Sophie Ellis-Bextor

0:12Hello and welcome to this special episode of the Monaco Weekly. I'm Fernando Augusto Pacheco and for today's show I speak with the great singer Sophie Alice Baxter She tells me everything about her new album Hannah, inspired by East Asia Oh, and of course we discuss Kitchen Discos and her take on Eurovision

0:50Sophie Ellis Baxter, what a pleasure talking to you. I'm a big fan. And interestingly enough, I just saw one of your gigs at Eurovision. And I have to ask you about that. Are you also a big Eurovision fan, Sophie? I certainly am. I absolutely love Eurovision. And I think I was the most giddy for Eurovision I've ever been this year, given that I got to participate in a few things. It was really fun. Yeah, I loved it. When you were performing, there was a sunset behind you. I think Liverpool looked quite Balearic. It looks like we were in Spain in a way, weather-wise. It's so true. It was uncharacteristically warm, I have to say.

1:26Well, we are here to talk about your new album, which I listened and I thought was great. And I just realised it's the end of a trilogy of albums, right, that you had. Can you remind us about this idea of a trilogy when it comes to those last three albums now? yeah so a few years back i was making my first ever album independently actually and i started collaborating with a friend of mine who is a singer songwriter in his own right called ed harcourt and we just found that we work together very easily we have a lot of fun and we really like the work that we produce together so we did wanderlust where we took ourselves to a sort of eastern european landscape then we went to an album called familia we went kind of latin american and then we had always planned on doing three records together and so this is our third and final this is hannah where we've kind of gone to japan and it's actually been a really nice way to work because it makes you quite focused and i'm sure i will work with ed again in the future we're very close and my husband is his best friend and i'm friends with his wife you know so we spend a lot of time in each other's company but i think we just quite liked the idea of doing one two three and seeing where it took us and you know you mentioned east asia japan as well did it all start because i believe you've been to japan like for the first time 2019 or 2020 or something like that right yeah it was 2020 actually in sort of february march so literally just before the world tilted so it was always going to be quite a significant trip but then it took on extra significance and then it became just quite a nice place to go to in my head really when i was writing just to think about somewhere else somewhere foreign yeah i found it quite inspiring and the song tokyo is beautiful as well i mean thank you can you tell us a bit more about that one actually well the funny thing about the song that's called tokyo is that i wrote it before I went.

3:35I was trying to imagine. Yeah, so I knew I was going and I was going with my mum and I was going with my eldest boy and I wasn't supposed to be going. My stepdad was going to go and in the end he wasn't well enough to travel. So I went in his place and the forecast was for rain like the whole week. So that's why I wrote about the rain and actually when we got there, it didn't rain at all. But yeah, I was trying to imagine it before we went. That's actually one of my favorites in the album as well. And of course, I love Everything's Sweet. You know, it's kind of, I love the beats. And that's another fantastic track.

4:21It's just so nice to hear someone talk about the tracks, because obviously it's still not out yet. So it's exciting. Well, I had a little preview here, so that's nice. Sophie, I mean, you mentioned that you went to Japan right before COVID all started. We need to talk as well about your kitchen disco because that was magical for a lot of fans, including myself. Are we going to see more kitchen discos or some sort of variety of that, even though there's no COVID anymore? Oh, golly. I don't know. I mean, such a sort of strange time, such a strange chapter. Even now, I struggle to articulate it because it was the time when, on the one hand, so many people were coming over to our house through watching the discos on phones and the computers and the tellies.

5:06But in real life, we weren't seeing anybody. It was a very personal thing, really, those discos, because they were under my roof. They're in my own kitchen. My kids were everywhere. Richard's filming it on his phone. My husband. Richard and I would work together on the playlist. So it was really quite special, but extraordinary. I don't know if the world needs to see any more of me prancing around in my little today. I feel like I've given enough of that. Well, one thing for sure, they still need to see Sophie on stage. And I'm sure you're going to be performing tracks from Hannah as well. Yeah, that's a safe space.

5:38And now it's interesting. I see a lot of people being influenced by you and kind of the music you play, kind of this lovely, beautiful kind of electro pop with a lovely beat as well. What are your music influences as well? Do you still listen to kind of this new up and coming singers as well, or perhaps a little bit of the oldies? Sort of a bit of both, really. I mean, in our house, it's quite a melting pot. And I'm not just here, actually. My mum also, she goes to gigs and listens to music. My brother's a musician. So it's not unusual for us all to have conversations about what we're listening to.

