Sassy Stooshe bring back girl power

WHEN Alexandra Buggs decided to go out shopping with her family, little did she realise that it would change her life.

While sitting outside the changing area in a local branch of Top Shop she was approached by a stranger who asked if she could sing.

Many people would have run away, but Alex is made of sassy stuff and hung around. Besides, she could sing – very well in fact, and she said so.

A few months later she was riding high in the charts as a member of Britain’s hottest new girl band – Stooshe.

“I was spotted in Top Shop last year,” she tells me. “I had gone out for the day with my family.

“My cousin was in the changing room and I was lounging on a sofa, when someone came over, said she liked my quirky look and asked if I could sing. My dad said ‘go with it... you never know where it might take you.”

The store was in Bluewater, the huge shopping centre in North Kent where thousands of girls just like Alex, 23, from Maidstone, spend their weekends. And the woman who spotted her was their now-manager Jo Perry.

Perry also found the girl who was to become her band mate, Courtney Rumbold, 20, from nearby Penge. The third member, Karis Anderson, 23, a former Brit School alumnus from Brixton, was spotted on MySpace.

“None of us knew each other,” says Alex, “Though we did have mutual friends.”

A former grammar school girl, and daughter of a singer, Alex is quick-witted and speaks in a machine gun South London accent – her answers mirroring her breakneck thought process. She’s a lot of fun.

Alex is laughing continuously. I am talking to her on a mobile while she, and her two bandmates, are sat in a traffic jam on their way to a gig in Manchester. The car still hasn’t left London and they are already bored, though have worked out that picking on Alex is a great way to pass the time as they crawl north to the M1. It’s obvious the chances of a serious chat about the finer points of life in a manufactured girl band at the sharp end of the music industry are going to be remote.

“We are sitting here with our legs up,” says Alex. “All there is to do is sleep, gossip and read magazines. We love travelling together but give each other space when we need it.

“We all know each other’s moods. We are way beyond being friends. we are more like sisters – and I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else.”

Alex comes across as an intelligent young woman, quite different from her band persona. That’s not to say she isn’t also crazy. That, it seems, is genuine.

Since being found, the girls’ lives have changed beyond recognition, being shaped into a band over the course of the following year, by Perry and production outfit Future Cut. Signed to Warner, their first song Love Me was released on YouTube in March 2011 and became an internet sensation.

Follow up Betty Woz Gone came out seven months later on iTunes, but it wasn’t until March this year, when Love Me was re-released, featuring American rapper Travie McCoy, that things really took off. The single reached Number Five in the UK charts. Their next, Black Heart, released in June, did even better – hitting Number Three and going gold.

The transformation was complete; from a random threesome of girls, Stooshe had become a slick, successful and very feisty girl band.

They were chosen to support American rapper Nicki Minaj and Jennifer Lopez on tour and appeared at last month’s MOBO awards, presenting an award to their heroines TLC, whom they bowled over with a cover of their hit Waterfalls.

“Meeting TLC and being able to perform their song has been a definite highlight,” says Alex. “And it was amazing to find out after that they liked the way we had done it.

“We also didn’t expect Black Heart to do so well, and to peak seven weeks in.”

TLC remain huge idols, says Alex. “We have also taken inspiration from Destiny’s Child and Spice Girls.”

So do they see themselves as the rightful heirs of girl power? “We are trying to be,” she says.

“We want to show it’s okay to embrace yourself and be individual, whatever your look, size, hair type or colour – and to be happy.”

That philosophy, if you can call it that, extends to the band’s name. ‘Stoosh’ is South London slang for something expensive, but also a derogatory term for a girl who thinks she’s nicer than she is.

“We added the ‘she’ at the end for girl power,” Alex laughs.

Like all the best girl bands, each of the lasses has their own quirky identity, and, says, Alex their own motto.

She explains: “Karis’s is ‘Carpe diem’ – seize the day; Courtney says ‘Do what you want, when you want’, and I say ‘Think positive and be positive.”

“We all look after each other,” she goes on, while the others laugh and wind her up. “Courtney is the baby, I’m the aunty and Karis is the mum.”

And how much say do they have over their eye-catching image? “We talk about the look we want to go for but don’t have time for shopping, so it’s all bought for us,” she says.

“Karis and I were spotted in Top Shop because of the way we looked, so clothes are very important. People look at the way you look first, rather than the way you sing, but that can never take over from good voices and harmonies. And it took us a while to get the blend right.”

Alex admits it can be a struggle to keep a level head.

“You know what friends are still there,” she says. “And our family and close friends understand. They are not jealous, they are happy and always want to know what I am doing.

“We have partners too, and they are cool and understand everything. We see them a lot and they come to gigs, or are at home waiting for us.”

So is she enjoying the high life?

“We are getting there,” she says, with a sweet giggle.

“It has been a lovely year. But we are working very hard so that we will still be here in the future. If we put in the effort we can see ourselves being together for ages. Next we want to have a Number One single, and next year we want to play bigger arenas get a few awards and a Grammy.

“But we are very happy and want to carry on doing what we are doing. Things can get hard sometimes, but it’s crazy to think about all the things I’ve done this year. I’d always dreamed of this, but I never thought that dream would come true.

“Not many people have this opportunity and I’m determined to make the most of it.”

Stooshe play the O2 Academy Oxford, on Sunday. Support comes from Tich. Tickets are £14.06 including booking fee from ticketweb.co.uk