total:spec - Basement Jaxx

Anyone catching Basement Jaxx live this autumn will not only have their senses blown away by their colourful and vibrant performance, they will also see two men who are very happy to be back at centre stage after a summer of playing second fiddle. Admittedly the first fiddle was being played by one Robbie Williams, as the duo – Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe - supported the singer during his Close Encounters tour throughout Europe, playing to crowds of up to 80,000, but still, they found the experience an ultimately unsatisfying one.

“The novelty of it faded after a while,” says 36-year-old Ratcliffe. “Initially it was wicked to play to so many people. But I don't think we'll ever volunteer to support someone again. We'd rather do our own gigs really, where people come to see us. When you're a support act everyone's always down a bit because you're building up to the main act - you're always one set before the big climax. But it's all right. We were playing places we wouldn’t normally get a chance to play - Dresden and Munich - and it's better playing there than not, you know."

“The main reason we did it was to do Germany,” adds Buxton, also 36, “because we’ve never had much success there. We thought we'd try it once and if they didn’t like us we'd never go back," he laughs. “I mean, we said no at the beginning but then they said they were going to do five nights at Wembley and we thought that would be wicked. It grew from there. And then we ended up playing Milton Keynes because Wembley Stadium isn’t finished. But it was all good."

There was one particular moment when Buxton realised it was becoming a bit of a chore.

“We did a Polish festival which had The Streets then Kanye West and then us. It was 50,000 people going absolutely nuts and we played for an hour and a half. Then we came back and it was like, oh, we've got to do Robbie again today. It just felt a bit like second prize. The gigs went well, but it was a very straight crowd - there were little families, middle aged ladies. And the annoying thing was they turned the sound down, and we weren’t allowed to be photographed or filmed. That way all the fireworks come from Robbie's show. But, you know, it's big business - T Mobile were sponsoring – it was a big commercial venture. But it doesn't feel like our home in such a commercial world."

That said, the south London-based Basement Jaxx proved they could quite comfortably straddle both the underground and commercial worlds last year when they went from being a virtually faceless dance act to a band that a lot of music fans realised they’d always liked. The first move in this direction was the massive hit single Oh My Gosh. A sugary and fun pop track, it was a Top 10 hit and a radio playlist regular.

“Maybe because Oh My Gosh did so well last year we’ve gone a bit more poppy on [latest album] Crazy Itch Radio,” says Ratcliffe. “That song is a pop track, but I think it's cool. It's a cool piece of music that’s got its own personality, its own little world. It's not cheesy, but it did really well in a commercial way, and I think we felt quite comfortable with that, in a way. Not that everything we have to do has to be like that now."

On top of Oh My Gosh proving one of their biggest hits yet, it was the first of two new songs featured on the band’s first retrospective - The Singles. The album was released in March of 2005 and immediately proved a hit thanks to it being one of those best of collections on which you know more songs than you realise.

“When it went to No 1, that was wicked,” says Ratcliffe. “Because we weren’t sure whether to do it or not. There was some feeling that it might be a bad move and it might give the impression that we're coming to an end. People see it as the sort of thing you do when you've got no more ideas, which wasn’t the case for us. But we felt that, from playing festivals around the world, we realised that a lot of people knew our music but they hadn’t joined the dots and realised the songs were all by us. Our sound is quite varied. We've had loads of singles, and we wanted, in a way, to stake our claim on them. It was a way of celebrating the last five years. And it did give us a nice little break. Coming into Crazy Itch Radio I'd forgotten how much hard work goes into an album."

Before work on their latest album started, however, Basement Jaxx enjoyed the best year of their career yet. On top of the success of Oh My Gosh and The Singles came a Grammy – the American (and much more respected) equivalent of the Brits. Then some tragic news for Kylie Minogue – that she had breast cancer – brought some good for the Jaxx. They were bumped up the line-up at Glastonbury to headline on Sunday night.

“That was wicked,” enthuses Buxton. “Primal Scream was playing before and Bobby Gillespie was going, ‘Do you want more or do you want Basement Jaxx?’ And the crowd were going, ‘Basement Jaxx!’ And he went, ‘You cocksuckers’, and got booed off stage. Which was a great start. And it just felt like all the work, all the live shows and everything we'd been doing all came together at that point, and people got to see it. Definitely the first song, going out on stage took my breath away. Not many gigs are like that.”

Basement Jaxx actually has its beginnings back in 1993 when Buxton was introduced to Ratcliffe at a Thames boat party the former had organised. Buxton was a DJ wanting to make his own music, while Ratcliffe was a man with a studio. As they bonded over a love of American house music, Buxton saw his opportunity had come.

“I had been was working for a PR company designing stuff, like brochures, nothing very exciting, for things like John West tuna, Tupperware,” recalls Buxton. “To me it was great because it meant I had a proper job where we'd have a glass of wine at lunchtime on Friday. I thought it was like being on telly,” he laughs. “But then I got made redundant from that and thought I’d give myself six months to work on the music. The money would run out after six months but if it didn’t work out I figured I’d do something else. From that point on we worked really hard, and with every EP we got more feedback and more sales each time, so I survived."

What did you think of Simon when you first met him?

“I didn’t really think much at all,” smiles Buxton. “He was a guy that had some equipment and seemed to know how to use it. I was keen to get ideas down and I worked with him a couple of times and he seemed to be able to get things to work fast. It was very much about getting the music down rather than anything else. But, you know, he seemed like a nice guy, cool, reasonable. He could understand where I was coming from."

Buxton, however, made more of an impression on the relatively introverted Ratcliffe.

“I thought he was a very positive person,” he says. “A person you feel very good being with. And, yeah, very loud in many ways. He's a real full-on character - very, very persistent. We probably wouldn’t have worked together if he hadn’t badgered me about getting in the studio and doing stuff. I was happy working on music on my own, but this was his one chance of doing something. He was very persistent, and he still is."

They got the name from the club night they started in the basement of a run-down restaurant called Taco Joe’s in Brixton. They made Brixton their base of operations (although they now both live in nearby Camberwell) because, “there wasn't really anything going on there,” says Buxton. “And it was less of a hassle for our friends to get there. A club has a lot to do with the people who go there and the feeling that is created with it. Having the club so close to home gave it a real vibe.”

After a series of EP releases on their own Atlantic Jaxx label, they released a couple of singles, Samba Magic and Flylife, on different labels. Flylife made number 19 in the charts and garnered interest from XL Recordings, home of The Prodigy and Badly Drawn Boy. After signing with them, success really began to kick in, with hits like Red Alert and Rendez-Vu.

