Weekly > Interviews
Alice Russell
Even if you haven’t heard one of Alice Russell’s four albums, the chances are that you’ll have heard her distinctive and soulful vocal at some point on records from the likes of Mr Scruff, Quantic Soul Orchestra and Nostalgia 77.
A long term favourite of The Beat Surrender’s we caught up with Alice just before she sets off on her latest UK tour (see dates on MySpace).
At what age did you know you wanted to be a singer and when did it really hit home that you had such a soulful voice?
There was never one defineing moment where a light bulb went on and I thought “I want to be a singer!” it just sort of happend very naturally, from singing since a little girl in the choir to then discovering hip hop soul ,funk jazz folk music falling in love with it and singing along with the records I had started collecting, to then getting up with local bands (usually pretty drunk with dutch courage!) and singing the odd song with them.
I just seemed to meet people who where into the same music as me and find bands that let me sing with them,and later on moving to Brighton to do a music and art degree I met the Tru Thoughts guys and Quantic who at the time had only done an instrumental album and was looking to work with a vocalist and there we have it I started working with him, so I was very lucky in that I seemed to just go with the flow and the flow kept leading me on a singing path! so here I am…still having a sing song!
Although you’re firmly established in your own right as an artist now, it must have been a real pleasure to hook up with the likes of Will Holland, Nostalgia 77 and Mr Scruff to sing on tracks they’ve produced?
Well that is how I started out…collaborating with producers and wrtiters singing on their music and all that jazz and I continue to do so as its great working with lots of differnt peeps, I love working alone when writing as well but I also love writing with lots of producers and writers from all genre’s…keep a nice open mind and open ears and see where it takes me!
So yes a peasure to work with all of the lovely peeps I have had the joy to work with so far and heres to lots more!
How did those collaborations come about?
Through friends and also mainly with Quantic, Nostaigia 77 and Mr TM Juke all through the lovely Rob and Paul at Tru Thoughts bringing us all together to work on each others projects!
Is there anyone out there that you are desperate to work with that you haven’t had chance to yet?
Oooeeee! where do i begin!? I would love to sing with Cee-lo Green! Diplo rocks a party with them beats n sounds and I would love to work with him but also a big band arranger and experimenter like Matthew Herbert….Prince ..Stevie Wonder…David Axlerod…...and on we goooo!
Did you have any nerves about tackling such a well known song as Seven Nation Army, especially with it normally having a male lead?
No not really as when a song is as good as 7 Nation Army it almost feels like a folk song, a hynm…a song that has been around for a long time so it has a fimiliar feel to it..also like Crazy, so it feels good to have a go at it,it is almost sometimes easier to cover a track by a man instead of covering a track that has been sung by a woman as then you already have an opersite take on a song before you even open your mouth.
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Add to favouritesPot Of Gold has been another great success for you, what were your aims for it sound and achievement wise when you went into the studio to start recording it?
Well Pot Of Gold was to TM Juke and I, a sessions album, we have worked with our lovely band of merry men now for 5 years or more and the way we play at live shows has this energy and often songs that TM Juke and I have written change when we take them to the band and play them out live.
So with this album this is what we did, we started playing some of the tunes out live and would see how they felt, then we had a rehersal for 2 days then the studio 2 days where we had the band in the same room together, creating a live feel, then we did 3 takes of each track and took the best warts n all ,the only thing overdubbed on Pot Of Gold was strings, horns and backing vocals the rest the aim was to do a live sessions album and there we have Pot Of Gold!
Following on from that you’ve got the remix album coming out, who decided on the people that would remix the tracks?
Well a lot of the choices like Vadim and Scruff come from them having done remixes for us before and they were great and also they are chums!
Also just putting the word out there to producers that we knew and liked and asking them to pick a track to remix, then we ran a compitition on the website asking the fans to help us choose which ones to short list for the album so we had help in deiciding the final tracks to include!
Were there any that didn’t make the album that you would have liked on it?
Well there was loads and loads but the ones we liked all made it on!
What do you have in store for your forthcoming live dates, any treats or surprises you can let slip?
We will all be performing naked !!!!!
Ttee heeeee no but we will aid and abet those who join us to have a lil ole boogie on the dance floor…..from a taste of ole soul to a lil electro bag of treats..come and see…!
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