Spice Girls: 'There is a new attitude, girls are taking control'

The pay is good, the perks are fantastic, but there's one thing they never tell you about being a pop star – the hours are terrible. Not that the Spice Girls seem to mind.

Between them, they've done bar work, cleaning, glamour modeling, got their hands burnt and hair greasy in a chip shop, been film extras, been part of a human wedding cake for a building society ad, had bit parts in The Bill and Coronation Street and been to endless interviews and auditions as they fought for that big break.

And now they've got what they want, what they really really want, they're going to enjoy it. Because the Spice Girls are pop stars now. Big time. I ask how many countries in which they've got to No 1, and the answer is vague. "About 28, I think," frowns Victoria (in case you don't know, Victoria is the classy Spice with the sleek brown bob cut, the one who likes Gucci and Prada and looks like the smart one out of Charlie's Angels).

"It's quite hard to take in," adds Mel C (the sporty Spice, the tomboyish one who does backflips, plays football and is the little girls' favourite). "For the last six months, it just hasn't stopped. We've got a couple of weeks off over Christmas, and maybe then it'll sink in – and you'll never see us again, because we'll be terrified by it!"

Until then though, almost every minute of every day is mapped out. This afternoon, they've got their kits on for the cover of the football magazine 90 Minutes. Then they rush to another studio to do the photographs and interview you see here. Straight after, they change clothes again to pose for Vanity Fair's upcoming swinging London issue, a session which starts at the ultra-kitsch Eve Club (where Christine Keeler once partied) and ends with them hanging off Eros in the middle of Piccadilly Circus at 9pm.
Tomorrow, they get a break. But then they're off on a relaxing two-day trip to Lapland. With 50 MTV competition winners, each of whom will get their photo taken with the girls, and 150-odd journalists from the world's press. On Saturday, they're doing the National Lottery draw. "Guinevere, show us your balls!" says Victoria with relish.

Fame takes some getting used to. A few weekends ago, Victoria went out clubbing on her own for the first time in ages, to Legends in London. As she left, the photographers jumped out, snapping furiously, and she looked to see if there was anyone famous behind her before realising it was her they were after.

"Wherever you go now, it's like walking into the room with no clothes on, people start staring at you. And it's a bit of a shock. I still find it really weird because we've been traveling so much, we haven't read the papers, we haven't watched much television, we're not listening to the radio because we haven't got time. So we're not seeing ourselves in the same way everyone else is."

The Spice Girls started out as a feisty female answer to all the boy bands who have been cluttering the charts. Now that they're so successful – two No 1s, with their new single 2 Become 1 tipped to top the Christmas charts – the idea seems obvious, but when their PR first started touting them round the teen mags, no one was interested. Girls don't want to see girls in bands, the teen press said. They want good-looking boys to pin up on their walls. The magazines were wrong, as it happens. Spectacularly wrong. And now there's hardly a 10-year-old girl in Britain who isn't asking for something Spicy for Christmas.

Like many of the boy bands, the Spice Girls initially met through an ad. Published in the Stage, it simply said: "Girl group, ready to be signed. Professional singers and dancers wanted." The two Mels, Geri, Victoria and a fifth girl were chosen, but it didn't work out. The men who had placed the ad had lots of ideas about how the group should be, what they should wear, the kind of songs (mainly love songs) they should sing.

The girls had other ideas. As they now tell it, they realised they'd be better off going it alone, so they left the managers, recruited Emma (the sugar in Spice, the blonde, fluffy baby of the band), and they did it their own way. "You should have seen the contract they wanted us to sign," says Mel B (the wild Spice, the mad clubber with the pierced tongue, the big hair and the personality to match). "You'd have been off as well."

This story fits in well with the Spice Girls' message. Geri (the oldest Spice, the foxy 70s-styled cartoon one with the streaked hair and perky smile) talks enthusiastically about the feeling of solidarity they get from their fans, the buzz they get when a girl in a place like Japan throws her arms round them and shouts "Girl power!"

"There's a colourful element that attracts the younger generation, but then if you want to read between the lines, there's a funny, sick sense of humour there and a deeper message if you want to get it," she explains. "It's almost like The Simpsons, or a Diesel advert."

But what is girl power, exactly?

Victoria: "It's looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, 'This is me, I'm going to make the best of it. I'm going to have fun, I'm going to have a positive attitude, I'm not going to be dominated be anyone, especially not men.' We're up for equality, for having a laugh."

