like, ‘Say Now kind of eats.’”
Woman bands have a very necessary place in British pop historical past. From Bananarama to the Spice Ladies, Sugababes to Ladies Aloud, few ladies within the nation can say they weren’t a minimum of a bit bit influenced by seeing sisterhood writ massive and looking out glam on High Of The Pops. Woman bands are enjoyable, aspirational and ensure Radio 1’s continuously equipped with bangers. However they’re additionally inherently feminist – whether or not they’re shouting “Girl Power” or not – exhibiting younger ladies that they will do something, particularly along with your finest mates by your facet. So, when Little Combine went on hiatus in 2022 and left a gaping gap within the charts, there was just one query on the minds of the UK’s pop stans – who, if anybody, would step in because the nation’s de facto large sisters?
“I feel like we’re the next generation of girl bands,” says Ysabelle, sitting cross-legged on a excessive stool, her Bella Hadid-style dishevelled jorts revealing a pair of bang-on-trend brown boots.
Maddie, who appears decidedly extra Child Spice in a pink ruffled tank and matching stilettos, agrees. “We’re encapsulating how fun it is to be a girl our age in this generation,” she says. “We are so into fashion, fun, dance and just being everywhere. And that’s what Say Now is.”
“What reminds you that we are a modern-day girl band is how diverse we are,” provides Amelia, who at this time is bringing a dose of pirate-chic to the group in striped hotpants and a brown denim corset. “When I look back at all the other bands, diversity was almost not there, really. We’re all from different backgrounds, different cultures. Now, people can see themselves in us and be like, ‘Wait, I look like Amelia,’ ‘I look like Yssy’, or ‘I look like Maddie.’”
“Also, girl bands in the old generation didn’t have social media,” says Maddie. “We’re still doing all the things that the Spice Girls did, being chaotic, but we’re doing it online.”
The Spice Ladies come up loads throughout our dialog. Say Now have already been in comparison with the likes of Little Combine and Sugababes, which, naturally, they take as a praise (“We would say we’re daughters of Sugababes,” says Amelia). But it surely’s clear Sporty, Scary, Child, Ginger and Posh are their final references. “They really enforced a message that took the whole world by surprise,” says Ysabelle. “They actually were huge. And I don’t think people really understood what they stood for.”
“Girl power, for our generation, feels really normal, because we are so good at championing women and feminism,” says Amelia. “But back then, that was crazy. They were like, ‘Girl power!’ And people were like, ‘What?’”
