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05.10.12 Music Week 19


It’s hard for me to embrace it being in a little town in Lancashire [at the time of talking]. Part of me really can’t believe it. But I think that’s good, I like how my life is so fucking mental.


Do you find American fans different to your UK or other international ones? I suppose putting things out in the UK, to me, is a bit more specialist and it’s quite precious. You premiere stuff and it gets played here, but in America my new single, Anything Could Happen, is about to be premiered on US radio – and that’s it, it just goes on its own journey. Once you crack something in America it’s like


opening the floodgates, whereas here it’s more like a trickling steam. You have to slug it out in America in terms of putting way more time into radio and visiting, it’s a big place. In the UK it’s much more specialist, there’s two


or three main radio stations. When I was young I would hear something on the radio, without YouTube or Facebook or Twitter, it was a big thing to me and I’d wait for the premiere of my favourite band or singer’s new song - I discovered a lot through radio. Radio has obviously been a massive


contribution to how well things have gone in America. But also you have to be there, you have to meet people. I was reaching about 300 fans a night and signing and taking photos. It was tiring as hell but as long as I had my tea or vodka, I was fine.


You came home to record the album. Did you do that to escape for a bit? Yeah. You see people change and I’m just always wary that I’ve never wanted to become anyone else, since I started. Unless I’m completely deluded, I feel like I have stayed that way. I wanted to be in that place again where I was completely innocent and experimenting, and becoming myself. By going back in time a bit, it allowed me to be


a child again and I could literally experiment. The first album did what it did and then it’s difficult to make the second record, I could have done anything. I wanted to and go back and be at one for a bit with myself and the countryside where I grew up, and not have anything affect me. My phone had no signal for the whole time


I was there. Not anyone could contact me. But luckily I’m back to normal now - it was a time for eating, and writing and sitting on my bum. I did go for walks though, through the forest and stuff.


The majority of the tracks on Halcyon were created with Jim Eliot. How did you come to team up with him? I was writing sporadically and doing promo in America when my manager called and suggested I meet Jim, this producer who lives out in the countryside with his family. At first I was like, “If I must...” I just wanted to stay at home and play my guitar and be emo. But then I thought I’d try it out and went down there – it was an absolute palaver getting to his place because it’s in the middle of nowhere in the Valleys. Once we actually locked in and got in the


studio we had the best time. I want to keep going back and making new stuff with him. We realised


we had something special pretty much from the first day. It’s really lucky because sometimes it takes a long, long time to find that one person. I write my own stuff but that’s really important. I’m so glad that I met Jim because he totally got me. It’s very hard to explain to someone what sound and vision you have but then if they can just do it without you even having to prompt it then… oh my God, it’s the best.


Do you have any other collaborators on the album? I wrote and co-produced the record with Jim. Then I wrote this song with Justin Parker who wrote Video Games for Lana Del Rey - he wrote I Know You Care. Hanging On is actually a cover by Active Child that was produced by Billboard (Ke$ha, Robyn), who’s a young Canadian producer - he’s another one who gets me completely. He gets the fact that I have an affinity with both electronic music and folk music, and all sorts of stuff. I love people that just understand me, I worked


with him on a side project as well that will probably come out at some point next year. You’re the first one I’ve told about that… It involves people that I can’t tell you about because they’ll be annoyed. I probably won’t be able to concentrate on it that much because I’m going to be very busy but it’s definitely music that I’m going to be releasing. I’m so excited, I love


having a little cheeky side project. It means all the weird things that go on in my head that don’t end up being on the record end up being something else. I don’t want material to go to waste because it’s still me, it’s just a different kind of format.


In a recent press release it said you have a feeling of self-worth about your music now... was there a particular moment that fell into place for you at all? It wasn’t really developing a self- worth, it’s just realising that I have to have self-worth. It’s a necessity in what I do. It’s a cliché but sometimes I feel like everything I do is brilliant, other times I feel like everything I do is absolutely rubbish - it’s the constant battle of being an artist, it’s very objective. I realised that element is so crucial because I couldn’t keep going up doing shows and being apologetic. I needed to feel like I deserved to be there. It goes down to when I write lyrics and


music, you have to believe in it. If you don’t believe in your own stuff then why should you expect other people to? I really had to believe… and I still do. With the last record, if I’d lost the belief in the beginning it wouldn’t have done as well as it did. The reason I say I have to is because it’s very easy as an artist in this weird climate to lose belief in what you do. I’m so proud of [Halcyon] man,


I’m so proud of it. I’ve put a lot of emotional God-knows-what into this. I’m still wondering


COMING UP whether I’m just going to end up crying during


every song because they all individually mean so much to me. I don’t think I can even say that about the last record. It’s in a different realm now.


Goulding’s album Halcyon is out October 8 via Polydor. Lead single Anything Could Happen is out now


Do you feel like you’ve grown a thicker skin? I think everyone has to grow a thicker skin because, oh my God, it’s become so easy to be mean. The thing is people say things to me all the time and I’m not bothered. I don’t think I could handle every single person in the world loving what I do, that would be, like, weird. I want people who hear my music to like it and people who don’t then that’s fine, that’s absolutely fine by me.


In your years in the industry, what is the most important lesson you’ve learnt? To have faith, not in a religious way. Everything that I do is about believing in myself and that sounds like the cheesiest thing that the Spice Girls would say or something but I think it’s a cliché for a reason. Everything, in my running, my lyrics, my music, everything, is based on that and the second that I let that drop, it makes everything disappear. That’s the most important thing to me.


“It’s hard for me to


embrace [the US success] from a little town in Lancashire.


I like how my life is so fucking mental”


ELLIE GOULDING ON HER US SUCCESS


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