But Basement Jaxx retained their credibility throughout their commercial success. Not only did they continue to run club nights in Brixton on and off, but they were also very choosy about who they worked with. They turned down remix opportunities for people like Britney Spears and Madonna, and were also fussy about the vocalists they chose for their own music.

“We look for character more than anything,” explains Buxton. “Honesty, sincerity, a good voice that moves you and doesn’t seem plastic, which is definitely what you see on Pop Idol. I want music to actually speak to me, to talk about how I feel in this world. We've been asked to remix a lot of people who don’t do that for me, and a lot of artists have asked us to work with them. The worst example is probably Posh Spice," he laughs. "It's the pop nonsense which we don't want to do."

There is, however, one particular person that the duo has always wanted to work with. Thing is they can’t actually find her.

"Grace Jones we've had on the list for a few years,” says Buxton. “We're still waiting for her. Her manager doesn’t seem to know where she is and she seems a bit bonkers. But she’d definitely be good. We tried to get in touch with her for the last album, and this one, but no one can track her down."

Where on earth is she?

"I don’t know,” laughs Buxton. “I saw her on TV about a year ago. She was on Oprah doing warm-up exercises and was making noises like a cow. I just thought, wow, it would be amazing to get her in the studio, and also she's a great singer. She's got character and she's very intriguing.”

These days, Ratcliffe and Buxton say the DJing side of Basement Jaxx plays a decreasing role in what the band does. Ratcliffe, never much of a ‘people person’, he says, has retreated from it completely. But Buxton, up until the band went on tour with Robbie Williams, was still holding a night in Brixton called Inside Out. And despite their claiming otherwise, Buxton’s DJing did play a certain role in the gestation of Crazy Itch Radio. Once again their fourth album is a heady collection of different styles of music, all put through the Jaxx mixer to produce their own distinctive sound. The most striking tracks are the country-tinged current second single Take Me Back To Your House and the Balkan folk pop monster Hey You!

“The country thing,” explains Buxton, “came from when the singer Martina came to the studio. We wrote the song with her and she was wearing cowboy boots,” he laughs. “And she's from Canada, so it just came from that.

“The Balkan thing started because we put out an album on our label called Gypsy Beats And Balkan Bangers. It's music that came to my attention and I thought it was really cool. That came from DJing really and doing the club in Brixton. I ended up getting into that and playing a track and people were really reacting to it, like, ‘What’s this? It's really different’. And there's new DJs doing that in Eastern Europe – taking this traditional sound and giving it a twist. I said to Simon when we were doing the album that it would be great to have one track that has that sound, because I really like it and it sounds great in a club. It’s got a rawness which I think has been missing from the, I don't know, very carefully examined records, shall we say, that have come out. They’re very manicured. But this sound has got a real spirit to it.”

Basement Jaxx have always been about pushing things forward, testing the boundaries of dance music, and music in general, and coming up with something that can be embraced by the masses with ease. From recreating the deep house nights of Chicago and New York in the basement clubs of Brixton, working with alternative icon Siouxsie Sioux and former boybander JC Chasez on the same album, through to their current love of putting traditional Balkan sounds into the clubs of the UK, it’s clear that Basement Jaxx will never succumb to the pressures of commercial success and start to repeat themselves for a quick buck.

“I've still done DJing on the side just because I want to keep an interest in that music,” says Buxton. “And like, when we were doing the Robbie tour, it was a night off to get into a dark dirty club and play some banging tracks that weren't all nice and pretty and were a bit all over the place. It’s better when it feels like exciting new music."

total:spec - Scissor Sisters

With the Scissor Sisters now back in the charts and about to hit the road in the UK , it almost feels like the flamboyant five-piece have never been away. In September they released the much-anticipated follow-up to their 2.4 million-selling eponymous debut album with Ta-Dah - another collection of peculiar pop music and dirty disco that sent them to the top of both the album chart and the singles chart, with the Elton John-powered I Don't Feel Like Dancin'. The double whammy of No 1 chart placings reaffirmed the New York-based band as one of Britain's most popular pop acts, if not this country's most popular pop act.

So business as usual then for the band who had 2004's best-selling album then. But back in their native America things are a little different for the Scissor Sisters. Like a lot of US acts, from The Strokes to Orson, the band have achieved their success in the UK first, while in their own country things are taking a little longer to take off.

It's not really surprising – the United States is a place where hip hop, country music and guitar-driven pop music from the likes of Kelly Clarkson and Ashlee Simpson rules the airwaves. The Scissor Sisters don't fit into any category, let alone one of those, and in America there is little room for music that's a little experimental – not even Madonna's latest album has done well there. As such the heady mixture of the Scissor Sisters individuality, their eccentricity and their different sexualities has thus far proved a little too overwhelming for the mostly straight-laced American music-buying public to take.

“We don't care,” says the band's leading lady Ana Matronic. “In fact I prefer that we have success over here rather than over in the US because when we go home it's status quo and completely normal. I walk around my neighbourhood in New York and nobody knows what I do or who I am, I'm just another New Yorker."

That's not to say the band – also made up of vocalist and lyricist Jake Shears, multi-instrumentalist and co-songwriter Babydaddy, guitarist Del Marquis and drummer Paddy Boom – aren't trying to repeat their UK success in their own country. Throughout the promotional campaign for their first album they toured the US four times, each time increasing their slowly but surely growing fanbase.

“I think we would be disappointed if we were playing to empty theatres in America ,” says Babydaddy, “but we're not. We have such a healthy sort of, I don't want to say underground, but we have a pretty solid fanbase that feels almost a little bit cult. And we love that. That's the kind of bands we were always into - pop bands that were big in England but usually more of a cult act in the US ."

"Yeah definitely,” nods Matronic. “I think most of my favourite bands had a great deal of success but for the most part they weren't selling millions of records. Bands like The Pixies – Circa Rosa just went gold after 20 years almost. So we're in really good company as far as I'm concerned. We are an alternative band in America , which is really cool. None of us got into this for fame or celebrity, to go to these shushi parties with the red carpets."

But the band are willing to storm the red carpets of America, armed with their personality pop, neat line in intelligent and witty soundbites, and sartorial eccentricity, in order to shake up what they see as a very safe and saccharine musical landscape in the country. 

