Exclusive Interview

Q: How�s the tour been going so far?

A: It�s been going really well. Some nights have been really busy and some
nights have been really quiet, but generally what you find is every town has
its nutcase in the crowd, like the good nutcase, and it�s been great,
because we�ve met so many lovely people and picked up regular fans. People
came to York and then decided they liked it enough to come to Middlesborough
too. I have a hardcore set of fans from London who have followed me, so I�m
starting to get� It�s the reason I did it, to play for people, and I�m
seeing those people now and getting feedback, so it�s better than I could
ever have hoped.

Q: How do you pass the time on the tourbus?

A: There�s so much in the newspapers at the moment and I�m news hungry
anyway. There�s stuff to read, watch videos, listen to records but actually
all my band are conversationalists�

Q: Who do you consider your biggest influences?

A: There�s so many, and it changes every week. Funnily enough, Aimee Mann,
definitely, in the last 18 months. I always liked her, but Bachelor #2 blew
my head off. I�ve always liked Bob Clearmountain�s mixes, but him doing
Bachelor #2, which was a very singer-songwriterly record confirmed him in my
mind. It�s everything I aspire to, she�s a great musician, a great
songwriter, great performer, very funny, so definitely her. More rooted
influences over time are Joni Mitchell, Carole King, The Beatles because I
grew up with The Beatles, Steely Dan, Ricky Lee Jones. I�m a sucker for mid
70s rock-pop.

Q: Do you get sick of being compared to Joni Mitchell, Tori Amos, other
female singer-songwriters?

A: In a sense that they�re even saying that I�m like that, rather than
saying that I�m like Lena Marlin, it�s kinda nice, but how can you be like
that? They came at a different time. The only thing I have in common with
them is that I�m a woman. I have a disparate set of influences. It annoys me
not so much because I feel I shouldn�t be lumped in there, it�s more that
men artists never get that. Like Ben Christopher, nobody would have asked
him last night about being lumped in with the male singer-songwriter
category. It doesn�t happen. It�s a residue from the chauvinistic age of
women in the music industry. It�s laziness, but categories exist for lazy
people to put us into.

Q: Is there anyone you�d like to work with?

A: Aimee Mann definitely, but funnily enough, I�d really like to work with
Jill Scott, because she�s a different style, and I have a huge love of old
R&B and she has that sweetness in her voice that�s old fashioned R&B, but
consciousness. Her lyrics are fantastic. When her music was being used as
hold music at the record company, people would ring up just to hear the hold
music, and she�s got that, it just jumps off the record at you, I feel like
she�s got a generous spirit. I�ve never met her. In the last year it�s been
one of my favourite records.

Q: The new single is �Alien� � how did that song come about?

A: It�s the oldest song on the record. I wrote it this time of year when I
was about nineteen. Where I was living at the time, in London, I would pass
this guy on the way to college who would hold a big crucifix on his back. I
think he was homeless. Any time of year he would be walking up Labdroke
Grove with this cross on his back, and I thought �He�s like a Simon Sirene
of Ladbroke Grove�, it was sad, and people would stare at him. The song is
about misfits, because where I lived, I felt like I didn�t belong, a bit of
a weirdo, and it�s also about the group of friends I made were definitely
not fitters in, and everybody who at some point in their has felt not part
of the society that they�re in.

Q: I noticed a lot of religious imagery on the album. Is that something you
were consciously aiming of?

A: No, I had a strict catholic upbringing, so a lot of the strongest imagery
I relate to is religious, always, and it�s probably natural that it would
crop up subconsciously. I didn�t really realise until I looked at the record
as a whole, there�s only three songs missing a religious reference. It�s a
very Catholic record!

Q: Apart from the motherfucker reference

A: Yes, but �Good lord above�, that song doesn�t escape a god reference
either!

Q: Do you read your own press?

A: No, I don�t. I went through a period, but I was taking it on board in the
sense that you read something great, like someone said I was a classic
songwriter, and I was smug for a day, like �I�m one of the greats, I�m up
there!�, and then someone said I�m utterly shallow, and I was like �I�m not!
I�m really not!�. I just thought, �No, I never made music because of what
people told me about my music before�, I can�t make it from that place,
whether it�s good or bad, I just have to do it for the reasons I�ve always
done it.

Q: You play Piano and guitar � which do you write songs on?

A: It�s more 50/50 these days. It used to be heavily piano written. I�d say
40% of the album was written on guitar, and the next records will be half
and half.

Q: Are you writing the next record?

A: The next record�s done. I�d say half of the next record is already demo�
d, and we�re doing a song that�s going to be on the next record. My record
company keep forcing me to add it on this one. Record companies always do
this, don�t they, a year later, if they think it�s going well, and I really
hate all that because I think it�s a real piss take out of the fans.

Q: What are your plans when you finish touring?

A: To work this record, I�ve got TV and the usual radio promo, that kind of
thing, and I�m going through a real phase of writing lately, it�s great. I�
ve got a rule that I try and two at least two or three hours of music a day
when I�m not touring. It�s raw stuff, so I�ll do some more writing. I�m
supposed to be going to Australia, god willing, as long as nothing starts
falling out of the sky, for a break at Christmas to work a record there. We�
re hopefully doing a show in Sydney, but I have family in Brisbane.

Q: Is there anywhere you�d really like to play?

A: I want to play the Hollywood Bowl. I�ve had this dream since I was a kid.
I�ve just got this really daft dream, it�s very specific. I�m wearing a
green velvet floor length gown, it�s a late summer evening and there�s that
sky you get in LA summers, which is probably full of pollution but it�s a
gorgeous purple and pink sky, the sun coming down and it�s really warm, and
I walk on stage. In my dream really, I look like Joni Mitchell, so it�s
probably Joni Mitchell playing the Hollywood Bowl.

Q: Have you been there?

A: I haven�t, I�ve been past it. I�ve not been to a gig there, but I�ve
walked in and seen it. When I�m in LA, I always go past it. It�s my dream �
I�ll probably go there as a tea lady or guitar tech.

Q: You worked for a record company. Did that help?

A: Yes, in every way, it was the happiest time of my life in a weird way,
the best job I�d ever had, because I�d had lots of crap jobs. I learned
about the music industry from an insider�s point of view. You do make
contacts, but what it taught me you can have creative input on a major
label. There�s also a fallacy that people like the NME like, that only indie
labels can be creative. Independents have such small profit margins when
they give you money to go to the studio, they breathe down your neck. Some
record companies do breathe down your neck. My record company sent me to the
studio and only visited me four times in one year, and never once said �try
this� because I had complete creative control. Even when they suggest
things, they�re really good; they always suggest things in a creative way,
with flexibility. It�s a give and take thing, I�m really lucky to have that
kind of support.