Before becoming the UK’s representative at the Eurovision Song Contest 2025, country-tinged pop girlband Remember Monday were blowing the judges away on The Voice UK.
While Remember Monday’s biggest ever stage will undoubtedly be at the Eurovision semi-final tonight (15 May) and the grand final on Saturday (17 May), where they will perform to 160 million viewers worldwide, the group are no strangers to a little attention.
In 2019, the trio, comprised of childhood friends Lauren Byrne, Holly-Anne Hull, and Charlotte Steele, competed on series eight of ITV blind singing contest The Voice UK.
After impressing the judges with a rendition of Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose”, judges Will.I.Am, Tom Jones and Jennifer Hudson turned their chairs and offered to mentor the group, with Remember Monday eventually opting for “Spotlight” singer Hudson, as the panel’s only woman.
Speaking to PinkNews and other UK media ahead of the Eurovision semi-finals, the group – who will perform their stomping pop romp “What The Hell Just Happened?” at the contest in Basel, Switzerland – reflected on how The Voice UK gave them hope for their future singing careers.
“When we did The Voice, we were still doing our full time jobs as individuals, and The Voice was the first little taste that we had of what it might be like to do the band full time,” explained Holly-Anne Hull.
“We honestly had just the most amazing experience. Obviously we didn’t win it, but we feel like we did because we had such an amazing mentor in Jennifer Hudson. Honestly, it felt like we won, because we got to spend that time just doing the band every day. It just really made us want to do it more. It was a good little stepping stone into what it would be like.”
Remember Monday’s Holly-Anne Hull: “We don’t get why Jennifer Hudson likes us!”
Despite being sent home from The Voice during the show’s knockout stages, the band developed an impressive following on social media, and have continued to find sisterhood in Hudson. In January last year, the group performed on her US chat show The Jennifer Hudson Show, and the Oscar-winning star has since shown support for their Eurovision endeavour.
“Honestly, we don’t get why she likes us so much,” Holly-Anne laughed.
“She’s so supportive,” added Lauren Byrne. “She’s really stayed in our lives. She’s had us on her show, and she’s mentioned us really recently on her show. She played our music video for Eurovision. She’s lovely. We are so grateful we did the show because we met her.”
Remember Monday’s Charlotte Steele: “We didn’t want to pressure each other to quit our jobs.”
Despite the support and burgeoning fanbase, the trio returned to their day jobs following their The Voice UK stint with Charlotte Steele going back to being a deputy headteacher at an arts school, and Lauren and Holly-Anne heading back to the West End, where they performed in musicals including Matilda The Musical and Phantom of the Opera.
In 2023, the band decided to quit their jobs to pursue Remember Monday full time, though not without some initial hesitation.
“We all had our moments,” Charlotte said. “We never wanted to put pressure on each other. So we never let it be two people were like, ‘We want to do this now, so you’re going to do it’. It was never that. I think that’s why it took us so many years [to leave our jobs]. We all had to get there.”
According to Holly-Anne, the “turning point” came after the group put on their first gig post lockdown, having spent the period building their following on TikTok.
“When we put this gig on, we didn’t think anyone would come and it sold out in like a day. We came off stage that night and everyone in that audience had been completely new faces,” she recalled.
“We’d never seen them before and they knew every single word to every song. We came off stage and that was definitely a moment. It took a little while, even after that gig, for us to fully be like, ‘No, let’s do it.’ But that I remember being a turning point.”
Remember Monday will perform at the Eurovision Song Contest semi-final tonight (15 May) at 8pm BST on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. They will perform at the final on Saturday (17 May) at 8pm BST on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
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