"Every time we turn on a TV in America we say to ourselves that we do owe it to ourselves to give this a try again,” says Babydaddy. “It's like, if we can do anything to push any of this stuff, this really negative, unmelodic music, out of the charts, I would love to. I don't think we stand much of a chance, but I think there's something very positive about what we do, at least relatively. I'm sure some people in America would disagree, but it’s relative to what I see happening to black culture in America , and what I see happening to what I thought was emotional or important rock 'n' roll, which has turned into nothing but angry, angry people. I just think we're doing some sort of service by at least..."

"Existing," chips in Matronic.

"Existing and having a message behind some of the music,” continues Babydaddy. “Showing that we are an eclectic group of people that are pretty confident in who they are."

It was this confidence – this sheer exuberance that came from these five forceful but fun-loving personalities and shone out through their irresistible pop music – that made Scissor Sisters such a huge success here in the UK. They were like nothing anyone had ever seen or heard before and yet they had something in their crazy concoction that everyone could relate to – they might have seemed cartoon-like on the surface, but you only had to dig just a little bit deeper to see they formed a band that was more genuine, intelligent, and emotional than many they rubbed shoulders with in the charts.

“There's so much artifice and posturing these days, in American pop particularly,” says Matronic. “I don't think that exists so much over here in the UK . But there's so much of that posturing like, 'Yeah I'm from the street'. It's like, give me a fucking break, you're from the streets of Orlando , Florida and you call your mother every night before you go to bed.

"There's something very punk rock about Scissor Sisters at this time," she continues. “Green Day is the biggest American band right now and bands like Sum 41 and Good Charlotte are on the charts and we are not. So we're the punk, we're the outsiders. At this point, with fucking Avril Lavigne out there, it's more punk rock to make disco and it's way more punk rock to dress up than it is to roll out of bed in your jeans. I mean, there's artifice involved in what we do too, but it comes from a really honest place. It's not like somebody saying to us, this is what you have to project in order to become successful. The success was more or less an accident."

She's not kidding. The success of the Scissor Sisters' first album took everyone by surprise – from the band to the record label to the media and the public. It enabled them to join an elite set of artists who had sold over two million copies of an album in the 21st century – the others being James Blunt, Robbie Williams, Keane, Dido, Norah Jones and Coldplay – artists which, of course, Scissor Sisters has nothing in common with. It enabled them to play Glastonbury twice in one day, be the first band to pick up all three international awards at the Brits (at last year's ceremony), and work with the likes of Kylie Minogue and New Order. Most recently it enabled them to be one of the few bands to hold a (sold out) comeback concert in Trafalgar Square. In fact, such was the unexpected success of the band, that people have actually leveled accusations of it being manufactured at them.

“If I was not in Scissor Sisters,” says Matronic, “and saw a picture of this group of people, I'd be like, 'Who's fucking bright idea was that? Not a record company, that's for sure'."

"That's the most offended I think I've ever been,” continues Babydaddy. “There's a lot of like fan criticism, or people hating us, I don't really care about that, but we've had a couple people say we were put together by a record label, and we're just like, who in their right mind would put this together?"

"'You know what this world needs?'” says Matronic, mimicking a record company executive. “'A weird traditional pop band fronted by an insanely flaming homosexual and a drag queen stuck in a woman's body. That's really going to sell.' What?!? No record executive in their right minds would ever think to put us together."

But of course the Scissor Sisters was a bright idea and has sold, by the million. That bright idea began to form in the minds of Shears (real name Jason Sellards, originally from Arizona ) and Babydaddy (real name Scott Hoffman) when they met at college in Kentucky, where Babydaddy grew up. Shears, who was attending another college in Los Angeles, met Babydaddy when he was visiting a mutual friend there and the pair hit it off immediately. Not long after they moved to New York, and Babydaddy, who was making dance music, enlisted Shears to provide vocals. They would perform at electroclash nights in Brooklyn, but it was only in 2001, when two planes went into the side of the Twin Towers , that they decided to make a real go of the band.

“We had talked about it before then but I think that was definitely a kick in the ass," says Babydaddy.

“The nature of any sort of catastrophe makes you examine your life and what you're doing,” adds Matronic. “All New Yorkers did that after September 11. Everybody thought it really could be that we don't have very much time left here so what are we doing? Let's figure it out and have a go at it. I think that's why we've been seeing a lot of bands from New York make it big since then. There's been more of a push and a drive to do something creative."

Shears and Babydaddy met Matronic, originally from Portland , Oregon , one Halloween at a cabaret night she hosted in Manhattan . Matronic was dressed as an 'Andy Warhol reject' and Shears as a 'back alley abortion' – they quickly became firm friends.

Del Marquis, (real name Derek Gruen, from New York ) had to be coerced into joining the band. He knew Shears before Shears knew who he was as the singer dated one of Marquis' best friends, and for a long time Marquis just knew Shears as 'The Stripper', a name he acquired thanks to his 'day' job as a go-go dancer at some of New York 's gay clubs. Shears invited him to see his band perform at London gay club night The Cock, and Del didn't much like what he saw. But after much persistence from Shears he changed his mind when he saw them perform again some months later. 

Paddy Boom (real name Patrick Seacor, from Boston ) was the last to join. He had been drumming in New York for some 15 years and, he says, was getting to the point where he was starting to think about trying a new career. Then he saw an ad for a drummer and thought he'd give it a shot. He's never looked back.

“Del 's the only one who's actually from New York , the rest of us moved there,” says Matronic. “Anybody who moves to New York , regardless of whether they're from America or not, moves there as an immigrant. So there is an immigrant mentality and mindset of: let's take what little we have and make it into something grand and big. I think that's something we all possess in this band."

Despite shortening their original name – Dead Lesbian and the Fibrillating Scissor Sisters – they received no interest from record labels in the US , so they came to the UK. Signed up by Polydor – home of artists as varied as Girls Aloud, Ms Dynamite and Ian Brown – they were initially lumped in with the never-actually-very-hot electroclash scene thanks to their pounding electro cover of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb. But quickly they became a mainstream concern thanks to the more poppy likes of Laura and Take Your Mama. Hit single Mary – a platonic love song about Shears' relationship with a friend of the same name, who this year tragically died of a brain aneurysm – showed their sensitive side, while the final single from the band's debut album – the disco floorfiller Filthy/Gorgeous – only served to sell more copies.

"I think what our success was mostly down to was, at the end of the day, there was a really good album,” says Matronic. “That's the thing about British people that has really struck me - they don't care who makes the music. If the song is good they'll listen to it and buy it."

"They don't care if it's Crazy Frog or whoever," says Babydaddy.

