It took songwriter Eliot Kennedy just an hour to write 1996 hit song Say You’ll Be There for the Spice Girls – netting him more than £1million.
Kennedy, 51, who has just released his first album, also co-wrote several other number one hits in the 1990s such as Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love, When You’re Gone with Bryan Adams and S Club 7’s Bring It All Back.
He spoke to Donna Ferguson.
Music to his ears: Eliot wrote a number of huge hits in the 1990s, including for the Spice Girls
What did your parents teach you about money?
That I needed to work hard for it. My parents were terrible with money. We never really had any. I grew up in a mining village in the North. My dad worked for a steel blasting company in Sheffield and my mum was a nurse.
They had an amazing work ethic and worked seven days a week. But my dad’s job was tough. It involved a lot of manual labour and that led to him having a heart attack. After that, he was too ill to work for quite a few years and our family really struggled.
We never went hungry and the bills were always paid. But I knew money was tight. I didn’t have nice clothes like the other kids at school and if I came home and there was fizzy pop to drink, that was a big deal.
Things got even tougher when I was about 12. My grandmother died and it had a terrible impact on my mother. She ended up in a psychiatric ward for a year. That period of my life was stressful. Sometimes, I would go to visit my mother and she didn’t really know who I was.
Thankfully, music helped me to get through that difficult time. But my childhood has made me cautious with money. I try to be careful with my finances.
The most lucrative song for Eliot was Say You’ll Be There by the Spice Girls
Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?
Yes, when I was 45. I got taken in by a sophisticated conman and invested £50,000 in what I thought was a multimedia company. Other people I know lost far more. He forged realistic-looking documents and contracts from well-known corporations.
I will never forget the dreadful day I found out it was all a scam. It’s the biggest money mistake I’ve ever made.
The scammer ended up fleeing the country and there is still a warrant out for his arrest. I had to take out loans and an extra mortgage to keep myself afloat. On top of losing £50,000, I hadn’t been working as much as usual that year. I started having sleepless nights worrying about my finances.
Thank goodness for the Performing Rights Society. They made sure I was paid each time one of my songs was played on the radio, and that helped pay my bills. I also learnt that as a songwriter I can write my way out of money issues if I put my head down and work hard.
Have you ever been paid silly money?
Yes. There are some songs which have sold millions which did not take me a lot of time to write – some of my biggest hits, like When You’re Gone with Bryan Adams or Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love, seemed to fly together.
The most lucrative was Say You’ll Be There by the Spice Girls. It probably took me and the girls an hour to write in my little house in Sheffield. They used to crash over at my place – all of a sudden it was like having five sisters.
Writing was a fast process because they were so quick-fire with ideas, throwing them at me lyrically and melodically. It was amazing. It was like having a hurricane in your house.
I sat at the piano and they sat on the floor writing ideas and lyrics. Say You’ll Be There came together quickly. Within an hour, bang, we had this great song. Single sales alone hit three million and it was on their debut album, Spice, which sold 22 million copies. So I’m pretty sure I have earned more than £1million from that one song.
Eliot has also written Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love
What was the best financial year of your life?
It was 1997, the year after Spice came out. I co-wrote a couple of other songs on that album and I also had a hit with Picture Of You by Boyzone. I probably made a couple of million pounds that year.
The most expensive thing you bought for fun?
It was a convertible Jaguar XK8 in British racing green for £56,000. I bought it in the late-1990s after I got my first big royalty cheque. I was technically a millionaire by then, but I’d been driving around in a little white Vauxhall Nova. It was such a big moment for me, coming from a working class mining village, and then pulling into my driveway in that car.
The best money decision you have made?
Buying my home, a four-bedroom house in Sheffield. It cost £400,000 and it’s probably worth about £500,000 now. I absolutely love living there. I’ve got a beautiful garden and there are woods just behind the house where I go walking with my dog.
Do you save into a pension?
Yes and have done so since I was in my 20s. As soon as I started earning money making records and had some cash to save, I decided to do it. I thought it would be important for my future, knowing there is not much security in the music industry.
It’s just something I do every month now without thinking. I’m not even sure how much is in my pension pot. I should take a look at it.
Treat: Eliot splashes out on Diptyque Baies candles
Do you invest directly in the stock market?
Not outside my pension. I don’t know enough about it, I never gamble and overall I think property is a better investment. I’ve got a couple of buy-to-let houses in Sheffield.
What is the one luxury you treat yourself to?
Diptyque Baies candles. They are posh French candles that smell like paradise. The ones I buy cost about £40 and I typically order five or ten of them in one go which feels decadent. I light them first thing when I’m working at my keyboard or my piano, and find it just sorts the day out – like that first morning coffee. I light the candle and boom, we’re off to the races.
If you were Chancellor, what would you do?
I would close tax loopholes so that big companies pay more tax. Not people who work hard and do well. But the multi-billion pound corporations that avoid paying tax because they employ clever people to find these loopholes and end up fleecing the country and the NHS. I’d stop them getting away with it.
What is your number one financial priority?
To provide financial security for my two children who are 19 and 23. One of the greatest luxuries I think you can give your kids is a future where they are not going to have to struggle.
A Yacht Named Sue, Eliot Kennedy’s debut album, is out now.
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