Mieszko Marek Czarnecki: You’ve always been a singer, but two years ago you became a podcaster. You’ve had almost a hundred conversations with wonderful women, active in many fields, professionally successful, fulfilling as mothers, wives or singles. What does Sophie Ellis-Bextor discover in herself with them?
Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Oh man… And that’s the first question? When I leave the house, go to the shops, take the tube or wait for a dentist appointment, I often start this British “small talk”. Kind of casual, kind of apparent. But after a while, when I talk to women, our conversation invariably turns to family. Suddenly we stop talking about work or the weather. This is probably the best topic to break the ice. At the same time, these are the threads that interest me the most. My eldest son is about to turn twenty and the moment he came into our lives turned almost everything upside down. It was followed by four more revolutions, each time each of my boys was born. So I have five of them, and today I hardly remember who I was before. Thanks to a hundred recorded conversations with wonderful women and thousands at the hairdresser, manicurist, kindergarten, school, I discovered that the challenges we try to face are for the most part really the same.
Even though each of you leads a different life.
And it’s just as fascinating. I discover an incredible curiosity about how my interlocutor got to where she is. What has she been through? How? Which way? And regardless of whether I am sitting in front of a microphone with a star from the newspapers, whether it is a scientist buried in piles of books on a daily basis or surrounded by rows of laboratory equipment, I see a great curiosity about the world and life in each of them. I admit – I like to be nosy, because just like them, I also have this curiosity about life.
These conversations get you out of your bubble?
Not even that. When I sit down with my friends over coffee, we talk about how feelings and relationships become shallow, about our hopes and desires. About how our reality sometimes turns out to be completely meaningless. We support each other. And that’s how I treat my series of interviews. They are women of various backgrounds, backgrounds and backgrounds. Almost any age. I would like to use in my life the wisdom they gained in theirs.
But these are not light subjects. On the contrary.
That’s why I always start by talking about family. It always works. This key allows you to open another door.
But you are one of the most recognizable British singers of the last twenty years, and those who listen to you live much more ordinary lives.
When I spoke to Jessie Ware, we discovered that none of them even thought of taking their kids with them on tour. Not because we don’t miss them or want to live the life of twenty-year-olds. We just can’t afford it. I have five boys, four would go with me, and they have to go to school. Four separate teachers, more tickets, much more luggage, completely different, more expensive hotels, bigger cars, care during rehearsals and concerts. This is not a financial piece of cake for me. And at the same time longing, worries, separation. Who will pick up the young one from kindergarten or the middle one will lose or break his phone again and there will be no contact with him for the whole day. Will they do their homework, brush their teeth properly. It would seem that Jessie and I talked about our surroundings, but in fact, every woman faces very similar everyday worries.
Want to show women how strong they are?
I’d love to. We’re great at supporting each other. I also have around me, thanks to which I stand upright. My mom, my sister, my friends. Of course, my Richard too, but it is the advice and support of women that I count on the most. I have the impression that we are not always aware of how wonderful things we do every day and how good we are at it. The girls I talk to have had ups and downs that felt fulfilled in their forties or fifties. Someone would say “just”, and me and them say “I did it! You did it!” I see that we can be very generous to each other.
However, in your house among six guys, you are the only woman. Don’t you feel lonely sometimes?
I have friends who sometimes say “oh! I wish I had just one daughter” or “I wish I had just one boyfriend”, but I don’t feel like I’m missing anything. My six can hear their talkative mum or wife all the time, whose mouth almost doesn’t close, but I’m glad that they also have a very good contact with me. They experience my closeness, but I am also happy with this closeness.
And what is it like to combine your personal and professional life with the same person? Richard has been your bass player for twenty years.
And that’s how we met. I was looking for a bass player and I announced an audition. I found both a bassist and a life partner. Much more than I expected. An excellent bonus. Richard is with me almost all the time – at home, in the studio, on the road. He edits my podcasts and radio shows. Our lives are full of wonderful episodes, adventures that we don’t have to tell each other, but we experience them together. I think that many modern couples have much less of each other on a daily basis, although they would like to. He’s a great husband, friend and father. And a musician!
Oh right! Music! I remember one of your records when you sang a duet with the Manic Street Preachers as a teenager. A quarter of a century ago. You just released your latest album. You give the impression that your music has come full circle.
I missed indie and rock so much, and “Hana” brings back those memories. I don’t know if it was intentional or not. During the lockdowns, I reached for old records and songs. I was returning to places where I had felt safe and comfortable long ago. Trying to cope with the fear for boys, parents, friends, I remembered the joy, peace, confidence of the moments from years ago. And like it or not, I ended up where I started. To the places I knew and which were like an asylum for me during the pandemic. I reached out to those feelings more than to the music, but it turns out that translated into how “Hana” sounds.
This album is a return to what?
More of a new beginning. “Hana” is Japanese for a newly opened flower. like spring. Like a new opening, hope. I’m very lucky because every time I write music, I go through something like a catharsis, an awakening, a purification. I calm down and start another, brand new journey. By recording a CD, you can create exactly the space you want to be in. That’s why when Ed Harcourt, my producer with whom I’ve recorded three albums, and I sat down to think about what kind of record we’d like to make, we were talking in images, not sounds.
Is that how you work?
Since I recorded Wanderlust, my first Ed-produced album, we’ve both found that this is the approach that inspires us the most. We imagine music as a place, and this translates into certain rules for putting notes on the staff. Not only is it easier for us to write, but it’s also easier to record and give the songs the intended, or perhaps more imaginary, sound.
easier for you. How to be yourself when you are at the beginning of your artistic career?
Oh… It’s really hard. There are so many boundaries to draw: between you and the producer, between you and the label, between you and the manager. The moment you start is like the moment you get up from your chair. The first songs, lyrics, concerts – these are in fact the only things the audience knows about you and what you know about the audience. You try, you go in here, you go in there, you look. You notice that some numbers suit the audience more than others, making you think that’s what they want from you. You turn up one, you let go of the other. Today I think more about myself and rely more on my nose. I no longer hear that voice in my head that kept asking, “Is this it?”, “Is this what they’re waiting for?”. However, before I got to this place, I had to go through my own and overcome my anxieties. Everyone had them, has them and will have them. I like big labels, but today I work with a really small label, where both they and I enjoy doing something together that we just enjoy.
Maybe it’s because people just like working with you? I don’t know who recorded more duets than you.
It would be wonderful… I wish it were. Indeed, there are many people around me who have been with me for many years. Not just a bass player. She is my make-up artist, director of my music videos, designers and designers. It’s been twenty years together. I’m not a major label, so I can’t pay them what the big brands pay, but what I can give them is freedom. Because of this, not everything is fully planned, there is a lot of spontaneity among us, but thanks to that there is also a lot of joy in it. There should be plenty of it – after all, that’s what music is all about.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