"Exactly,” nods Matronic. “Although we do have a bit of an issue with that. But if it's a good song people will buy it. But also what really helped us, and propelled us to No 1, was our live show, and people realising that it wasn't this studio entity, this studio record. It was something that was terribly honest, and when you came to see it live, it all made sense. It was like, okay, these people are really serious about entertaining, and creating an atmosphere that people can get involved in and feel a part of. It wasn't until Glastonbury that our record went to No 1 and I think it was by virtue of people seeing us live and seeing us play on the telly. It's just because we love to put on a good show. And there's definitely groups out there who put on good shows, but we actively reach out to the audience, and seek their participation. It is a mutual exchange of energy and enthusiasm.”

She's not wrong. One gig in particular that this writer saw, at London venue Astoria, saw the band suffering from technical difficulties with Marquis' guitar. Instead of ruining the show it actually improved it vastly as both Shears and Matronic were forced to entertain the crowd with an impromptu stand-up routine based around a dodgy American soap called Passions that they loved. It went to show just how important Matronic is to the mix, despite, on the surface, seeming to be little more than a backing singer for Shears.

“That's the magic about me and Jake performing together on stage,” says Matronic. “We have huge personalities and that's what makes it frantic and crazy. It's two things coming together. A friend of mine, when she saw us for the first time, said, 'You guys are so great because one second you're brother and sister and the next minute you're lovers and the next you hate each other and then you were mother and son and then back again'. She said there was a really dynamic powerplay between the two of us, which we've definitely cultivated.”

But two years of touring took their toll and, while on stage you wouldn't have known that the band were becoming tired of doing the same show over and over, as well as tired of each other and more than a little homesick, off stage they were weary.

“If you have 14 people on one tourbus, it's going to get old after a while,” says Matronic. “And after a year of playing the same set and the same songs your mind starts to wonder and you're like, what am I going to have for dinner..?”

Did you argue a lot?

“Nooooo!” exclaims Babydaddy.

“No, we love each other,” coos Matronic.

“But we had our moments,” says Babydaddy.

“We definitely had our moments,” nods Matronic. “And still do. But we got really good at arguing. We would be like, I'm pissed off at you, and this is why I'm pissed off at you, and this is the thing that is really at the heart of it that maybe I need to get over, but this is it. And then the other person would do the same thing and then we'd agree to disagree and try and learn something about the other person, then leave each other alone for a while.”

Once the touring was over they headed back to New York and what Jake recently described in one interview as an “almighty comedown”. Any thoughts about making more music were left at the back of their minds for a period of time while they adjusted back to normality and a less demanding and adrenalin-fueled routine.

“We all felt that disorientation,” says Babydaddy. “Like, what do we do today? We were on this schedule for two years and then we didn't have any schedule at all."

“And for a long time I was completely unable to give anything,” says Matronic. “I just felt like I needed to stay at home and watch movies and read books and take things in, because I just felt like I had spent so much time projecting outward that it was time to collect myself. It was difficult. You return to a house that you know is yours but you don't feel connected to. You return to friends that you know you love but you haven't been in their lives - there's s a lot of stuff that happens when you're gone. It was a good six months before I even felt like I had reconnected with my friends.”

Work on Ta-Dah started long before this, however. Just a few weeks after they returned to New York , in fact. They insist this was nothing to do with any record company pressure to follow-up and capitalise on the success of Scissor Sisters as quickly as possible. They say the pressure came from within their own camp more than anything. Coming from the Scissor Sisters, this is perfectly believable.

“Our record company is really amazing and haven't and do not put pressure on us,” says Matronic. “They've learnt to let us do what we want to do.”

“They know that we're our own biggest enemies," agrees Babydaddy.

In what way?

“Well we just had the itch to get back out there and they knew we were working as fast as we could. We just got right back into it - we wanted to make a great album. They checked up on us but they were smart enough to know that a great album is better than a timely release.”

“And also one of the, I won't say problems, but one of the challenges of this band is that we have five really staunch individuals who have varied taste in music. We will fight about music a lot. I'll say U2 never made as good an album after The Unforgettable Fire, and these guys will be like, what are you talking about? It's those very divergent opinions you get in the studio and there are songs that Jake loves and Babydaddy loves that I don't like at all. And vice versa. My favourite song on the album is probably somebody else's least favourite. It's constantly a balancing act.”

“If you think it's hard for us agreeing what to play on the bus stereo,” says Babydaddy, “think about what it's like deciding what songs we're going to play every night for the next two years.”

Now of course, the album is done, on the shelves and being played in bedrooms and on car stereos across the country, as those that fell so hard for the first album try and develop a similar relationship with the second. That love is still there, as the joint No 1 positions at the top of both the singles and album chart proved. And as the public rediscover their love for the Scissor Sisters, so the Scissor Sisters are rediscovering their love for performing to that public.

“I can't wait,” says Matronic of their impending UK tour. “Just being able to play our own shows will be great. Festivals are really amazing but they are their own thing and I'm really looking forward to having a crowd that comes to see us and we get to create that whole world that they're in for those few hours.”

Shitterday night

Let me tell you about my day yesterday.

It starts off okay. Shower. Coffee. An impromptu cleaning of the fridge. Some washing. Sorting out finances. I'm doing stuff, boring stuff, but it feels good to get it done.

I text my friend Jen, to see if she wants to come with me to see the Scissor Sisters tonight in Trafalgar Square. I'd asked her the day before but she'd told me she'd promised to go to a party tonight with her new boyfriend to meet his friends, in exchange for him coming to a party next weekend to meet her friends. But she'd said she'd think about it. She'd thought about it and decided to go to the party. Fair enough, I think.

I text my friend Sarah. Her Dad died recently and I think it might go some way to cheering her up. But she is still in Brighton looking after her Mum. Fair enough, I think.

I ask my housemate Steven. He's made dinner arrangements with his new boyfriend. I'm starting to get a bit annoyed. I wonder whether I'm happy that I'm single and can do what I want when I want, or whether I'm jealous I don't have one particular person to do things with. I decide that, right now, with two Scissor Sisters tickets, it's a little of the latter, but usually more of the former.

Steven suggests our old housemate Ildiko. She's going travelling and saving money so she won't be up to anything. I call her. She's well up for it. Nice one. We arrange to meet later.

I put some stuff on eBay. I go to get measured up for my usher's suit for my friends Emma and Justin's wedding at a Moss Bros shop in Victoria. The man needs to know which branch Justin placed the order in. I call him. It's Richmond. I go back in. The man phones Richmond. They have no record of a booking for a Hodges wedding. I call Justin. He apologises and says he'll call them. I go home.

