‘The closer we get, the hungrier we become’

Since Remember Monday were announced as the UK’s Eurovision act in March, they’ve barely slept in their own beds.

“It’s definitely in the single digits,” says singer Holly-Anne Hull, trying to calculate how many nights she has spent at home. “We don’t have time for that.”

Instead, they’ve been on a whirlwind tour of Europe, meeting fans, filming endless TikToks and performing their song, What The Hell Just Happened, to anyone who’ll listen.

If they’re tired, it doesn’t show. The country-pop trio – Lauren Byrne, Holly-Anne Hull and Charlotte Steele – are chatty, excited and focused on fun, and for good reason.

They formed at school over a decade ago, and determinedly stayed together during long periods where, in their words, “no-one was listening”.

Even after a successful turn on The Voice in 2019, Charlotte had to return to her job as a deputy head teacher, while Lauren and Holly-Anne appeared in West End shows like Phantom of the Opera and Six: The Musical.

Eurovision offers chance to change that. They head to Basel, Switzerland this week, hoping to erase the memories of Olly Alexander and Mae Muller, who both finished at the bottom end of the table.

It helps that Remember Monday’s song is a certified banger – full of glittery glam-pop flourishes and sizzling harmonies that (crucially) they can pull off live.

Just before they set off for Euroland, we sat down with the trio to discuss quitting their jobs, overcoming phobias, and the dreaded “nul points”.

It’s eight weeks since you were announced as the UK’s Eurovision entry…

Charlotte: No, it can’t be. It feels like six years!

How many air miles have you racked up in that time?

Lauren: Honestly, I feel bad about our carbon footprint.

Charlotte: The thing is, I’m a nervous flyer. I always put an eye mask on, put my headphones in and avoid looking out the window. Then we had to catch a propellor plane from Reykjavik in Iceland, and as it was taking off, the whole thing was shaking from side to side.

Lauren: It was really treacherous… but then, the next Easyjet flight we had to catch, Charlotte was like, ‘What a breeze’.

Charlotte: I was smiling, talking. It’s like I was cured!

When I first heard What The Hell Just Happened, I thought it sounded like something from Six: The Musical… Then I discovered you’d actually been in it.

Lauren: That was me! I was Jane Seymour. She’s the one that died, instead of being beheaded.

Was it always the plan to put a musical theatre vibe in the song?

Lauren: We wrote a brief for the song and there were so many references: Bohemian Rhapsody, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter.

But we also said ‘let’s not be afraid to write the pop version of Defying Gravity’. We wanted it to have all that epicness and drama and the West End tricks you don’t get in pop music.

You wrote 15 songs in total. What were the rejects like?

Holly-Anne: There are a few we’ll definitely keep [for our album] but there was also one called Achilles Heel that went straight in the bin.

Charlotte and Lauren [singing]: How do you feel, Achilles? How is your heel, Achilles?

Holly-Anne [cringing]: We’d been writing for three weeks and I think we started to go delusional!

That reminds me of something Ed Sheeran says about songwriting: A tap has to run brown before it runs clear.

Charlotte: It’s so true, and funnily enough, What The Hell Just Happened was the last song we wrote, a day before the deadline. We’d got to the point where we were like ‘let’s just go 100% on every idea and see where it lands’.

Holly-Anne: We thought we had the Eurovision Song, I would say, four or five times. Then this one came up and we were like ‘OK, it’s beaten all of them’.

What can you tell me about your performance?

Holly-Anne: We come from theatre background, so it’s definitely going to be theatrical. We want to give that a girl-band, concert feeling, like you’re stepping into the world of Remember Monday.

There’s a line in the song about ripping your dress. Is that a sneaky Bucks Fizz reference?

Lauren: Oh my God! Let’s say yes. We didn’t write it specifically with that in mind… but if the shoe fits!

Charlotte: There’s loads of little Easter eggs in the lyrics about our friendship. We’ve had a lot of nights out that ended in a tattoo parlour or losing a shoe somehow.

Do you remember the first time you met?

Holly-Anne: It’s impossible to tell because we were in the same sixth form but for the first year we were in different classes.

Lauren: I remember Charlotte coming into my class and singing that song from Parade.

Charlotte [singing]: “You don’t know this maaan.”

Holly-Anne: Then, in the second year, we all joined the same performing arts class, and we were like ‘oh, let’s sing together’.

When you graduated you all had full-time jobs – so how did you keep the band together?

Charlotte: We always had Mondays off… hence the band name.

Holly-Anne: It was so important to us to keep the band alive that we just never let it die.

Charlotte: At one point, Holly went on tour for a year and we flew out to Singapore so we could be together.

Lauren: Then, maybe 18 months ago, we quit our jobs to do this full-time.

Charlotte: We thought, if we don’t throw everything in now, we’ll always regret it.

Were your resignation letters like, ‘I’m off to be a star!’?

Lauren: Well, Holly and I were in the theatre, so we just didn’t renew our contracts, whereas Charlotte was actually a deputy head teacher.

Charlotte: The head was one of my closest friends and a lot of the kids had already seen us at gigs – so everyone knew it was gonna happen. It was just a matter of time.

Are you prepared for how overwhelming Eurovision week is?

Lauren: Yeah, but we’re quite good at immersing ourselves in what we’re doing.

Charlotte: Even if there wasn’t a bubble around us, the three of us make a bubble. Eurovision is all we talk about, even if we’re not together.

Lauren: And then I’m sure from the 18th of May onwards, we’ll have a fair amount of downtime.

Holly-Anne: The comedown is going to be rough.

What are your hopes for the result?

Holly-Anne: We do have a preference. And I think the closer we get to it, the more hungry we are for a good result. A placement in the single digits would be nice.

You have loads of festival performances booked for the summer – so life won’t grind to a halt afterwards.

Lauren: That’s so true. And actually, every experience that we’re having in the lead-up to May 17, that’s Eurovision as well.

Charlotte: All the places we’ve been to and the people we’ve met – it literally feels like a girls’ holiday.

Holly-Anne: Even if we get zero points, we’ll still be singing together, even if it’s in my living room.

What’s the one memory you’ll take away from this?

Lauren: I will always, always remember the feeling of finding out we’d represent the UK. We’ve been around for a long time, and we’ve had a lot of ‘noes’ as a band, so when we auditioned, we assumed this would be another one. ‘Thank you so much, but we’re going in another direction’.

So to finally get a yes after all these years, and to start living what feels like a dream come true with your two best friends? I will never forget that phone call.