Music
She chatted to Digital Spy about her origins as an artist, her latest material and her struggle to carve out a career in the cutthroat music industry.
What inspired you to take the plunge and pursue a musical career?
"Basically, I wrote songs for fun when I was like 12 through 17. Previously to that, I spent a lot of time playing the piano and cello - more classical stuff. And then from 12 I got into playing on a computer, an Atari. At my boarding school there was this little programming room which had this computer in it that nobody knew how to use, so when I was a naughty girl they used to send me into the cupboard and I'd try and make funny noises on this old Atari. That's how I got into that kind of things.
"Then I just followed it through. It was a choice to go back home after boarding school, go back to live with my mum or dad, or move to another place, a school called the Brit School in Croydon. It's like an arts school, with dance and loads of computers and a recording studio. That's when I started to record songs properly and start getting into writing songs.
"Then [my manager] liked the songs and he wanted to get me to work with this guy called Nik Kershaw, who he managed in the '80s. He put me in there [the studio] for a few days with Nik. He produced a song of mine that got me a publishing deal, straight out of school."
So when you were in boarding school you'd misbehave on purpose all the time to get locked in that cupboard?
"Me and my music teacher really hated each other, and I thought he was really stupid, which is probably wrong - we didn't get on. And it was only me and him doing the lessons."
Did you send him a copy of any of your albums for revenge?
"No I didn't, but I have heard from some people at the school that he always talks about me in a fond way."
If you could go back in time and offer yourself any advice when you first started in music, what would you say?
"Um. I wouldn't, I think I would just say something like - it's gonna get really really hard, and I wasn't prepared for [that], I guess, cos it got so so hard at the beginning. What happened was I recorded my first album, the record company who signed me didn't like it, they wouldn't take it or the producer and it just sat on the shelf for like six months, a year. It was just a really horrible time.
"Eventually I woke up one morning in a really funky spirit and got in touch with a producer to come and help me do a few more songs and get it better and present it back to the record company. I was in limbo, I couldn't do anything about it, I couldn't get anything happening, and that was really really depressing, because everything was so exciting, and I had all these people around me, but they didn't like the record and that was that. When I did come back with a few more songs then everyone got excited."
Is it true that the record label you were first with were demanding you write songs with hit potential?
"Actually, because I play piano and whenever I did a concert tour I'd play it, but I'm not into that kind of music, they were like 'we want a piano album!'. And I was like 'why did you sign me? My music's never been like that!' They assumed just cos I played the piano... They never said it but they did want me to write hits but I've always done whatever I choose. I've never written something to order."
How have you evolved since your debut as an artist?
"I think musically I'm just more aware of what I like and what I think is my 'style'. I think the first record was - I didn't know what I was doing, I knew I was having fun with my life. Ten years on you just become more aware of what you like, in everything. In clothes, in reading books and films, you find out what interests you."
Is it true that you were out in Kenya earlier this year?
"I went to Tanzania out there, via Nairobi Airport and we drove through the Serengeti. I'm working on a film soundtrack, a nature film, a Disney film. It's coming out in the middle of 2008, it's all visual and quite abstract and beautiful colours and beautiful. It's a very very small crew. It's great, because we can just all go out in Tanzania and eat together and drive across terrain."
Do you think your experiences in Tanzania will affect your sound as an artist?
"Yes, it will. Everything and anything will affect it, you can't help it, it'll come out at some point. What excited me about Tanzania was that when I was there, it sounds really stupid, but I didn't realise that all the animal noises and sounds, I never really listened to the sound of nature. There was a time when I was hearing all this noises and rhythms within birdcalls and flamingos taking off on the lake, the pattern and the rhythm they have when they take off from the lake. All these things are going to be the source of this soundtrack.
"Before I left to go to Tanzania, I didn't really know how I was going to start, what my themes were going to be, but you just could do anything. That's the problem, I had no limitations - the only limitation I gave myself was that there would be no lyrics.
"So when I went I was like 'great', because there's all these great noises in nature and fantastic rhythms that crickets do at night. When I was there, I was recording everything on my microphone, sampled it, turned it into a rhythm, analysing the patterns of the birds as they take off."
Do you have a fixed songwriting process?
"The best songs for me all start out with a melody and lyrics that came in conjunction with each other. 'Hide and Seek', that melody and those vocal harmonies all came at once, so it's not like I had a random lyric and put it together with a melody."
You've got a UK tour on at the moment, can you tell us some about your plans for that?
"It's me and samplers, and I've got my keyboard with me, and building the sampler with my voice. I started up doing that when I went to America, and it ended up being so successful live, they really enjoy it. This time, I'm still doing that, because I think it's so original and people don't see that a lot, but I've now put all of my gear into this gorgeous perspex piano case which I got custom-built for me, because I was sick of standing in front of a keyboard stand where you're standing there playing all these songs in this ugly stand. I have that, and I have the people supporting me live, they're called Nemo, and I'm a huge fan of their music."
You're not worried about any of the computers crashing?
"It has happened, but it's fine. My first gig was in Gateshead night before last, and I was still trying to figure out all of my gear, and I was still quite nervous. I was so busy, I've been working on films, so busy I haven't had any time to do it. When I came on, I forgot to turn my computer off sleep mode. I planned to walk on with my wireless keyboard that I have now, my wireless Madonna headset, I can walk on and mess around with all my loops and I was going to walk on like that with all the lights down, and I couldn't get it to work, so I went to the computer and realised my computer's asleep! Little things like that happen."
How important for you is the visual medium in relation to your music?
"It's very important, and once you see a show you'll realise I've got this amazing guy called Mox who is doing my projections for me. Over the course of the last year he's been following me around, so you've got me dancing around in the studio, riding my bicycle. He's an artist...he has cameras all over me so people can see what I'm doing, and I think it's very important, cos I'm not just playing a piano, so.
"The video side of things, I'm having more and more fun with those as I go along, getting more confident in getting involved with the process of making the video, the storyline. I really enjoy working with these kinds of directors."
Jamie Oliver went to schools last year and found that kids are being reared on a diet of processed, manufactured junk. Do you think the same thing is happening with their ears?
"Yeah, I do find it quite sad the kind of music radio plays most of the time. I just think there's so much more richness people could get out of their day if they became aware of more interesting music. It's difficult enough for me, and I'm a musician, surrounded by it.
"Finding new stuff is hit and miss, you have to really delve to find it. That's why the internet is so fabulous, because if you are that way inclined, you can find it quite easily, more easily than you could before. But I do think the world would be a better place if people were a little more adventurous."
If someone was interested in checking out your music, but they could only download one single of yours, what would it be and why?
"Well, 'Hide and Seek', obviously, because it's like nothing else and it just gets that reaction from people. It's more like a hymn than a pop song because it's so pure and simple and super chord progression. The sentiment is obviously very sad, but nobody has any idea what it's about.
"But for me that's the kind of song I like to listen to, because you latch onto certain words if you're feeling a certain way, so you create a song that has its own meaning for you, rather than a 'got up this morning, got out of bed, listening to someone else's life'. I mean, they are listening to my life, but there's space to find their own meaning in it. So yeah, I'd say 'Hide and Seek', I wish I could write songs like that every day of the week."
When's your new single 'Headlock' coming out?
"16th October. The packaging is so beautiful. This guy in Texas got in touch with me a while back that wanted to do some artwork, but unfortunately it's so beautiful that it's not chart eligible because the packaging's too pretty and it's got too many folds. Just ridiculous. So it's either like, destroy the artwork and make it chart eligible or keep the artwork. So that's what I've done. I'm keeping the artwork. There's great detail on it."
Thanks for chatting, Imogen!
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