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Fresh faces, high hopes and an Airstream trailer… Jane Gordon hits the road with Louis Walsh’s latest protégées on a video shoot in the Californian desert – and is charmed by the girl band that everyone’s talking about

On one level the five girls who make up Wonderland couldn’t be more different. There’s raven-haired Sharon, Corrina the picture-perfect redhead, Kasey with her shock of short white-blonde hair, baby-faced Leigh and pale, pretty Jodi with her cloud of long, loose curls.

But Wonderland hasn’t been manufactured to satisfy any stereotypical male fantasies, and the girls share much more than the average (often very average) girl band. For a start, all five of
them can actually sing, and all five have a similar philosophy on everything from the clothes they
will (or won’t) wear to the things that really make them laugh or cry.

The quintet (four are Irish and one, Chingford-born Jodi, is ‘a quarter Irish and three-quarters in love with the Irish’) are sitting in the cool comfort of the Airstream trailer that will be their home for the next two days as they shoot the video for their new song ‘Starlight’ in the extreme heat of the Californian desert. They’re being fussed over by the kind of professional team that you might expect on a
big-budget Hollywood production (their video is being directed by Nigel Dick, who has worked
with everyone from Britney Spears to Guns N’ Roses). There is a make-up artist with several trunks full of tricks, a hairdresser with bags full of straighteners, curlers and crimpers, and a stylist hovering in a corner with a stacked rail of carefully coordinated outfits.

But none of the girls is keen for much more than a little mascara, some factor 50 to combat the fierce desert sun (it’s 98 degrees outside) and the kind of comfort clothes they usually wear (jeans, T-shirts, little cotton dresses). Endearingly polite and good-natured, they are nonetheless adamant about how they want to look today.

‘No hair extensions,’ says Jodi, 27, a frightened expression on her face.

‘And no false eyelashes,’ adds Sharon, 25.

‘Or false nails,’ says Leigh, 21, glancing down

at her own short – perhaps even bitten – nails.

‘And we are definitely not into PVC minidresses,’ insists Corrina, 24.

‘Or high heels,’ says Kasey, 21, prompting a chorus of agreement from the others.

‘No, definitely not high heels,’ the girls shout in unison.

Their perfect harmony emerged three years ago when the girls were chosen from thousands
of hopefuls at open auditions held in Dublin by Louis Walsh and Westlife member Kian Egan (who just happens to be married to Jodi). The idea was to create a band that could boast five lead singers (ITV2 made a two-part documentary about Wonderland last year: Louis Walsh and Kian Egan’s Next Big Thing). Louis and Kian (who co-manage the girls) have taken time to develop their sound –the nearest comparison any of them can come up with is the American girl group the Dixie Chicks – and with a major investment from their record company Mercury (who signed them in April 2009 and report very high pre-sales for their debut album Wonderland) they are being hailed as the biggest and most talented act to emerge from Ireland since the Corrs.

And the girls don’t just sing together, they live together too. Kasey, Sharon, Leigh and Corrina relocated from Ireland to a three-bedroom apartment in London – in the same block as Mr and Mrs Egan’s marital home – and all five have become so close they now see themselves not just as best friends but as family.

When the girls climb out of the Airstream for the first scene of their video (a road trip being
shot in a series of dramatic locations close to the Mexican border) they look radiant but natural. The director wants them to run up and down the towering Glamis Dunes lip-synching to the sound (which beats across the desert on a giant speaker) of their song (‘Starlight you are bright/I’m alone tonight…’). It is so hot – and getting hotter – that nothing, not even scorpions and snakes, we are reassured, can survive for long in these conditions.

After an hour I am seriously wondering if the girls themselves can survive (several of the crew sheltered from the sun under an umbrella have developed heat-related headaches) but they carry on uncomplaining for take after take of the song (‘I want to dance underneath your light/underneath your light…’) until the director shouts, ‘Cut’, at which point Leigh and Kasey (the two youngest) roll down a huge dune squealing with delight.

Back in the trailer, we set off for the next location – a beach on California’s Salton Sea (actually a vast lake) and as we travel the girls talk about their bond and their different characteristics (Sharon is
super-tidy, Leigh is ‘very clever’, Kasey does hilarious imitations, Corrina is obsessed by babies and Jodi is ‘loving and caring’). There are, of course, a few moments of dissent – although they cheerfully put these down to hormones. Most of the time, though (and certainly all of the time I observed them), the girls are good-humoured and kind – not just to each other but to everyone around them (Jodi calling everyone ‘babe’, the other four using ‘darlin’’ in a delightfully Irish way). They love and miss their families (when asked who their heroes are they all say, ‘Our mummies are our queens’) but they are relishing every moment of their glamorous new lives and crossing their fingers that their moment will last.

‘We are having the time of our lives. I think there is a domino effect with all of us. If one of us is hyper we are all hyper, if one of us is quiet we are all quiet – it’s mad how we have similar reactions all the time. We even fall asleep at the same time – last night it was in the taco restaurant,’ says Leigh.

Nor is there a hint of jealousy among them – they genuinely do feel like five equals and insist that Jodi, who as well as being Kian’s wife has an established celebrity profile of her own (she has acted since she was a child and had a long-running role in Hollyoaks), doesn’t get star billing.

‘It wouldn’t do me any favours if Kian gave me special treatment,’ she says as she leaves the trailer for her solo lip-synch close-up against the backdrop of the Salton Sea. ‘It would only create animosity with the girls and they are my best friends. He loves me and I love him and he is like a brother to the girls. It’s such a lovely relationship.’