I make dinner. Pasta and meat sauce and vegetables. It's okay. I forgot to drain the meat juice off so it's a little greasy. I shower again. It's been a hot day. People keep calling me when I'm in the shower. Justin. My Mum. My sister. Ildiko texts me to say she's running a bit late and can we meet half an hour later. I reply and say yes, but we have to be in there by eight o'clock as they're apparently not letting anyone in after that. I decide to call the others on the way to the Tube. I need to get out asap so I can pick up the tickets from my friend Andy. He's just been made redundant from his job as a radio producer, a scapegoat for someone higher up. He's nabbed a load of these tickets from work and has promised me a pair. I'm happy as I wasn't able to get any through work myself. Anyway.

My housemate Paul arrives home from his holiday in Newquay. He's proud that he has more of a tan than I got in Kenya. I'm also quite impressed, inwardly cursing that I'm not one of these people who tans easily. I leave the house and walk towards the station.

I phone my sister. We have a quick chat. I hang up. I call my Mum. Something touches my ear. My phone seems to evaporate from my hand. I squeal, Oh my God. I see a man on a mountain bike speed past me. All I see is that he's wearing a grey hoodie with the hood up as he disappears into the people walking up the street. My cheeks flush red with embarrasment at my reaction. Part of my brain is impressed with the speed with which the guy snatched my phone. No part of my brain is scared or worried. I'm more concerned with my girlish reaction. I pull myself together, realising what a pain in the arse this is going to be. Luckily it's a work phone, not my own, so getting a replacement will be easy. I head back to the house to get my own old mobile which I hardly ever use. Thank Christ I kept it. I curse myself for being stupid enough to walk down Stockwell Road talking on my phone.

I run in and shout to Paul what's happened. He's on his phone in the kitchen, quickly tells whoever he's speaking to he's got to go. He offers me his phone to call Orange. He also offers to make me a cup of tea. I decline. "Was he black?" Paul asks. It's more of a rhetorical question on Paul's part, but I tell him I don't know, I didn't see his face. I call Orange. I need a crime reference number. I call the police. I'm embarrassed and frustrated that I can give very little description of the thief. The lady asks me if I've been hurt. For some reason I'm shocked that I could have been, it never even crossed my mind. She tells me there's officers in the area who have been alerted and will have a look for the guy on the bike. I think to myself, they'd be bloody lucky to find him with that description. Paul makes me a cup of tea.

The police come to the house. They're in plain clothes. They look like criminals themselves, maybe bouncers at a push - shaved heads, barrell chests. Part of my brain notes that they're both very sexy. I laugh inwardly at my libido's resilience. Another part of my brain wonders if I should ask for ID. But one has a wire going from his ear down his back. And, I don't know, they just exude the fact that they're policemen. They invite me to get in the car and have a drive around to see if we can spot the guy on the bike. Part of my brain notes how exciting I will find this in hindsight. At the moment it's annoying and stressful because I need to go and get the tickets and meet Ildiko by eight. We drive around.

One of the policemen asks me the same questions the lady on the phone asked me. Again I'm frustrated I can't give them more detail about the guy. I get the feeling they're going through the motions with this one because of the lack of description. Fair enough, I think. While in one of the estates, we see a guy with a grey hoodie on a bike. The driver backs up but we lose him.

The other one asks me details about myself. I tell him I'm a journalist. I inwardly cringe. I wonder if they're thinking, not very observant for a journalist. He asks more details about the phone. Again I cringe. Robbie Williams wallpaper on the screen. Shiny, colourful sticker on the side (put there by my housemate Jess, I want to add, but don't). There's no judgement in his voice. I'm impressed.

We drive past a group of black kids on the estate. They stare over at the car with a mixture of curiosity and defiance. I can't stare back. We pass them again, this time a lad with a grey hoodie on a bike rides up to them. He has a bag slung around his body. The driver asks me if I remember seeing a strap on the thief's back. I don't. Again I inwardly curse myself. We go back to my house.

They tell me they will be patrolling the area stopping and searching people, that's what they do. And that they might be lucky enough to catch someone with my phone. But they might not, it's 50/50. I give them the phone's IMEI number. Luckily I wrote it down. If they find someone with the phone they'd be able to nick him because that would confirm it's mine. I thank them and go back inside. Paul has drunk the cup of tea.

I call Orange. They say they'll send me a new phone in three working days. I call Andy. He says he'll meet me in town with the tickets. He tells me not to beat myself up for using my phone, that's what they're for, and not to stress, I will still get to the gig in time. I call my sister, my Mum demands to speak to me after hearing my sister's half of the conversation. I reassure her I'm okay. Again I note that it didn't cross my mind I might have been hurt. I leave the house, pulling out my phone to text Ildiko. I realise I might be about to make the same mistake twice and go back to my house to text her.

I walk down the street. I'm pissed off that this road I use every day has suddenly become unsafe. This is my home. Andy's right, why the fuck should I not use my phone where I want? I refuse to become paranoid. I refuse to look at every black person as if they might try and steal something from me. But it's hard. A group of lads on bikes ride past me on the road. One has a grey hoodie. It's the one who had the bag slung over his body from earlier. They seem to slow down as they pass me. One pulls out a phone and looks at it, puts it back in his pocket. Part me wonders if it's mine. Another part says stop being paranoid. The grey hoodie guy speeds off down the road and comes back up doing a wheelie. Part of me wonders if he's discreetly proclaiming his victory in getting my phone. Another part says stop being paranoid. I get on the Tube.

I call Ildiko when I get off, leave her a voicemail explaing why I'm a little late. Even here in the centre of London I'm wary of using my phone. But as I look around I see many people talking into their phones. I remind myself that this is what mobile phones are for. I meet Andy, kiss him on the cheek, tell him he's too good to me and run off to meet Ildiko. I check in the bar, she's not there. I wait outside. And wait. I try calling her. I get voicemail again. I wait some more. It's now eight o'clock. I call Steven and leave him a message asking him to send me Ildiko's number. Maybe I've got the wrong one. He texts it to me. It's the same. I try again. I wait a bit more. I start to think that I'm not destined to go to this gig. I text Steven, tell him to try calling Ildiko as I'm worried about her. I call Andy to see if he's still in the pub. He's in a restaurant. I tell him to call me when's finished. I need a drink.

