Career
Producer Ian Levine had recently worked with boy band Take That, but after finishing with them, he sought to create a new boy band. He auditioned and hired members David W. Ross, Tony Dowling and Ally Begg and singer Richard Traviss. Traviss left the group before the first single and Matthew Pateman was hired to be the lead singer. Ultimately, Pateman was the only member who sang on the recordings. Billy Griffin provided backing vocals along with others. The vocals were produced by Robbie Craig while Levine produced the music, which the members of the group were critical of and of Levine's style of management. Pateman and Ross were openly gay at the time, but both were told to keep it a secret, while Begg was in a relationship with a woman, but was also told to not mention it in interviews.
Almost straight away the group had commercial success with their debut UK hit single, "Don't Talk About Love", which reached the top 20, although not matching the success of Take That. The band also enjoyed minor international success with tours and promotion in Europe and Japan. The following two singles, "Whenever You Need Someone" and "Walking On Air" made the top 30, and although not charting as highly, the latter became their biggest selling single.
Pressure was on the group to score a top 10 hit, which they did with their first release of 1994, "More to This World". Soon after this, they released their debut album. The self-titled album charted at No.13 in the UK and remained on the chart for eight weeks. The album contained all of the group's six singles.
Going into 1995, the group were set to record their second album. The record company wanted to use other producers, sidelining Levine. They recorded the next single "Change Your Mind", a lush ballad in the style of George Michael's "Careless Whisper" and was seen as being the song that would break them into a higher league. Pateman also travelled to New York to record with producer Ric Wake for the planned follow-up. This was kept secret from Levine by management at the record company and he was given £100,000 to record some songs which they never planned to use for the album. Meanwhile tensions were growing within the group as to the fact that the other three members didn't sing on the recordings, despite now having vocal training. Singer Pateman agreed that the others should sing, but this was denied. Levine finally decided he didn't want any other producers working with the group and refused to let them go. At this point, the record company gave up on them and the band members also felt depleted by frustrations and all wanted out. The group split in March 1995 with the new recordings never being released.
In 2016, Pateman competed in Eurovision: You Decide under the name Matthew James, but his song "A Better Man" lost out to Joe and Jake's winning entry "You're Not Alone". In 2023, Pateman joined 1990s group Let Loose as a replacement for their singer Richie Wermerling and was announced as a new member of Bucks Fizz spin-off The Fizz in 2024, alongside Nikk Mager of Phixx.
