The Group's History:

All Saints started life as a duo four years ago when Blatt and Shaznay Lewis, hooked up together and started recording in a studio in All Saints Road, Ladbroke Grove, London. They were briefly signed to ZTT Records, releasing a single, if You Wanna Party. However, Blatt says, "We didn't know what direction we wanted to go in and ZTT didn't really know what to do with us", so it was a pretty short lived thing. Our one release was deleted very quickly. Melanie had gone to school with Natalie and Nicole for ten years, and one day in 1995 Mel's dad bumped into Nicole in the street he told her to leave her job and join the band, and she did! After a short while, the group decided to invite Natalie, Nicole's sister, to join the group because they had written songs that had four-part harmonies and they just didn't sound right with just three singers. That was it. The group was formed. In November 1996 John Benson, the All Saints' manager, sent a demo tape of the girls to the chairman of London records, Tracey Bennett. "I was a bit reluctant to hear it. But when I did put it on, I realised he had brought me the best demo tape in the whole world. There were six songs on there and they were all hits. I hadn't gone out looking for the band, I'd sat back in my office and it had landed in my lap." By the time the tape had reached the first chorus in the song Never Ever, which was to be their massive second single, I was getting everyone into my office to give it a listen. I couldn't believe my luck. I've dealt with a lot of bands but Shaznay is the best songwriter I've worked with. The song Never Ever was actually written four years ago by the original two-piece and features a short rap by Shaznay. "We bring a lot of influences into our music - rap, R&B, pop, soul. We are real music fans."

All Saints Bibliography

The All Saints' Neighborhood (c) 1998