Steven replies. He says he's sent Ildiko my number and that she said she'll call me. I'm very confused. I go and buy a beer from an off-license, sit in Leicester Square. I text Andy to ask if he's going straight back home after the restaurant. He lives in the same direction as my friend's 30th birthday party which I was due to go to after the gig. I figure I can get on the Tube with him. I finish the beer. Andy texts. He's already at home. I text back - I thought he was in a restaurant. I tell him I've been sat here waiting for him to finish. He says he didn't hear me properly on the phone and apologises. I give up.

I realise I can't face the party, where I only know the birthday girl and her boyfriend, in the mood I'm in. I text and apologise. At home Paul has a friend over, Trevor. Trevor seems wasted. Paul tells me he's going to put Kasabian on very loudly, and do I mind? Sounds good to me. I tell him Ildiko's gone AWOL and I didn't bother with the gig. Trevor realises I still have the tickets and demands Paul to go with him. It's half nine. The gig finishes at 10. Paul asks me if I want some money for the tickets. I laugh and say no, noting inwardly how sweet he's been this evening. After a bit of a row about how to get there they head off to catch the end of the gig. I have no idea if they make it.

I eat chocolate. I watch Friends. I feel better.

I've had better Saturday nights.

total:spec - James Morrison

With a Top 5 single, No 1 album and rave reviews under his belt, and an autumn ahead of him playing sold out gigs, James Morrison should be on top of the world right now. The young singer-songwriter, still only 22, would be forgiven for letting his success go to his head a bit. What man of his age wouldn’t feel the dog’s bollocks if they were in his position? But amazingly James Morrison Catchpole, to give him his full name, isn’t the cocksure troubadour you might expect.

Handsome and successful he may be, but even though he’s been fending off female fan attention (and male according to one tabloid story) wherever he goes, he remains loyal to his long-term girlfriend, healthcare assistant Gill. As for the new-found financial rewards, Morrison has only allowed himself one luxury - a brand new guitar.

“I’ve never got carried away [ever since I got the record deal],” he says.  “I’ve always thought, at the end of the day this is an opportunity that comes along once in a lifetime. It might go like that [clicks fingers] so I think to myself, just enjoy it and don’t get carried away.

“I’ve seen so many bands on telly on stuff who think they’re fucking rock stars just because they’ve got one album out. It’s like, no, you’ve got one album out, man. You look at artists who have had 10 albums who are still going strong, that’s what you want to be.

“If you’re going to act like a twat, or a rock star, that’s when you can do it. At least wait until you’ve sold some records and established yourself. I don’t like people who are big-headed so I always try and stay clear of all that sort of bollocks. I’m just a normal guy who’s done all right, you know. That’s how I see it.”

I’ll show you that quote in five years time. “Do it, man, do it. And if I am a twat, then I’ll be like, actually, fair enough.”

Sat in a record company office having had a quick fag break to collect his thoughts - “Being interviewed is weird, I get asked all the same questions and I never want to come out with the same answer.” - he looks like any other  lad his age; if we’re honest, he wouldn’t look out of place propping up the bar of an SU somewhere. The difference between Morrison and students across the country, however, is he probably has a lot less ego than most of them. Oh, and there’s also the matter of his songwriting talent and that compelling, gravelly, enormously soulful voice of his.

You’ll have heard it on Top 5 hit and radio playlist regular You Give Me Something, a summery and upbeat acoustic tune that has been impossible to avoid the past few months. Such was its popularity it sent his album, the ironically titled Undiscovered, straight to No 1 where it stayed for two weeks. Undiscovered has now gone platinum and refuses to move from the upper reaches of the Top 10.

“It’s all happened really fucking quick,” says Morrison. “I haven’t got used to it yet, I’m still catching up with myself. Every week, by the time you get to the end of the week, you already know what you’re doing at the end of the next week. By the time you get to that it’s like you’re just stepping over yourself all the time. Before you know it a year’s gone by and you’re like, fuck, where did that go?

“Maybe if I’d had a good life and it was all sorted before, and then I’d got a deal, I wouldn’t be so spun out by it. But before my life was so different. I never had fuck all in my life before I had the deal. We never had any money when I was growing up - I had one guitar to myself to play, that my uncle gave me. So for me to be in this position where I’ve got so many choices now...” he tails off, shaking his head.

It’s this difficult upbringing that forms the crux of the stories Morrison sings on Undiscovered. Fans of the cheery ...Something single might have had a shock on listening to the rest of the album, for the songs mostly touch on the darker parts of his past. Both One Last Chance and the title track talk about friends of Morrison’s whose lives have been taken over by drugs; Wonderful World says the world is anything but; then there’s This Boy, a song that, Morrison explains, is about how he understands now why his mum wasn’t happy most of the time when he was growing up.

“It was only as I got older I’d think, that was a bit weird,” he says. “I got quite angry about it, then I realised that wasn’t going to solve anything. So I wrote this song to tell her how I feel - you messed me up but I’m not going to hold that against you. I’m still here for you.”

Earlier, when Morrison was talking about being interviewed, I’d asked him if he’d had any media training - the training given to some pop stars by their record companies to guide them through the rocky road of interacting with the press. He said no, except his PR had told him not to say too much about his family and that if he didn’t want to talk about anything, he didn’t have to.

But Morrison finds it impossible not to talk about his family, and his difficult childhood, as they’re such a huge part of his story, and have had such a huge influence on what he writes about.

“It is hard when you have to explain a song to someone after you’ve written it,” he says. “That’s hard for me because then you have to open it all up. But if I just listen to This Boy, which is about me growing up and how I felt towards my mother and that, it was a good song, a positive song. I’ve been a through a rough time, but it’s all good now.

“But when you have to explain it, how far do you go to explain what actually happened? You want to let people know what you’ve been through to give people an idea of who you are, and what sort of artist you are, but at the same time you don’t want to give it all away because that’s your private life.

“I’m having to get used to trying to explain it in a way that’s still got a bit of integrity to it, without giving myself completely away. You have to keep a little bit for yourself or you’ll have nothing left.”

Morrison was born in Rugby, the middle child of three. His father, Paul Catchpole, left when James was still young, leaving his mother, Suzy, to bring up the kids on her own. She didn’t cope well and, beset by both debts and depression, moved her brood around a lot, rarely settling anywhere for long.

“My Dad was always around,” says Morrison. “I kind of didn’t really want to say that he used to drink, but, you know, he did. That was the main reason why he wasn’t around. My Mum was always like, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t go and see him this week’, because he was on the piss or whatever.

