2. Liberty X

Available for over a year

Singer Songwriter and BBC Introducing presenter Kitty Perrin charts the stories of band break ups, looking at what really happened. Using new interviews with band members themselves - as well as music professionals, academics, and writers - she analyses the reasons behind why bands split. Some band splits are violent, ugly affairs. They go out with a bang or at least a goodbye tour. Others simply walk away quietly from the limelight. In this episode, Kitty takes us back to the early 2000s, the reality TV show Popstars and the five losing singers. She talks to the original female members, Michelle Heaton, Kelli Young and Jessica Taylor about how their failure to win the TV show and being labelled ‘Flopstars’ brought the five members together as an actual non-TV band, Liberty X. And how, despite that initial label from the press, they became more successful than the eventual Popstars winners, Hear’Say. In the six years together, the band was rarely out of the tabloids. They released three albums, achieved eight UK Top 10 hits, and played stadiums all over the world but then, one day, they were gone. Kitty looks at what happened and why - uncovering a theme of imposter syndrome while the band were at their height, and a loss of identity when they split. She also hears from Ryan Dusick, original drummer of American rock-pop band Maroon 5, about his own issues of imposter syndrome and how that led to him being sacked, from Dr George Musgrave, rapper (under the name Context) and senior lecturer in cultural sociology at Goldsmiths University, specialising in mental health in the music industry. Presented by Kitty Perrin Produced by Julian Mayers and Ellie Dobing Original Music by Gordon Russell A Yada-Yada Audio production for BBC Radio 4