Joe Cotton, Keri Harper, Erika Takacs, Carly Binding and Megan Alatini became stars through the TV show Popstars. Photo: Supplied
It's been 25 years since pop girl group TrueBliss released their debut album Dream.
But as band member Joe Cotton tells TAHI presenter Evie Orpe, it feels like it was just yesterday.
"I still feel exactly like I did, like a child. I feel like a 20-year-old and it was just yesterday, I guess cause I've stayed in touch with the other girls and we're regularly catching up."
But there is proof time has passed in other ways, she jokes.
"It feels like 25 years because now I make weird sounds when I get up and down, so I'm aware. When we were on tour, I could drink all night and wake up the next day and be like, 'yeah, let's go again', and now I'm like, 'please leave me alone in the dark for two weeks'."
TrueBliss rose to prominence in 1999 as the first-ever group to be formed under the New Zealand reality television franchise Popstars. The band was made up of five young women: Cotton, Keri Harper, Erika Takacs, Carly Binding and Megan Alatini.
"Being the first group, it was a pretty big deal. I feel a sense of pride now, but for a few years when everyone started getting annoyed with the amount of reality television talent shows, I felt I had to apologise," Cotton says.
"Sorry guys."
The group became overnight stars and enjoyed commercial success thanks to their debut single Tonight hitting number one on the charts. The concept proved so popular that it was later sold to broadcasters in Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom and United States.
Cotton says being young women in the music industry, the group was "without a doubt" taken advantage of.
"We were very green and didn't know a lot, we were without a doubt taken advantage of and didn't know a lot about the industry side of things.
"Watching the success of other groups that came out of it later and being like, 'oh, they might be able to buy a house one day '... we cannot ever."
In Australia, a similar girl group called Bardot, also formed under the Popstars franchise, was seeing success of their own.
Cotton recalls the two girl groups being pitted against each other - especially when they went head-to-head singing their country's respective national anthems at the 2000 Bledisloe Cup final.
Bardot sang first, then TrueBliss immediately won the patriotic home crowd, despite being a member down.
"Only with Bardot was there a sense of rivalry, but not coming from us. We had already done our thing, we'd gone through the ringer, we'd already lost Carly at that stage, we were managing ourselves.
"Actually when we met them, we wanted to give them a heads up, like 'look after yourselves, be careful, this is our experience, and we don't want the same thing to happen to you guys' and they were actually quite dismissive, they were actually a little bit rude. We were like, 'oh ok, well, you do you, see what happens'.
"Ultimately I think something quite similar happened to them, so we were like, 'well, we did try to warn you, b.....s.' Sometimes when you're in that space you're like, whatever, and then you learn from that. So, you know, Bardot, should've f***ing listened."
Listen to the full interview with TrueBliss' Joe Cotton on The TAHI podcast.