Former pop star Kavana on dark side of peak 90s showbiz

BBC News

2 days ago

In the mid-1990s, Anthony Kavanagh was charting in the Top 10 and winning Smash Hits awards. But within a matter of years, everything had come crashing down. Dropped by his record label, addiction quickly took hold and 'Kavana' - as he was known - found himself "in the basement".Now, marking two years of sobriety, the 47-year-old has released his candid autobiography, Pop Scars, about his descent from fame to homelessness. He told BBC Radio Manchester: "I didn't want the book to be a pity party - I wanted it to be a book of hope and of silver linings ultimately."
Growing up in a council house in the inner-city Harpurhey area, he "didn't really show off" his musical talents, but would practise songs on a piano that had been handed down by an aunt.But discovering the Smash Hits magazine cemented his ambitions to be a pop star."I would buy it every two weeks and I'd just get lost in this magazine, and I just became fascinated and obsessed with wanting to be a pop singer."
The dream became reality when at the age of 18, he signed a deal with Virgin Records at the same time as the then unknown Spice Girls.Both acts performed at the firm's summer ball and he went on to chart success with singles I Can Make You Feel Good and Special Kind Of Something.He was even flown out to perform for the Brunei royal family and once missed a phone call from Madonna."It was peak 90s. It was me and Spice Girls and all the boy bands and the Smash Hits tours. I mean what a time, it was right in the middle of that pop movement."But he struggled with hiding his sexuality in an image-fixated industry that saw him adorn posters in girls' bedrooms all over the country. "I was a chubby kid," he says. "So it was strange to be adored like this. I didn't really believe it, but yeah, I was in the closet.He added he was "very inexperienced so I kind of took on this role and hid that". "After a while that's going to affect you," he added.
As a solo artist, he says he missed out on the camaraderie and mutual support of being in a boy band and became caught up in drink and drugs."I think what I now understand, looking back years later, is that there was a lot of loneliness."In the often cut-throat music industry, he was dropped by his record firm at the age of 21.He describe the grip of the addictions as "slow and insidious"."I was chasing a feeling and that was to be wanted and liked and, I suppose, loved really."When you get that very fast, very quick and then it goes, I don't think your mind knows how to cope with it. "So I turned to something else that gave me that feeling but obviously took me down as well eventually."
'Write your truth'
He returned to the public eye as a contestant on The Voice UK in 2013, but didn't get through to further stages, despite judge Sir Tom Jones telling him he had a "lovely, lovely tone".But at the time his addictions had a grip on him. After a stint on Celebrity Big Brother, he appeared drunk on an appearance on Loose Women.The loss of his father and sister, and his mother's diagnosis with Alzheimer's, also took a heavy toll. "I just kept having these rock bottoms after rock bottoms and I think I had to be stripped of every single thing - that means people, family, relationships - to then finally surrender."I'm just going: 'You know what? I'm done'. That's when my life started to change properly, and suddenly then I started to get this creativity back."He enrolled on a three-month writing course, where the instructor swept aside his anxieties."She gave me the self-esteem to keep going. She kept saying 'stop this' because I kept saying I'm not famous enough to write a book. She was like, it doesn't matter, write your truth, write what moves you and so I did."He describes his book as "the first thing I've done in sobriety"."So probably I've not done anything since I was 16 that's not been in some way affected by my addiction. "So yeah, I'm slightly proud of it."
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