“But he’s a great guy, a lovely bloke and I get on with my Dad really well. I’ve been honest with him and said, ‘Yeah you did fuck up, big time, both of you did’. They’re from that generation where you get with someone and you have kids and you have to stay together, but when it came to it they just separated.

“I think they would have separated anyway to be honest, but I saw my Dad regularly, every couple of weeks. It’s a good relationship because it’s honest. I always told him how I felt, I never bottled it up and pretended he was the best Dad in the world. He knew he wasn’t. I haven’t got any hang-ups there.”

When Morrison was nine his mother took him and his siblings to Nottingham. By this point Morrison and his siblings were as much adults as they were children. While their mother went to work, they would get themselves to school, iron their own clothes, cook their own dinner. “I’m very close to my brother and sister,” says Morrison. “We kept each other going.”

At 13 Morrison’s uncle showed him a blues riff on a guitar. Morrison was immediately enraptured. Just a matter of days later he had three tunes down pat. With little social life to speak of Morrison had finally found a release, and, inspired by the singers his mother loved - Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison - he also began to sing.

“I never really noticed I had a good voice as such,” he says, ever modest. “I just used to enjoy doing it and it felt natural to me. I just learned to play a couple of chords and sang along, that was it. I used to do it to kind of escape, for myself. I always wanted to just go into my own little world.”

Another move came at 15, when the family moved down to Porth in Cornwall. It was here Morrison started busking. It taught him a lot, he says, such as how to get over the nerves of performing in front of so many people. He would draw big crowds, and it was here he also realised there was money to be made out of music.

At home he would listen to the likes of Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, trying to learn how they used their voices so expressively. That said, he’s distinctly uncomfortable with the comparisons to such artists he’s drawn since he came to public attention.

“When people start saying, ‘You’re amazing, you’re the best British soul singer’, and all this bollocks, I’m just like, whatever. Don’t give me loads of stuff to live up to. I’m just a singer, man, just a singer-songwriter.

“People say I’m like Al Green, but bollocks am I like Al Green. I didn’t want to make a full-on soul record, because I’m a white guy, man. If I made a soul record I’d look like a twat, like, ‘Yeah I’m a soul singer, I want to be black’.

“It was never about that for me, it was more about, because I’m a white guy and I try and sing with passion, that’s where the soul is, not because I’m trying to sing like a black guy.”

Morrison fared badly at school and after playing in a local band for a while, he was forced to get work in a hotel. He’d got together with Gill, who lodged with his family for a while, and moved with her back to her hometown of Derby. He got a job van-washing, which he hated, but kept his head down and got on with it.

When he turned up 10 minutes late to East Midlands Vehicle Hire one day, however, he got fired. But Morrison saw it as an opportunity, and, much to Gill’s chagrin, decided to give the music another go. From here on in things started to happen quickly. 

Despite a lack of venues to play - karaoke is a bigger draw than live music, apparently - a musician Morrison had met at an open-mic night offered to help him record some demos. Ex-A&R man Spencer Wells, who had worked in the past with Beverley Knight and David Gray, heard it and got in touch.

“I was doing a bit of carpet fitting, signing on, and going to London every week to write,” says Morrison. “That was a real busy time, and a bit weird. I was going from big record company meetings with people asking me if I wanted this or that all the time, which I’m not used to anyway, then I’d go back to carpet fitting and go in someone’s house where they don’t even offer you a cup of tea,” he laughs. “It was one extreme to the other, from that life to this life.”

It was around this time Morrison wrote album track The Pieces Don’t Fit Anymore. It’s about how, once the singer had got a deal with Polydor, it caused a huge shift of balance within his relationship with Gill. The healthcare worker, who at 28 is six years older than Morrison, had before then been paying the rent and basically providing the main support for the couple. Morrison’s advance gave him the financial advantage and, along with the amount of time he was spending in London, it caused tension. Morrison thought about ending the relationship at this point.

“It was how I was feeling at the time,” explains Morrison. “I really did feel like, fuck, maybe we should leave it. I didn’t know what was going to happen and I didn’t want to hurt her. It was a difficult time, we’d just moved to London and she didn’t have any friends. We were arguing a lot and it was like, let’s just leave it before it gets any worse.

“But that’s cheating. I think you have to go through it and finish it, and see it to the end. Otherwise you’re cheating yourself out of feeling that way if that’s how you’re meant to feel. So I just thought, fuck it. It’s still good, we’re still good friends and we still get on and it’s still great.

“But I knew it was going to be tough. I said to her before the record came out that we might split up, she’s totally aware of that. She’s scared by it, but so am I. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But she’s totally cool, she’s handling it really well. She’s not really got a choice.

“I know if I was in her position I’d feel really weird. If I had a girlfriend who was going on stage and all that bollocks, I’d be like, ‘Hey, what about me?’. I’ve seen it with Corinne Bailey Rae [who Morrison supported on tour] and her husband. I saw him spinning out because his missus was getting all the attention. It’s got to be a lot to deal with.”

Gill’s not the only one finding Morrison’s increasing success difficult to handle.

“It’s been quite full on for my family as well,” he adds. “They haven’t really known how to deal with it properly. I don’t think they believe it properly yet.”

And Morrison himself?

“I’m still feeling like it’s all so much to take in. But, yeah, it’s good.”

