Girls Aloud used to shout at people in the street to buy their music.
The girl band – who recently reunited to mark their 10th year in music – worried their fame would be fleeting after landing a UK number one with their debut single ‘Sound of the Underground’ in 2002, and admitted pleading with strangers to buy their next tracks.
Speaking on ‘Girls Aloud: Ten Years at the Top’ – a documentary chronicling their career – Nicola Roberts said: "We were driving around and when we stopped at traffic lights, we would wind down the windows and shout at people to buy our single."
The ‘Something New’ hitmakers – Nicola, Cheryl Cole, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding and Kimberley Walsh – were so unequipped for living on their own when they were plucked from obscurity and thrust into the spotlight by winning TV show ‘Popstars: The Rivals’ while still teenagers, they didn’t know how to turn the heating on in their flat.
Nicola added: "The flat was a mess. When the washing machine broke, we called the marketing bloke at the label.
"I remember one night, me and Cheryl were sat in the cold and we turned the gas rings on. Our marketing guy came over and just said, ‘Why are you sitting in the cold?’
"We said, ‘The heating is broken’ and he replied, ‘You just have to turn the dial up’."
Cheryl also confirmed there was plenty of in-fighting within the band over the years.
She said: "It was intense and crazy hard work. There was always a drama of some description. If someone’s on one for some reason, you know to avoid that person. We never exploded, though."