Just when you thought Jeremy Joseph was the biggest diva at G-A-Y, along come 40 of them! After launching its debut compilation album last year, quite possibly the UK’s biggest club brand is back with a second collection and this time Jeremy is bringing some of the pop world’s most popular female artists on the planet into the mix.
Ahead of the album’s release he shares some exclusive backstage gossip on past club PAs that also appear on the album…
Madonna
Madonna has to approve everything herself personally. She doesn’t normally approve compilations, and you don’t often see Madonna on compilation albums. This is the second album she’s approved a track for. It’s our second G-A-Y album, and our second Madonna track.
Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga’s done G-A-Y three times. We hadn’t announced the most recent one because her schedule was so hectic she didn’t want to announce that she was going to be there and then cancel.
On the Saturday it looked more and more likely that Gaga would perform, so her management asked whether I could put them in touch with Sharon, since she was judging on X Factor that year and her act was appearing that same night. I thought fuck, I hadn’t even told Sharon that Gaga was going to be there, so I called her and put them in touch with each other. They decided it was fine and they would meet up on the night.
When Sharon was on stage with Shelly, Gaga arrived. Afterwards, they sat backstage on their own and chatted and I watched on nervously knowing that Gaga was about to go on. Then they got up and hugged, and I thought thank God for that. I had this Tweet ready to send and as soon as they finished talking I hit send. The rest, you probably read about in the papers.
Cyndi Lauper
That’s my biggest regret ever! At 5am Cyndi Lauper, a little bit drunk, goes to me, “Do you fancy going for Chinese?” I had my dogs Gizmo and Hayley then so I had to say no. We’d had the most amazing night, she stayed after her PA to the end of the club and had a really good time and asked to go for Chinese with me and I said no. I kick myself every time.
Pink
The exciting thing about Pink was she added an extra date for her arena tour at Wembley and asked G-A-Y to be the support act and have our DJs and me introduce her at the arena. Having Pink do G-A-Y for us, then having us at Wembley for her was just phenomenal.
Anastacia
She’s done it twice. What I like about her is that she’s insane. And she travels everywhere with her sister who is also insane. Put those two together and its total insanity, but it adds to the fun of it.
Britney
She’s let us down twice. Would I risk third time lucky? Yeah, I’d always risk it, but we haven’t had that phone call yet.
Geri Halliwell
Geri’s first time at G-A-Y after she left the Spice Girls was wow. Celebs like George Michael were there, and she knows how to put on the most incredible shows. I love her.
Paloma Faith
Paloma’s people talk about Gloria loads like ‘what time is Gloria arriving at the club’ and ‘how will she get there?’ I didn’t know who – or what – she was for quite a while! I eventually found out it was this incredible gold palm tree that lights up. I tried to steal it but they wouldn’t let me!
Mariah Carey
It was all confirmed very last minute. The idea was that Liberty X would go on at 1am and she would go on at 2am. When Liberty X finished we let them know we were ready, but they didn’t turn up. We waited and waited and I thought oh God, typical diva. They eventually turned up and she came in through the front entrance carried through the crowd on a chaise lounge. After the show we were sitting backstage, just me and Mariah talking as one does, and she asked why she had to wait an hour. It turns out that the security had deliberately held her back for whatever reason. It’s interesting because I know this about a lot of artists that it’s not often them that’s the issue, it can be someone along the line that causes a problem. I don’t think he worked for her much longer after that.
Idina Menzel
Again when we asked her to do G-A-Y the first time, she was like, “Are you sure?” And we had to persuade her it would work. She wanted to do just two songs in case it didn’t work, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough. So we had a deal, she would two songs but if it worked she had to just carry on. Of course she ended up carrying on and did a duet with the crowd of ‘I Know Him So Well’. Having Idina at G-A-Y is like having Madonna for musical theatre students. It was phenomenal.
Christina Aquilera
The interesting thing about Christina is that I feel an artist shouldn’t compromise their music for the fact that we’re a club. If they have a big hit that’s an anthem and it’s a ballad I want them to do it at G-A-Y. I mean we’ve had Adele, and it was just her and a keyboard. With Christina they didn’t want to do ‘Beautiful’, but I knew it would go down better than anything, so I begged them to and told them to trust me on this one. Of course, it went down a storm. It was the most incredible moment because you’ve got her singing and 2,000 people singing along. It shows that just because we’re a club it doesn’t mean a song like that won’t work for the crowd. I got to say those magic words, “I told you so.”
Miley Cyrus
She turned up at the sound check drunk from partying the night before. But she can just do that. And she said to me and Michael, I want to decorate the backstage with some sex toys and gave me her credit card. I thought “What?” If I took her credit card to buy sex toys, I’m not going to buy a few things, I’m going to buy the whole shop! Anyway, Michael picked up this huge penis and she started riding it in the show! I love the fact that she brought the arena show into Heaven as well, and she stayed right to the end of the night partying.
RuPaul
I love the fact we’ve had RuPaul and that he’s done G-A-Y several times. Once he got his stiletto caught on stage and tripped over. The whole place went really quiet but I started laughing. Then he’s looking at me and he started laughing and then the crowd joined in as well. I think there was a nervous moment when everyone was wondering, “Oh God what’s he going to do?” But I laughed and he laughed and that’s all that matters!
Kerry Ellis
Kerry’s done it a million times. She can’t get off that stage. Last Saturday she collapsed during the first show at Wicked and I tweeted that she had cancelled. But in the meantime, she saw a doctor and told me she would do it, she didn’t want to let people down. I said “no” but she insisted that she would go on stage, and she did, which goes to show the kind of person that she is. She has an exclusive track on the album, which is a G-A-Y remix of ‘Take That Look Off Your Face’.
Lily Allen
The rule is if Lily does G-A-Y she has to do a cover. She has a silly clause in her rider that she has to be supplied with a fancy dress outfit. So the first time I made her dress up as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and sing ‘Over The Rainbow’. The second time, because of the Britney disaster in which she didn’t sing when she appeared at the club, Lily had come down that night and thought if Britney can’t sing, I will and so she did ‘Womanizer’. And then most recently she did Beyonce’s ‘Drunk In Love’.
• G-A-Y Divas is available for pre-order on iTunes now.