The pounding sound of that song (with its ridiculously catchy chorus) echoes on the empty beach, inspiring a small group of laid-back pelicans to join in the action. In the next few hours all the girls – and a few of the pelicans – perform for the cameras in an atmosphere of mild hysteria.

Shooting on day one finally ends – 14 hours after it started for the girls – at 10pm, and there is
still a 90-mile drive back to the motel where the girls are staying, alongside truckers and travelling salesman who are clearly incredulous at their glamorous co-guests. It’s too late for dinner (the restaurant closed at 9pm) and anyway the girls have to be up again at 7am.

Day two takes us to the other side of the Salton Sea and a series of locations including a
railway track and an abandoned trailer park. Between shots, in the welcome cool of the Airstream, the talk is of romance and clothes. All five girls are on a subsistence allowance from their record company, but Kian and his Westlife bandmates are estimated to be worth £31 million between them, so Jodi’s wardrobe is more extensive and higher end than the other four girls, who tend to shop in Forever 21 and H&M. However, the style, if not the labels, is much the same – low-key, ‘occasionally sexy but never sleazy’.

Sharon reveals that Wonderland were approached to be the faces (and doubtless bodies) of a well-known lingerie brand but turned the offer down. ‘I look at women in men’s magazines and I think, fair play to them if they want to do that – Rihanna looks amazing, she has a fantastic body – but I don’t personally want to do it and I don’t think any of us do,’ she says.

Kasey and Leigh are happily single, Sharon has recently come out of a long-term relationship, and Corrina has a boyfriend back in Ireland who is, she says, very laid-back about separations.
Jodi, too, is often separated from Kian (currently in Dubai with Westlife). Recounting the start of their romance, she says, ‘Simon Cowell, of all people, introduced us [Cowell signed her previous band, Girl Thing, in the late 1990s] and it was like this little spark went off when we shook hands – we
were like “Whooaa, what happened there?” We always knew, from the moment we met – when I was only 15 – that we were going to be together,’ she adds dreamily.

‘I love to hear the story of their romance – we have heard it so many times and we just keep asking. It’s just a real love story,’ says Corrina.

‘I want a love story,’ says Leigh in plaintive tones.

‘You will have one, babe,’ Jodi assures her.

Leigh and Kasey are the ones with the loudest laughs and the maddest moments. Kasey, say the others, ‘is your girl for a party’, and she is also the only one with any outward signs of her youth (a tattoo across her lower back and the need for an occasional sneaky cigarette which she insists, when caught, ‘is a pretend one from a joke shop’).

Director Nigel Dick says that he thinks the five girls are ‘super-talented’, and that if they ‘keep together they are going to run and run and run’.

The final shot of the final day takes place at dusk around a bonfire on which the girls are roasting marshmallows in time with the music. By now everyone – the crew, make-up artists, stylists, even me – is word perfect on the song and when the cameras are finally turned off, urged on by the girls who are still singing, we join in for a final rendition.

Wonderland are, well, a wonderband, and the fame and fortune that is just around the corner couldn’t happen to five more delightful – or delighted – girls.

Wonderland’s eponymous debut album, featuring the singles ‘Starlight’ and ‘Not a Love Song’, is out now

Wonderland, one-to-one…

Sharon Condon, 25

From Donadea in County Kildare.
AKA ‘Mammy’ or ‘Shaz’.
Formerly a finalist in 2007 Irish TV talent show You’re A Star.
Significant other Recently split from her boyfriend of six years.
Wouldn’t leave home without dental floss.
Ambition ‘To be happy and healthy, and have my family around me, and for Wonderland’s album to fly up the charts.’
Musical inspiration Bonnie Raitt and Joni Mitchell.

Corrina Durran, 24

From Clondalkin, a suburb six miles west of Dublin.
AKA ‘CC’.
Formerly a PA.
Significant other Has been going out with her boyfriend Karl, an electrician, for more than six years.
Wouldn’t leave home without dry shampoo.
Ambition ‘For Wonderland to go on for ever, and for me to have lots of babies. I love babies.’
Musical inspiration Pink.

Kasey Smith, 21

From Donaghmede, a suburb six miles northeast of Dublin.
AKA ‘Dad’ — she is the practical one who ‘is brilliant when you need something electrical done’.
Formerly a trainee hairdresser.
Significant other ‘I don’t have time for boys. The girls are enough for me right now.’
Wouldn’t leave home without her iPod.
Ambition ‘That Wonderland will be so successful they will make a movie, Wonderland World.’
Musical inspiration Adele.

Leigh Learmont, 21

From Donaghmede (but didn’t know Kasey until they joined the band).
AKA ‘Leila’.
Formerly a journalism student.
Significant other ‘It’s work first.’
Wouldn’t leave home without lip balm and flat shoes.
Ambition ‘To keep making music, and for everyone I love to be happy and healthy.’
Musical inspiration The Beatles.

Jodi Albert, 27

From Chingford, Northeast London.
AKA ‘Pinky’ (she loves wearing pink).
Formerly a singer (in short-lived band Girl Thing) and actress (playing Debbie Dean in Hollyoaks).
Significant other Wed Westlife’s Kian Egan, 31, in Barbados in 2009.
Wouldn’t leave home without her wedding ring and moisturiser.
Ambition ‘That everyone I love stays healthy. And hopefully children — we’ll see, you never know…’
Musical inspiration Celine Dion.