6:09And I think with this record, if anything, it was maybe a little bit more nostalgic than I would normally be because, well, firstly, I knew I wanted it to be quite synth-y. And when you've got a live sound with lots of synths, it automatically starts sounding like referencing the 80s a tiny bit. But also I felt like some of the songwriting sounded like things I was doing in the 90s and early noughties, actually. And I wondered if that was partly because writing in and out of lockdowns. I don't know about you, but I felt like I was accessing a lot of memories from songs I listened to when I was young.

6:44It became like quite a safe place to go in my head, like those memories. So I wondered if maybe that influenced me a little bit, maybe on a subconscious. level but generally speaking I am quite traditional with my listening I kind of go back to things over and over again things I've loved for a long time but my husband Richard is much better at playing new things and then sometimes we'll play each other new things always listening to the radio I do like knowing what's out and about but I've sort of turned into one of those people that likes a lot of new things and can never remember what anything is called I feel like a bit of an old woman sometimes but I think I've been like that for years.

7:20But it's interesting you mentioned nostalgia as well because I did feel a little bit of that listening. Do you have any other favorite tracks from the album? Well there's a song on there called Until the Wheels Fall Off which was very inspired by a letter that my stepdad left that we found the day he died. So he died three years ago now. That's a sort of tribute to him really and he said in his letter about how much fun he had with my mum and how they drank the best wines and burned the best candles and just lived a full life and they laughed and loved until the wheels fell off and it all passed by at lightning speed and I just thought that was really so romantic and I thought it also was a similar attitude to the one that Richard and I have where we're quite good at finding the fun you know I I suppose it felt fitting as well to incorporate a bit of the grief into the album because that was all the background, you know, the emotions we were going through.

8:19And then the other song I really love, maybe even my favourite, is a song called We've Been Watching You, which is the way the album ends. And it's a song about aliens, as if they've been watching the planet and they've seen that human beings have got themselves into a bit of trouble. They've landed, they've let us know they're here and they're just going to take a few of us and only save a few souls. That's a lovely idea for a track, actually. Yeah, it's so fun. I do like a little bit of an idea, you know, a bit of a conceit. It's playful. It's really a nice way to write. Well, I had a lot of fun watching you in Liverpool.

8:54What can you tell us, perhaps, what are your plans for the summer? I know we said, perhaps, let's leave the Kitchen Disco, because they had their time and it was amazing. But what can we expect? I mean, I know you'll be performing a few places this summer, right? Yeah, I mean, the Kitchen Disco really continues with the gigs, because when we were coming out of that time, we were thinking, let's take this on the road. So we did a kitchen disco tour in the UK last year. We just did one in Europe. And now we're going to do another Christmas one in the UK. And between now and then, I've got so many festivals.

9:25I mean, I'm very lucky. I'm going to Mexico this weekend for one. And then every weekend, pretty much, till the end of the summer, I've got some lovely ones, Latitude, Isle of Wight, Camp Festival, Mighty Hoopla. there's like tons and tons of stuff I'm doing and I'm just really here for it I'm in a very good mood about the whole thing well I remember one of the tracks from the kitchen disco as well was Alcazar's crying at the discotheque which I think is super fun and that's kind of maybe was popular actually in the UK to be honest I don't know but I mean I love this kind of scandy pop as well and I think you did it amazingly as well oh my god he actually is falling asleep oh Mickey he's been teething today and he is really wiped out.

10:10What the hell? Who did that? Here we go!

10:25He's not ill, he's a bit wiped out, you look like a knight.

10:31Thank you. Oh, I love that song too. I've been doing it as a cover in my set for quite a while and then actually we did a Greatest Hits in 2020 and that was the single. I actually did a cover of it as a single. It's such a good tune. It's such a good tune. And your version of Like a Prayer, that's excellent. I mean, it's hard to be the original, but it's a very good, very good version. Thanks. Yeah, it's in tribute to the original 100%. I do think that's one of the best pop songs ever written. I love it very much. Amazing. Listen, Sophie, the album is great and I think all the fans will love it.

11:03It's been a pleasure talking to you from Monaco Radio. Thank you so much. Oh, you too. Thank you for your thoughtful questions. It was lovely talking to you.

11:16That was Sophie Liz Baxter and her new album, Hanna, is out on the 2nd of June. The show was edited by Mariela Bevan and I am Fernando Augusto Pacheco. Thank you.