Thanks to Lucia for this news from Yahoo!: LONDON (Reuters) – Pop stars Steps may have stomped their way to the top of the British charts — but the award-winning, manufactured band now want to go global. They are set for a European and Asian promotional tour to ensure their disco ditties like “Tragedy” — one of several number one hits in Britain — reach a wider audience. “Success is on a scale really — we’ve had lots of success in the UK, we’d like a bit more worldwide,” blonde singer Claire Richards told Reuters. Steps have come a long way since 1997 when the band’s three women and two men — all aged in their early to mid-twenties — answered an advert in the Stage, the same publication which helped launch the Spice Girls (news – web sites). Since then, their shiny songs and synchronized dance routines have garnered a Brit award and over five million album sales globally despite enduring criticism for being too commercially friendly. “With Steps music, there’s not a major message in it. It’s very much for fun and we don’t take ourselves too seriously,” band member Faye Tozer told Reuters Television. Steps say a lack of promotional time for their second album ”Steptacular” has made it difficult to achieve the same level of success internationally. “We’re very ambitious…we always strive and we’re always thirsty for something else,” said Ian Watkins, the Steps’ member whose hyperactive nature has earned him the stage sobriquet of ”H” The band face growing competition from groups with similar good looks and feel-good tunes. The latest young outfit laying siege to the charts are Hear’Say — a group made as part of a TV series “Popstars” which traced the fortunes of a band from the early days of auditions to the final five successful candidates hitting the road with their first single. Critics have accused bands like Hear’Say and Westlife of making bland, processed music, but Steps have no problem admitting to being a manufactured act. “What pop band out there isn’t?” asked singer Lee Evans. While British critics may see Steps as a packaged pop act, Claire said they had a different image in the United States — a market the band was keen to win over. “It would be wonderful if we could (make it big in America), but it’s not a necessity. They think we’re techno out there and we’re so not,” she said. But jibes from critics and hits from Hear’Say are unlikely to affect Steps too much. After all, as the band say in one press release: “The premise behind Steps was that life is always sunny in StepsWorld, and Steps would almost always be found partying.”