Tales of punk, Rolling Stones, David Bowie and the Spice Girls in Alan Edwards' memoir I Was There
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
“The Spice Girls were very much like the Sex Pistols.” It’s a bold claim by a man who was there for punk and led (well, steered) the Girl Power publicity machine.
Alan Edwards is one of the top figures in British pop pr and has released a memoir - I Was There: Dispatches From a Life in Rock and Roll - taking the reader from the punk explosion through working with stars including David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Blondie, Amy Winehouse and Prince.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdThe 68-year-old describes it as “a bit Forest Gumpy”, and at times it is so packed with celebrity encounters (“Now, in 2006, I was asking Tony Blair whether he’d like to meet Shakira”) that you have to wonder whether it is all true.
Asked just that question, Edwards is open about the limitations of memory over a period of more than 50 years, although he has notes from the time as a foundation.
"Some of the stories are so fantastic that you couldn't create them,” he tells LondonWorld in his Carnaby Street office. “They have to be basically true. There are other things that are not in there, or that I've underplayed, even."
Much of his career has been spent creating stories for tabloid newspapers, which brings a certain flexibility - but he is very clear about staying on the right side of the line. “Never lies,” he says. “Never, never, never lies. I never lied but, yes, exaggerations."
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdHe quotes Stranglers singer Hugh Cornwell saying to him: “Two policemen would turn up at a gig and the next day in the papers it’s two vanloads, Alan.”


After making his name during punk, working with The Stranglers and bands such as Buzzcocks, it was work with the Rolling Stones that took him to the very top of the industry, while he was still learning the ropes. The book paints a picture of an early-‘80s Mick Jagger who is as sharp a business mind as you could meet - and terrifying in his attention to detail - and perhaps suggests the best approach to being sacked by the biggest band in the world.
The Stones job was quickly followed by a close relationship with David Bowie that lasted decades. Edwards writes and talks of a Bowie who was “charming, really relaxed, very easy to talk to”. But he also talks of a Bowie with “forensic knowledge and focus”
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad"I learned an incredible amount about pr from Mick (Jagger) and David (Bowie),” he says. "The Stones did an event at a club called the Beat Route, which was then the cool club that Spandau and everyone had been playing in Soho. Mick was really smart so it wasn't that we were going to do a thing at Grosvenor House, or whatever - it's a club in Soho, a leftfield club. So all the journalists come down, Judith Simons, David Wig, all the Fleet Street giants at the time. It was all a bit edgy. Soho was not as touristy as it is now. Suddenly you're in a dodgy club and in walks Mick. And I didn't really know these legends of journalism, so Mick was introducing me to them: 'This is Alan. He's my pr.'
"So I was learning from Mick and I obviously learned an incredible amount from David. But the one thing they had in common was preparation. Everything - they thought about. When they did interviews they would both be really interested in who they were talking to, and what about. For Mick it was more from the perspective of how it would work in terms of selling the Stones. David was more of an artist and Mick was more of a rock singer, if you can figure out the difference."
While he has great respect for Jagger, it is clear Edwards misses Bowie. The former ‘Starman’ would hang out at his office in Tottenham Court Road, arriving wearing a cloth cap and carrying a Greek newspaper “because he said that way no one would think he was David Bowie”.


Another megastar client also had a trick for remaining anonymous in Tottenham Court Road. Victoria Beckham would opt to meet in the coffee shop at furniture store Heal’s, where nobody would believe it was really her.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad"She was the most famous star in Britain at the time. She wouldn't be coming in for a tea and a cake with some bloke,” says Ewards.
Given he found his “tribe” in punk and worked at the highest levels of rock and roll, it is perhaps surprising that he expresses most warmth about working with the Spice Girls, and with Victoria and David Beckham in particular, writing about the sadness he felt when that working relationship ended.
"Very odd really. As I wrote it, my feelings came out,” he says. “I guess I had a bit of the motherless child about me in some way in my psyche (while Edwards speaks fondly of his adoptive family, he admits to being “resentful” about being adopted). When it came to the Beckhams it was such a family thing - and not just the Beckhams - all of the Spice Girls, their mums, dads kids, often going to Victoria's family's house. I got to know the mum, the dad. Everybody was so warm and I actually really just felt somehow very at home in this situation.”
But he said that as a musical proposition the Spice Girls “resonated” with him too.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad“It was a punk thing for me,” he says. “Obviously, punk had been a big moment in my life, and the Pistols, Buzzcocks, The Clash - all of them. But I felt the Spice Girls were very much like the Sex Pistols. They reminded me of them enormously because they lived this tabloid life and everything was larger than life, and crazy, unpredictable things happened every day. They were hilarious - they were like cartoon characters.
“Musically there's a slight difference, but not even that, in a way: three-minute, snappy songs. And in a way they were real disruptors, the Spice Girls. I liked that, it was quite revolutionary. You were part of a family tribe, as I was in the punk days. I just felt completely at home in it. It was the most unexpected thing for me, and almost immediately."


The 'job interview' with the group at Virgin Records consisted of being asked what shoes he was wearing, to which the answer was Gucci ("he'll do").
"It was very Spice-y. They couldn't do anything in a normal, boring way. I was out on the road with them within a couple of days,” he says. "We were in Rome and my lawyer called me and said: 'I see you're going down the Via Garibaldi.' I said: 'How do you know that?' And he said: 'It's on Sky News.'”
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdHe talks with enthusiasm of a whirlwind tour from country to country, taking in private jets, spontaneous gigs and nightclubs.
“Everywhere were tabloids and photographers and stuff happening - I loved it. It was just great,” he says. "The [industry] machine is part of it. Obviously, [manager] Simon Fuller was a brilliant marketing guy and he changed the way things were done, and Virgin were a great label. It's a bit unfortunate that you look back on it and there were a lot of white, middle-aged males involved, but we didn't really think of it like that.
"But they had an authenticity and they had a realness, and they weren't really pr-able or controllable. You could guide them a bit."
The group began managing themselves and Edwards says decisions, including on newspaper features, would be made by consensus, while other plans were "made up on the spot".
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad"I suppose it was like a brilliant soap opera, but there was no script,” he says. "You just didn't know what would happen each day, but you knew something extraordinary would happen.
"Saying they were manufactured was like saying The Beatles were manufactured because they met through adverts in papers, or whatever. No, they weren't. There are plenty of manufactured groups but what is manufactured? People have to meet somehow.
"But they had this really working class, really rebellious, really couldn't care - proper...They loved sticking it to authority, really. It chimed with me. It was authentic. It really was punky."
I Was There: Dispatches From a Life in Rock and Roll by Alan Edwards is out now, published by Simon & Schuster.
Comment Guidelines
National World encourages reader discussion on our stories. User feedback, insights and back-and-forth exchanges add a rich layer of context to reporting. Please review our Community Guidelines before commenting.