East 17 singer Tony Mortimer says ‘Stay Another Day’ was never “supposed to come out at all”.
The 54-year-old singer has reflected on the 30th anniversary of his boy band’s iconic Christmas number one single, which was written after the death of his brother Ollie, who took his own life.
Speaking to the Metro newspaper’s 60 Seconds column, he said: “It wasn’t supposed to come out at all. The manager came in, heard it and said, ‘I like that one.’
“I thought, ‘That’s a bit embarrassing because it’s personal. But the record company agreed and everyone else started to agree…
“They thought it could compete with the hardest music market at the time, which was Christmas.”
Tony explained how writing the song itself was “great therapy”, but he initially “wrote about it secretly”.
He said: “It’s funny, I think about my brother and it takes me miles away. It was me getting an inner pain out on paper, which is how I express myself.
“It was great therapy. I wrote about it secretly – that was the nice thing. No one was going to know about it. But obviously, the cat got out of the very large bag.
“Music is attached to our emotions, isn’t it? They say the only thing that’s probably more powerful is scent.”
Tony joked that Mariah Carey was “collateral damage”, after ‘Stay Another Day’ beat ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ to the UK number one spot.
He added: “She was just some collateral damage. I didn’t know she was coming out with a single. But what a fantastic single she’s got.
“We kept that off number one. I know how she felt, because [Mr Blobby] kept us off number one a year earlier. It’s soul-destroying.”