T'Pau's Carol Decker: My long hot summer of 1980s nostalgia

The weather’s been great, the band has been brilliant and we’ve been playing some of the best shows of our lives.

We’ve been flown out to Ibiza by BBC Radio 2, we’ve headlined a gig at the Grand National, at Aintree, we’ve played shows at beautiful stately homes and, to top it off, we’re about to release some new music. Things couldn’t get much better.

It’s not just busy for us on the band front – I’m also going to be on TV in August as part of the new series of Celebrity MasterChef.

I won’t spoil it for you by telling you how I did or what went on, but I’m sure the Beeb won’t mind me saying I didn’t disgrace myself. You’ll have to tune in to see what went on.

The thing I’m most excited about is our new music. It’s been a while since our last album, Pleasure & Pain, which came out in 2015 and we’ve been chomping at the bit to do something new.

Though we’re part of the 1980s heritage circuit, we like to keep things fresh and move forward. Our new single is a track called Run and it’ll be out next month – I’ll let people know the date via social media.

It’ll be on iTunes, Spotify and available for download. People can get a sneak preview of it by heading over to tpau.co.uk. Tweet me and let me know what you think. I hope you all love it.

I think it’s a really good pop tune and hopefully it will form the basis for a new album. At the moment, we’re all arguing over what the artwork should be. I’ve been used to making all the decisions in T’Pau in the past but now they’re ganging up and over-ruling me.

As well as the single – Run – we’ve also been playing a series of gigs. We’ve done some really big shows, with a gig in Ibiza for Radio 2, with the headline at the Grand National and some beautiful festivals. It’s been nice to do gigs that aren’t about paying the rent but have a lot of credibility.

The Radio 2 thing was a blast. There was me, Tony Hadley, Bonnie Tyler and The Fizz. We played to 3,000 people at the Hard Rock Café and it was broadcast live back to the UK. I was able to tell people about the new song – the only rule the BBC had was that I wasn’t allowed to swear. I managed it – just about.

People were really excited to hear about the new song too and hopefully it will reach out beyond the loyal fans and get a new audience.

We knew it was time to go into the studio and it’s been a good collaboration. Run was co-written with our keyboard player, Carsten Moss. He co-wrote Read My Mind on Pleasure And Pain.

We jumped into the car and went to Ronnie Rogers’ studio, in Monmouth. We stayed for two days and thrashed out a couple of tracks. Run was probably written in 90 minutes. It just fell into place and the chorous was great.

Aintree was a big moment – the show was absolutely rammed. You’re always worried at things like that that you’ll just be a sideshow and people will be wandering in and out – you know, or dropping in for a song before going back to the Pimms tent. But the fans got into it and we played a brilliant show to a couple of thousand people.

It was a strange gig in some ways because we had to soundcheck at 8am, even though we weren’t on until 6pm. When they told us that, I nearly fell off my chair. Most bands aren’t even alive at 8am, let alone able to soundcheck.

But they’d told us that they were bringing the horses in during the morning and we couldn’t play any music in case we scared them. It was quite funny really – the idea of T’Pau soundchecking China In Your Hand and scaring millions of pounds worth of horses.

I skipped the Grand National because I wanted to prepare for the gig but the boys went out and had a flutter. Ronnie won £30 and my husband, Richard, also won a similar amount.

We’ve done some lovely festivals, too. Audley End was one that stood out. It was amazing. It took place in the grounds of a stately home and before the gig I was floating around, talking to Jason Donovan and Toyah and Clare Grogan. The audiences at shows like that are there because they love you. It’s a joy.

MasterChef’s up next and I hope people enjoy that. It was a nice experience.

I’ve done lots of publicity and there are pictures of me in my apron in various newspapers. I’ve been married to a chef for a long time – and when I was on MasterChef I wished I paid more attention to what he does when he’s in the kitchen.