It’s hard to believe Steps have been around for 25 years, and as Claire Richards prepares to reunite with her bandmates to mark their milestone anniversary, she wonders where the time has gone too.
Claire was just 19 when she joined Lisa Scott-Lee, Faye Tozer, Ian ‘H’ Watkins, all now 46, and Lee Latchford-Evans, 47, to form the much-loved band in 1997.
“I don’t think any of us knew or realised that it would be 25 years and we’re still going,” the 44-year-old exclusively tells us.
“It’s over half my life that I’ve been in Steps. I’ve been in it longer than I haven’t been in it! I can’t actually believe it’s been 25 years – that’s a long time. When you get to that point in your life and look at your career, it’s quite unbelievable because I don’t feel a day older than I did when we first started. And our relationships with each other are pretty much the same as they were 25 years ago, too.”
After four years in the band, in 2001 H and Claire quit to form a duo of the same name – a partnership that led to three Top 10 singles.
Ten years later Steps temporarily reformed, before going on hiatus to pursue solo projects and getting back together again in 2017. Claire tells us, they are spending a lot of time together now.
“We’ve been seeing each other a lot because we’re doing some shows for a summer festival tour,” she says. “We’ve got promo for our new album and we’ve been working hard on new material as well as touring, I think we might be due a break!”
With a huge following and sell-out crowds, Steps were one of the biggest bands to come out of the late 90s. Claire tells us they were originally brought together to be a line-dancing band, hence the name, but it wasn’t long before they were climbing the charts and picking up fans from around the globe.
“I’m proud of all of our careers. We have proven people wrong time and time again, we’ve exceeded all of our expectations and everyone’s expectations,” she says.
“Pete Waterman [the producer who signed the band] is probably the only one that saw it right from the start. I’m proud of everything that we’ve achieved. I know that we’ve got a legacy that we can be proud of, and we should be because we’ve worked hard to keep it going.”
Aside from her musical career, Claire is also mum to Charlie, 14, and 12-year-old Daisy – her children with husband Reece Hill, who she married in 2008.
In the past, Claire has been open about her desire for a third child but said she was told by a doctor that years of yo-yo dieting could have affected her chances of conceiving.
This had an impact on her self-esteem, and she has previously said: “I was annoyed at myself and then upset I might have caused the problem.”
After saying she will leave a third baby to “fate”, Claire is content with her two children and is adamant family always comes first.
“When I had kids, my priorities changed,” she said. “In terms of being in the group, especially in the early days, it was all about Steps and the work, and nothing really existed outside of that.
“But now, nothing really exists outside of my family – my kids are everything. So, when opportunities come up, I think of them as work. It’s a job and that is how I earn my living. Nothing will come before my kids. It’s taught me what to prioritise in my life.”
It seems her daughter is a chip off the old block as Claire reveals she is already dreaming of following in her mother’s footsteps. “Daisy keeps saying she wants to be a singer. She even said I’m going to be her momager. I want the kids to be happy. I don’t want to force them into a job they’re going to hate.”
Claire says she is only able to carry on singing because of the support of her husband. “We are a team, and we just make it work between us,” she says. “There are times when I’m away and he picks up the slack. He works really hard. And, when I’m not working, I’m here. It’s about teamwork and making it work for us as a family, which we’ve had to do a lot.”
And Reece will have to hold the fort a little bit longer as Claire has teamed up with her old pal Duncan James to surprise a couple this September and sing at their wedding. It’s all part of a competition the pair are fronting and Claire is delighted to be working with the former Blue star.
“It’s going to be brilliant, because we get on so well,” she says.
“We always have a laugh together. Working with one of my friends is always a pleasure. And our voices sound good together. It could actually be the start of something new!”