total:spec: Alesha

There was a point towards the end of girlband Mis-Teeq’s short but memorable career that it became obvious that unofficial frontwoman Alesha Dixon had the potential to become a super-sized solo star in her own right. It was at the beginning of 2004, when Alesha found herself on the set of the video for N*E*R*D’s hit-to-be She Wants To Move.
The resulting video made Alesha the star of the show; a podium-straddling star attraction in a futuristic club on a spaceship. While Pharrell Williams and his bandmates performed around her, Alesha proved herself more than just another bit of music video totty, exuding both the old school sass of Tina Turner and the booty-shaking skills of Beyonce. A star was born right there. Not, Alesha insists, that you’d have known it if you spent any time with the singer off camera.
“I was so nervous because I wanted to make sure I did a good job,” says the 27-year-old. “I felt sick throughout most of the day. You know when you’ve got adrenalin, excitement, nerves all flying around? And the fact that I’m standing on this podium and it was spinning around didn’t help. I actually heaved at one point and I had to have a break. They gave me this oxygen mask thing. How funny is that? It sounds dramatic but it was just because I was giving it so much and exerting so much energy. People that know me, know I’m normally quite talkative and confident, but if you just met me on that shoot you’d think I was a really quiet girl.”
Anyone that remembers Alesha from Mis-Teeq will not think of her as quiet. Her unmistakable shouty rapping style gave Mis-Teeq its distinct sound and marked the girlband out as a more interesting pop act than their contemporaries. The band’s bridging of the worlds of pop and garage, at the time a hot and innovative musical genre, gave the three-piece - also made up of Sabrina Washington and Su-Elise Nash - a credible angle that contributed to their success.
As such Alesha (the Dixon has been dropped since she married former So Solid Crew member MC Harvey and launched her solo career), who was always the driving force behind the band, was always going to be an interesting prospect as a solo star. Thankfully she’s delivered on her unspoken promise with an eclectic and adventurous debut album called Fired Up. You’ll already have heard the sassy guitar funk of debut single Lipstick, which livened up the otherwise colourless summer charts. Alesha delivers more funk on the title track, this time horn-driven, then there’s the jazzy ska of second single Knock Down, the dancehall floor-filler Ting-A-Ling, and the sprightly, sumptuous ballad Free, to name just a few.
“My main thought before I went into the studio was that I didn’t want to work with any producers I’d worked with in the band,” says Alesha. “Not because we didn’t have good relationships, just because I needed to have a different sound. So that was a conscious decision. I knew, as well, that I wanted funk, reggae, and pop in there. I did try a load of R&B songs but it’s not me. I can appreciate R&B and I love it but it’s not right for my personality. I wouldn’t want to do it just because I did it in Mis-Teeq, or just because I’m a black girl and people might expect me to do that. It wouldn’t be true to who I am. I’m in touch with many different styles of music and I think it was important to make an album that says that. And I wanted to go slightly more leftfield as well.”
Fans of Alesha’s signature rapid-fire hollering will be relieved to hear that her rapping has survived the change of direction, however.
“That is always going to be part of it as long as I enjoy it,” says Alesha. “My husband would say to me when I was recording the album, ‘Don’t you think you should do some more rapping?’ But I’m not calculated with it. If it suits the record then I’ll put it on. I won’t just put it on because people expect it and might be disappointed if they don’t hear it. The songs on the record where there’s rapping it felt right, and that’s what I’m like with everything I do. Come the second record if I’m in a place where I’m not rapping any more and not feeling it, I won’t do it. So it’s there but toned down. I’m not so shouty any more,” she laughs.
Alesha discovered she could rap quite by accident. During the late 90s she was at a family house party where her uncle was MCing. She joined him and kept repeating his lines. The reaction she got got from those watching got her thinking she wasn’t too shabby at this rapping lark and she started writing her own lyrics. But she found it tough getting hold of a mic at parties and clubs.
“I’d go to clubs like Twice As Nice and the guys wouldn’t give me the mic,” she recalls. “They’d look at me in my sexy dress and think, what the hell can she do? They were so dismissive. But there were no other female MCs round then.”



Ultimately Alesha’s rapping would prove the key to her and her band’s success, but becoming a pop star wasn’t initially on the agenda for Alesha when she was growing up. Although she was inspired by watching the likes of Madonna and Janet Jackson on TV to go to dance classes, she never thought it within the realms of possibility that she might one day perform for a living herself.
“I didn’t think I could be a pop star,” she says. “I thought they were from Mars or something. It was out of my reach. So I thought I’d become a teacher instead.”
Born and raised in Welwyn Garden City, the greenbelt town situated in Hertfordshire, just north of London, Alesha was the only child of her English mother and Jamaican father. That said, she grew up with a number of half-siblings and stepbrothers and sisters. As such she doesn’t put her aptitude for performing down to a craving for attention.
“I grew up in what I would call a very dysfunctional family,” laughs Alesha. “My irony was that I had lots of siblings, but sometimes I felt like an only child. So that was interesting. But I never craved attention. I never felt I lacked in it. I have a great relationship with my mum, she’s my best friend.
“The only problem was, when I was younger, I was embarrassed to tell people about my family, because at school most kids had the 2.4 children set-up and I always had to virtually write out this family tree to explain it to people, it was so complicated. Being mixed race and having an older brother that’s black and an older brother that’s white, it was confusing for me, let alone other people. But now I actually like the fact that I’ve come from that family. It shaped who I am.”
Alesha’s ambition to become a teacher was forgotten on one fateful trip into London. On the train on the way there and on the way back she was approached by two separate music industry types who asked if she was a singer or in a band. This was all the encouragement Alesha needed and the next few years were spent trying to put together a band. In 1999 she met Sabrina at Dance Attic, a popular dance class school in West London. Not long after the duo got together with Su-Elise, whom they’d met auditions. A fourth member was added, Zena McNally, and the band signed to Telstar, cleverly touting themselves as a garage girlband just as the genre was crossing over to the mainstream.


Their debut single Why? went Top 10, and, although Zena left just after the song was released, the band went on to score a further six Top 10 singles taken from two Top 10 albums. In 2003 Scandalous, easily their biggest, and most memorable, hit started to make waves for the band in the US. Everything was looking good for them when disaster struck. Their label Telstar folded under the weight of recording a Victoria Beckham album that would never be released, leaving the girls out in the cold.
“At the time the Telstar contract ended, our management contract had also expired,” says Alesha. “We were sitting there having a meeting and literally, for the first time in six years or so, we were free. It was a weird feeling. We had to think, do we sign another deal and take the risk of it maybe not working, or do we walk away now with no debts and no legal problems. It was a great position to be in and that’s the decision we came to. I don’t have any regrets.
“The only thing I sometimes look back on and think, what if...?, is that things were just starting to come good in America. But our deal with Warners was through Telstar so that ended when the label ended. We were just starting to make waves in America. But in a way it’s actually given me hope, shown me that it’s possible. Scandalous doing well there has given me a hunger for it now. It’s made me want to go back now and do it again, because I really loved it out there.”
With her appearance in the She Wants To Move video, Alesha proved that she could cut it in the wider world beyond the UK music scene. As taste-making trade mag Music Week has already pointed out, Alesha is a pop star with “truly global potential”.
“Am I thinking big? I’m thinking wherever the music wants to go I’ll go with it,” laughs Alesha. “That’s how I’m thinking. I don’t see why I should stop at any country or why I shouldn’t try it out. You can only try, and you get to experience life along the way.
“Just the fact that I did that She Wants To Move video was really good for me in tackling that whole perception that America is untouchable by British artists. I think it was good for me and for other British artists to see someone from Britain merging with an American artist. Just from that point alone I’m glad I did it.”