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Katie Melua in Chichester this Friday!
When Katie Melua signed with Mike Batt's independent record label Dramatico in September 2002, no one could have imagined that by the release of her third album, Pictures, in 2007, she would be the biggest-selling UK-based, female artist in the world.
Now she's scaling even greater heights with album number four, The House, released in May this year to huge acclaim.
But just as remarkable perhaps is the fact that mega-stardom doesn't seem to have changed her at all.
Katie remains quite simply one of the most delightful interviewees you could ever wish to speak to - relaxed, friendly and utterly natural.
A fact which probably explains a great deal of her success.
"I have always been very laid-back and relaxed about other things," says Katie who plays the Real Ale and Jazz Festival in Chichester on Friday.
"I found that the things that I was most relaxed about were the things I was able to do so much better than the things that I was stressed about. When I started to perform, I was able to spread that relaxed feeling and put it into my music."
Alongside it went a fierce determination to get it right - something Mike Batt taught her in those crucial early years in the business. It was Batt who discovered her and championed her, playing a key role in her first three albums.
The House represents a natural break from Mike - even though, as Katie is quick to stress, Mike was certainly around to help when she needed him. The new album has been seen as Katie moving on, with a definite sense of new areas and new styles being explored.
"It has been really exciting. You are never going to have 100 per cent everybody like it. But it's been good! I could really feel the pressure when I started working on the album a year and a half ago. Mike was such an important part of my music. Not having him creatively involved was quite scary. We really had a great thing going, but I think it was just time for me to do it myself.
"Mike gave me a sense of really really getting it done and of believing in it and not really worrying about what other people might think, of not worrying about what is conventional and about what is usually done. When we made the first album, we could not get a record deal, and he was just like 'OK, let's release it ourselves'. It was just amazing to grow up with him. He taught me never to let a single lyric in a song go by without it having a proper purpose in the song."
But now comes the next phase. The House, produced by William Orbit, sees Katie writing/co-writing eleven out of the twelve tracks.
"People ask me does that mean that the songs are more personal, but I have never sung a song that I didn't feel personally. You have to feel something for them to sing them, but with this album, perhaps it is more directly my perspective. It is just great fun to be open."
The pressure was really just at the beginning: "Once the songs were written by September, we sent them to William Orbit and he had a great reaction to them. By then I was just really enjoying the whole thing. I just felt a great feeling of excitement and anticipation."
Alongside that, on the outside, of course, was a sense of public expectation: "But you can never guess what people's expectations are. There might me like a general vibe that I can guess, but you never know in detail and if you think about it too much, it can just slow you down."
Again, it comes back to being relaxed: "If you were desperate for your album to go to number one, that's just something that is so much out of your control that you are going to be the most stressed person ever. You have just got to enjoy what you do.
"It's great when the records do well, but I never feel that my work is done. I am thinking 'What can I do next with my music? Where can I go next with that feeling?'"
For the moment, though, she's still very much in The House: "I only finished it in March. There are a few film projects that are hanging about, that might lead me into writing songs, but I am planning on touring and promoting The House until next summer.
"I am not writing songs all the time, but I am always thinking of ideas and the feelings and the emotions that have the potential to become songs…"
Katie performs at this year's Chichester RAJF on Friday July 9. Saturday July 10 brings a visit from The Orchestra (former members of ELO) headlining the RAJF's 30th Birthday Party.
Tickets available on both nights on www.chichester-rajf.com or on 0870 9509669.
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Weather for Chichester
Thursday 09 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 1 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 5 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Light sleet showers
Temperature: -4 C to 4 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
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