Popular ’90s lead singer with huge hits now frontline mental health keyworker

Saffron Sprackling, lead singer of electronic pop act República, is now a Mental Health and Social Care officer. She said a ‘mental health epidemic’ is looming as a result of the Covid pandemic

“I am absolutely devastated,” explains Saffron Sprackling. The 53-year-old Mental Health and Social Care officer has just come off a 12-hour night shift as a frontline key worker at a private mental health facility dealing with patients suffering from severe epileptic seizures, schizophrenia, autism, adults with learning difficulties, and many other challenging behaviors.

“But that is nothing new. We all knew the health system was in trouble before the pandemic, but now it’s a state of emergency,” she adds. “I was working 290 hours a month at one point.

“So many colleagues here and in the National Health Serviceambulance, A&E and intensive care staff have been completely exhausted… people might think that COVID has gone with the government talking about ending restrictions but we are still getting high infection cases from omicron. It is still a big part of our day-to-day life.

“A mental health epidemic is coming. We have all been living through this trauma, there are delays in cancer appointments, domestic abuse is on the rise, children have lost two crucial years of their lives, all of this will be resolved in the next few years and the people who should help. dealing with it won’t be there.”

It is a day to day that has very little recognition to the one she knew.

Better known to millions of fans as simply Saffron, the lead singer of the electronic pop band República, she used to live a rock star’s dream and had huge hits on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1990s with the singles Ready. To Go. and Drop Dead Gorgeous, songs familiar to millions as they are still used in television, movies, and commercials to this day.

“Wes Craven called me personally to ask if he could use Drop Dead Gorgeous in his movie Scream,” he recalls. “Ready To Go was in Captain Marvel, the Grand Theft Auto game and right now it’s in the Netflix Yellowjackets series and being used by NBC in the United States for its coverage of the Winter Olympics.

“They’re like stars,” he explains, his trademark black mane with the red flash still instantly recognizable. “They keep shining for people and playing them and that’s the point of music. It makes people feel better about themselves or brings a memory to their lives.”

Republica is still touring, writing new material and about to re-release their second album, Speed ​​Ballads, on vinyl. “No matter how busy I am, I have to find time for my music,” she says. “It’s vital to my mental health and it’s everything to me, it has been since I was a little girl at drama school and going to concerts in Brighton.

“I did a stadium tour of Japan and Australia with Starlight Express when I was 18 and when it came back to the West End I went to gay clubs and acid house with my friends after the show, some of them formed. The Prodigy. I broke into Deconstruction Records and demanded that they give me a record deal.” They did.

“After the [self-titled, debut] The Republica album came out, the boss of RCA America took me to New York and we signed for them on the 45th floor of the RCA building.

“Girl-led bands were big news then with No Doubt, Garbage and The Cranberries, we had a lot of rotation and at one point Ready To Go was the most played song in America. We were in Rolling Stone magazine and we played the Conan O’Brien show, there was a 100 foot long billboard for the album above Tower Records in Times Square. Unfortunately, there were no camera phones back then, but we thought we had arrived.

“We came back to Britain during Britpop, we played Top of The Pops seven or eight times and we were regulars on TFI Friday…”

Tomorrow, Saffron Sprackling will wake up at 5:30 am, drive to her workplace, put on her PPE and prepare to work with the most vulnerable people in society for another 12-hour shift.

“Around the time of our second album, we got caught up in record company politics beyond our control, so there’s kind of a sense of unfinished business, but those times in the 1990s mostly bring back memories. wonderful.

“I’ve done a lot of things since then, like a duet with Robert Smith from The Cure and one with actor John Malkovich, worked with Jeff Beck and co-wrote Beauty Never Fades with Junkie XL, which was number one in the Netherlands but about ten years ago. I became the full-time caregiver for my mother who was dying of cancer.”

Republica had just started touring again after a hiatus, but her family had priority.

“There was never a question about it,” she says. “The hospice staff was very pleased with the care my mother was receiving and she said that I should consider a career in health care. I didn’t need to do it, I chose to do it.

“My mother had worked in a school for disabled children for 20 years and I used to be a volunteer, so I felt very comfortable in that environment and set myself the task of learning a new set of skills and taking the corresponding tests. I still am, training is ongoing.”

This dramatic career change, the second act of his remarkable life, has given Sprackling a unique perspective: Most rock stars don’t see life and death so closely every day, most caregivers don’t. They have Wikipedia pages.

“I don’t mind hard work. When we were on tour in the United States, we did a 65-city tour plus hours and hours of radio interviews everywhere we went and that’s relentless, let me tell you, but the situation during this pandemic has been something else.

She is evangelical about her vocation, the issues her colleagues face every day, and who she thinks is to blame.

“It has been a complete and utter dereliction of duty and hundreds of thousands of dedicated people have left the sector. You may have to double check this, but it wasn’t one of your ‘Save the NHS’ election promises. How’s it going?

“The government just put out an ad that says, ‘Have you considered a job in health care? It’s very rewarding,’ Well, how do you define rewarding? What is the reward? A slap in the face? Because for every applause the general public gave us, that’s what the government gave us.

“Every time I hear boris johnson ‘s name I think of him at a party with tinsel in his hair.” He frowns. “Maybe it’s time for him to get ready to go.”

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