May 2003
Siobhan Donaghy
"There‘s room for music to be a lot more interesting than the teen stuff that‘s out there. I wanna play live, do interesting videos, we‘ve got great tunes and a couple of them even have a point. I‘m not ashamed to say at the moment I am only listening to my album. Hahaha!"
Siobhan Donaghy is 18 years old and already a pop veteran. After three and half years with the Sugababes, 11 months of which brought genuine Pop Fame, these days she‘s doing things the old-fashioned way; a live vocalist, with a live band, who tours in a transit van (for now). "I‘m definitely good at roughing it," she grins, "I‘m turning into a scummy b***h!"
Since leaving the Sugababes in August 2001, she‘s been co-writing and recording, completed a "secret" tour of Britain‘s tiniest venues this March (including Camden‘s indie Mecca the Dublin Castle, under the name Shanghai Nobody - an anagram of Siobhan Donaghy) and this September releases her debut solo album ‘REVOLUTION IN ME‘. A creative spirit besotted with studio life - "all my free time in the Sugababes was spent in the studio, I loved getting involved" - she was retained as a solo artist after the ‘Babes decamped to Universal, an acknowledged sweet-soul singer with an ear for "wicked melodies". This time, there‘ll be little hype, Siobhan re-emerging with a low-key approach via a limited edition 7" single, ‘NOTHING BUT SONG‘, an irresistible catch-all corker, all acoustic guitar, piano-led reverie, old-school turntable scratch-beats and celebration summer-time whistling. Then comes the first single, the enormous, dazzling, guitar-led ‘OVERRATED‘. It‘s no indie-reinvention, though, ‘REVOLUTION IN ME‘ is sophisticated pop music across a diverse spectrum; ‘AS YOU LIKE IT‘ is twinkling, grooved-out pop-soul, ‘LITTLE BITS‘‘, an orchestral dreamscape, ‘MAN WITHOUT FRIENDS‘, a glorious, strummed-up stroll through the vocal idiosyncrasies of Edie Brickell/Ricky Lee Jones taking a full three minutes to explode into blissful chorus. All sculpted through the multi-layered, playful, production dynamics of Massive Attack/Neneh Cherry producer Cameron McVey. Appalled by the trivial, production-line piffle of the Pop Idol generation, Siobhan‘s lyrics are personal and vivid; detailing psychological meltdown, depression, hope and in the huge, emotive ‘IODINE‘, the politics of Bush and Blair, using the analogy of pre-Christmas turkeys.
"I‘d been reading about turkeys before Christmas and how they‘re treated," says Siobhan, "which is appallingly, so I‘ve compared the way the government treats us, to that. People my age, we talk about current affairs, debate things all the time. And all we get in music is a load of covers. We‘ve heard it all before, literally!"
London-born Siobhan is a radiant, sensitive and comical personality of Irish decent, who was discovered aged 12 by Ron Tom, ex-All Saints manager, who went on to manage the fledgling Sugababes. A year older than the other girls, who were already good friends, she felt "completely isolated for three years". Leaving school early to concentrate on the band, she was also tutored alone, compounding the isolation. Ultimately, Siobhan was never cut out for the pop lark, watched what she thought would be a "a fun job" disintegrate into schoolyard squabbles. Years of inter-band tension, personality clashes, creative grievances, power struggles and promotional pressures left her exhausted and depressed. "We were just so different," she says, "very very very different people. I just didn‘t feel comfortable, wasn‘t made to feel good at what I do. It was inevitable it was gonna be three‘s a crowd."
In August 2001, over in Japan on yet another promotional trip, Siobhan had finally had enough.
"It was four days before the end of the trip," she remembers, "and I made a decision and that was it. I thought ‘I‘m not doing four more days, I‘m not doing one more minute...‘ In the end, they had to ship me off on my own, wandering round this Japanese airport, I didn‘t know where I was going, I just followed numbers on the wall. I cried the whole way home on the plane. That was the last time I heard or saw of anyone I had worked with for those 3 ½ years"
Back home, she took time off, slowly recovered from the ruthless rigours of the modern music industry. Believing her musical years were behind her, she intended to take up photography at college. "I wasn‘t gonna do music again," she notes, "I‘d completely and utterly had it." A chance meeting, on holiday in Ibiza, with old friend Johnny Lipsey changed everything. Through Johnny, she was back in touch with Cameron (McVey), who always believed in her talents, hooked her up in the studio with his son Marlon and a young musician/producer called Pretesh. "Marlon and Pretesh were similar ages and we were really timid and kind of awkward and… perfect for each other! It was wicked, wicked tunes and I was excited to be writing again. Up until a few months ago I thought I was never gonna go through with it, would never release anything, but I‘m out of it now. And I can‘t wait!"
She was encouraged, too, by her management who were sent a five-track demo and signed her up immediately. "They were so different to my old management," she notes, "I was told I had a say in what I did. And I‘d never had that. I thought ‘I‘ll stick with these boys!‘"
This year, Siobhan and her band may play the New Band Tent at Glastonbury. If not, she‘ll be there anyway, staggering round the ditches with the mortals. "I never wanted to be famous anyway," she says, "and this isn‘t that kind of record. Our whole thing was ‘let‘s just make music that we wanna listen to‘. And you start off from there. Make music you like, music you think other people will like, do things that you like and keep it simple. In the Sugababes it was all so complicated. And there‘s no need. My sister‘s a make-up artist and I was never allowed to use her. Now she‘s my make-up artist. Great! Keep it in the family, have everyone as your mate, sweet."
"Overrated" is released on 23rd June 2003.
To contact Siobhan Donaghy click here
David Jensen Photography:
https://www.davidjensen.co.uk/
