times we have to unfortunately cancel shows. But so far, all good. Having said that, one of my good friends has a cold.
So they’re a good friend no longer… Yeah, I just sent her out. I’m with her now!
By your own admission, you still haven’t done that many shows apart from maybe the US tour - it’s not like you’ve been gigging for years and years. Has being on the road been a fast learning curve for you? Yeah, definitely. My life has definitely changed a lot since January. Before then, we’d only released ‘Hey Now’ last December and it hasn’t been long but you just get used to it very quickly. It’s just we have to. Obviously it’s really fun and I’m with a very supportive group of people, so it’s all good.
Now I want to do a bit of loose ends housekeeping if I may. It’s reported that you formed in 2009 but as you just said, you didn’t release anything until last December. So what was the process in the interim? How were you making everything come together? So we met – I met Daniel a long time ago. I think it was early, very early 2009 and me and Dan started writing songs together and then a year later met Dot. Ten about a year after that - we’d been writing songs together for a long
Jessie J, …actually I don’t think that’s a good impression to be honest!
special responsibility Hannah, with all these tour dates you’ve got. As a vocalist, you’ve got a special instrument to look after. How are you coping so far? Well, we toured America and that was pretty tough just because it’s longest and it – I didn’t sleep very much and surprisingly my voice held up fairly well. I mean you just have to look after it. You would have to look after yourself and if you’ve got a cold, that’s your worst nightmare. But if that happens, you would have to accept there is nothing you can do about it and there will be
I can do quite a good Lana Del Rey and I can do quite a good
time - that’s when we got signed and then we made the album. Basically we made our album before ‘Hey Now’ became popular. Most of the album was done and we just had production lists. So that’s basically the story from start to finish.
Now I don’t know if this is a sore subject, so please tell me to shut up if it is. But we were all sure you’d get nominated for the Mercury prize, if not win it, as did so many people. Do you kind of wish no one had mentioned it now?
I just really don’t mind. I think it was just a lot of pressure to say that we were picked to win and all this stuff. We had never said anything about it, but it’s just completely out of control. Ten when we weren’t nominated, and it was like ‘oh, I kind of expected that’, to be honest. We’re just so grateful to have people buying our records and to be selling tickets for our shows that the Mercury would have been – the nomination would have been the icing on a very good cake. So it doesn’t really affect us that much.
I thought it was good that Disclosure came out in support of you guys and said you should definitely have been on the list. You’ve built up some good relationships in the industry. Obviously that comes from the collaboration. But is it nice to have people who have got your back within the industry? Yeah, it really is. I mean Disclosure are so busy, we don’t get to spend very much time with them. But they were wonderful to work with and yeah, it’s always great to have fans or people that you really admire. I really admire Disclosure. I really admire Ellie Goulding and she has tweeted about us a couple of times. So if anyone – yeah, if anyone who you admire what they do, like when you do it, then you have that support. So that was really great.
I think it’s an interesting stance that you’re not on Spotify and I think it shows, with your current chart and tour success, that you don’t necessarily need to make everything available, and out there to stream in all ways. Was it your decision or [their label] Ministry of Sound’s decision? It wasn’t our decision. Obviously we’ve got a big team now that makes those kinds of decisions because you’re touring and playing shows. So that issue is complicated and I’m not in a position to say much about it to be honest, because I don’t actually really know and I don’t really know how Spotify works! I think that they have – I get the impression that maybe they’ve, I’m not sure... maybe annoyed a few people down the line. I don’t know. You hear funny stories.
Tere are your own emotional themes on the album, which are personal to you. It’s outwardly apparent, even if you don’t listen to the lyrics. It’s outwardly very emotive music. When you were making it, did you imagine people applying it to their own mood? Like it becoming their breakup album, or
outlineonline.co.uk /November 2013/ 13
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64