Mel B: "It's giving yourself that little bit of liberation. If you want to stand up and go 'Aaaaarrgh!', then do it. You decide the kind of life you want to lead. Whether you're black, white, gay, single parent whatever, just go for it!"

Mel C: "There is a new attitude, girls are taking control. If you want to wear a short skirt, then you go on and wear it. You should wear what you want."

Geri: "None of us are conventional beauties, and in a way that's really inspiring for girls because it shows you don't have to be gorgeous to be up there doing it."

Emma: "The message we're putting across is, 'We're doing it, girls, so can you. Even if you have to shout a bit louder, barge through all these people, then do it.'"

It's not much of a manifesto, really: having a laugh, being positive, going for it, wearing what you want. (Perhaps I've missed it, but I've never actually noticed large groups of British men mobilising to stop us wearing short skirts, bra tops and lots of make-up.) But to insecure pre-teen girls, this really is the stuff of revolution. The Spice Girls are a girl gang who sing about putting their mates before boyfriends, about having confidence in themselves and not letting people put them down. And what's more, they seem to be having a brilliant time doing it.

The Spice Girls tell great stories. Approaching Tony Blair at the Brit awards to ask him to be in the video for Wannabe (he refused). Streaking through the lobbies of posh hotels. Tearing Victoria's knickers off and throwing them out of a taxi window when they celebrated signing their contract with Virgin. Blagging into Courtney Love's hotel room by pretending to be friends of Amanda de Cadanet, and then leaving again because she was just watching some film on video and the atmosphere was "too druggy".

Those who were hoping they'd be one-hit wonders will be disappointed. The Spice Girls and their producers write great pop songs, and they aren't going to disappear overnight. They've already started work on their next album, and early next year they might even do what no other British pop act has done for a long time now, and break into the American charts. Next Christmas, there's even talk of Spice Girl dolls, which they all find very funny. They wonder if the dolls will have the same tattoos and nose rings, and think it would be great to make them more realistic than Cindy and Barbie. "Mine would be really flat-chested!" laughs Mel C.

"Mine would have spots!" smiles Victoria.

"And mine would have a pot belly!" says Emma.

They say it's important for girls to have positive role models. For them, it was Neneh Cherry. All of them remember seeing her on TV in 1989, promoting her first single Buffalo Stance.

"She had big medallions on, a little skirt, giving it loads and not giving a shit," recalls Mel B. "She was singing about kids on street corners, getting themselves pregnant, real life things. And she had such an attitude that went with it. Especially doing a video when she was pregnant."

"I remember watching that video," agrees Emma. "She had big bovver boots on and her little dress and I thought, 'Fucking hell, that looks well cool!'"

The Spice Girls want you to know that they too have something to say. Their new single, for instance, is about safe sex, a subject they think we're still too coy about.

Mel C: "You should get a practical demonstration in class because when you're young, you're too embarrassed to use a condom. You don't know how to do it. They should show you how to put it on."

Mel B: "In Europe, the teen magazines show people naked, which may be shocking, but at least it's explaining about sex, how to give a blow job, how to caress a woman thoroughly. You get real information from it."

Mel C: "Because you learn so much crap in the playground, really."

Mel B: "Yeah, like so-and-so let him finger her, and he had sperm on his finger so she's going to get pregnant …"

Emma: "… or if you do it standing up against the wall, you won't get pregnant."

The Spice Girls say they're happy to take time out to talk to The Big Issue, and they want to say a big hello to all the vendors and wish them luck. They talk about being worried about cuts in the NHS, about their admiration for "single parent mothers", but then Geri also says she admires Margaret Thatcher for fighting her way through from the lower classes and becoming the first woman PM on merit alone. In the end, what they're fighting for most is their right to party, but at least it's a party to which everyone is invited.

They've just made a brilliant pop album, full of well-produced, catchy hit singles. You might hear their girl-power message, you might just think they're bubblegum. But in 10 years' time, long after the lesser Britpop guitar bands have been forgotten, you'll hear Wannabe on the radio, you'll hear them tell you what they want, what they really really want, and you'll smile because it'll bring back some memory of 1996, something you were doing when you heard them sing of their zigga-zig-ah.

And by then, there'll be a whole generation of 20-year-old girls who will owe just a little bit of who they are to the Spice Girls. Which, as it happens, is not a bad thing at all.