How to become a pop star: when the fans cool off…

THERE is no doubt that if you make the grade as a pop star, your private life is going to take a back seat.

You’ve got to be prepared for the fact that most of your life will be spent working or travelling to your work.

So when you do get home it is important that you should be able to enjoy your leisure in peace.

At the same time you have to remember that if you haven’t got fans trying to find out where you live and trying to get in to see you, there’s something wrong.

So you have a problem. Just as industry is realising that leisure at regular intervals is very important to anyone doing a job, the same applies in show business.

I think a star should live somewhere as inaccessible as possible which means the country or, if you must live in town, in a fairly remote part of it or in a secure hotel.

Fans? I do think the time has come for every up and coming pop singer to consider seriously that perhaps they should NOT start a fan club.

The Beatles found it quite a problem once they had become big stars. On George Harrison’s birthday great G.P.O. sacks full of mail were arriving at the rate of 24 a day. He had no hope of reading them. His fan club girls had to get half a dozen extra staff and still they couldn’t cope.

And one has to organise fan conventions. The Beatles had a northern and southern fan convention last year and at each there were 3,000 or 4,000 girls milling around. I don’t think the Beatles suffered any harm, but someone alone and smaller might have.

This sort of thing can hurt two ways. First, there is the physical assault which is very uncomfortable when you’re being pushed and mauled about. Second, is the fact that most girls are in the fan business for kicks for themselves.

They are in it to do themselves a favour, not the artist; in it for their own enjoyment and once they have actually got to an artist they’ve had their kick. From that point on you tend to lose fans as they’ve met you, touched you and who’s next?

So there IS an argument in this day and age for having the courage NOT to start a fan club.

Money is very important but it should never be your god. What is important is that you should never depart, at least not very far and not very often, from your real desire to sing or play what you feel you really want to.

It was only when the Kinks made the record they really wanted to make, “You Really Got Me”, that they hit the No. 1 spot. And this is by no means exceptional.

NEXT WEEK: How to make a deal with your manager