Good Mixers

LITTLE Mix: how hot can the UK's hottest girl band get?

Will they reach new heats – and heights – and out-shine the Spice Girls' stellar success of the 1990s?

Many industry insiders are tipping the girls to do just that.

The omens are good. Ten months ago Little Mix did not exist. Then they became the first group to win the X Factor in the eight-year history of the ITV talent show. Now they have three No 1 singles to their name.

Today tickets for their first headline tour go on sale – including a date at Plymouth Pavilions on February 11 next year – and are expected to sell out within hours.

"It's all a massive blur," says Perrie Edwards. "It does not seem real." She is The Blonde One to those who have yet to catch up with the girls' names. The others are fellow Tynesider Jade Thirlwall and Leigh-Anne Pinnock, from Buckinghamshire, both also both 19, and 21-year-old Jesy Nelson, of Essex.

"When we won we were like, 'we want to be massive. We want this and that and our own range of dolls' – and now they're coming out. It's mental."

Perrie bounces with the chirpy poppy energy which proved a hit with X Factor voters and helped propel Little Mix to the top of the charts.

First came Wishing On A Star with fellow finalists, then their cover of Damien Rice's Cannonball stormed to the top after their December 11 win.

Last weekend third single Wings was released and went straight to No 1. Their first album is imminent, as is their autobiography.

Autobiography? Of a band that's less than a year old?

Perrie says: "It's not only about us as a band, it's about our backgrounds, how we were brought up, things before X Factor."

In her case that's about her formative years in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, with parents Deborah and Alex and older brother Jonnie.

"My mum and dad are both performers. For mum it's a hobby. We always sang together when I was growing up.

"My dad sings in clubs in a band, Alexander Palace. Jonnie sings and plays guitar as well. We were like the local Von Trapps!"

Will her brother be tempted to have a crack at musical stardom too?

"I don't think so. He looks really confident when he goes on stage but he is shy really." Jonnie is in the Royal Navy, so Plymouth is familiar territory for the family – they used come to the city when he was in training at HMS Raleigh near Torpoint.

Perrie says she gets her rock side from her dad – her X Factor auditions choices were tunes by alt rockers The Script and Alanis Morissette. That contrasts with the pop/soul/r'n'b tastes of her bandmates. Perrie sees that, plus their soloist backgrounds, as a strength, not potentially divisive.

"It's cool we have a wide range of genres. We mix in and we give our own take on songs. We all bring something and we gelled very quickly. People (the voting audience) could see that was genuine."

Little Mix started off their live career touring with boy band JLS, another X Factor creation, which brought them to Powderham Castle near Exeter last month.

Perrie's third X Factor connection is with another band from the show: she is dating Zayn of One Direction. "Being in a relationship with somebody with the same industry helps because you have that understanding of what it is like. You make time for each other."

With things happening so fast, might Little Mix become too hot too quickly and fall apart through the pressure of success and internal squabbles, go from supernova to black hole faster than you can say Hear'Say?

Does she feel the hot breath of new acts on her neck, with another series of X Factor under way and fresh faces appearing on a wave of TV-fuelled hysteria every few months?

"I look at X Factor and see some incredible new acts. But we are different. There is really no other girl band around at the moment."

Besides, there is the feeling that Little Mix have a charmed life after being saved three times by judges individually and collectively during the show.

"This will sound cringey," says Perrie, "but I do think everything happens for a reason. This is the most exciting experience of my life and I don't want it to end. I love it so much."