Probably her best interview ever! So at ease and enjoying chatting :D

 

 

A brilliant interview. How can people say she has no personality??

So true. Makes me sick when people say that! Just takes the right person and environment and she really comes out of herself and her personality shines through!

So true. Makes me sick when people say that! Just takes the right person and environment and she really comes out of herself and her personality shines through!

 

Amen to that. :D

Another song confirmed in this interview with Ryan Tedder:

 

Bill: Is there anything in particular we should watch for from your outside projects this fall?

 

As far as things coming up, I've got another single on Leona Lewis called "You Don't Care" that is one of my favorite songs. I pushed her vocally more on this song than any song she's ever done. I mean, she did some stuff on "Happy" that's awesome, but this other song she takes it to another level.

http://top40.about.com/od/popmusicproducer...erinterview.htm

 

Sounds like it sound be amazing :dance:

 

 

Tedder says something like that with regards to nearly every song he's involved in, LOL. I don't know, I like "Happy" but I'm still kind of disappointed. They literally have to release a hot uptempo as single #2, otherwise I think people will lose interest (internationally, anyway).

Oh, and after listening to "Strangers" a little more, that backing track is too good to be ignored. The verses need some work, in my opinion, but the production is just beautiful.

I love that interview! Leona shooting zombies on the PS. :lol:

New song title confirmed in a new bio on the OS:

 

Biog By Paul Flynn

 

Now and again, when Leona Lewis sits down in the studio and listens back to a recording she has just made, she starts to cry. Like the millions who have been touched to their core by her voice since she won that show and began releasing a series of songs that defied preconceived ideas of what mere ‘talent show winners’ could ever be or become, she is at times caught off guard by the haunting, ethereal quality in her own voice and is, quite simply, moved to tears.

 

“It’s weird I know, but sometimes it feels like something outside myself. It’s not necessarily that a lyric is even something that’s happened to me but I almost feel like it has because I can get swept up by the emotion, and when I do it can be overwhelming.”

 

Big emotions and sweeping, widescreen melodies form the beating heart of her much-anticipated new album ECHO, which sees her re-teaming with the likes of Max Martin, Ne-Yo and John Shanks as well as working with new collaborators Xenomania and Julian Bennetta. Direct, incisive song titles like BRAVE and BROKEN cut to the chase, setting emotions-laid-bare lyrics to timeless yet utterly contemporary soundscapes.

 

“I really wanted a dramatic, almost filmic quality to the songs,” says Leona, a self-confessed ‘film nerd’ who unexpectedly name checks 80s fantasy The Labyrinth as her favourite ever flick. “We would even put on movies on in the studio to inspire us, it was a cool way of writing. I’m always thinking of scenes in my head.”

 

While Leona readily admits she is well aware of the expectations on her in following up her 6 million plus selling debut SPIRIT, she wisely focussed on putting that out of her head and just creating great songs – none more so than spine-tingling lead single HAPPY, co-written with Leona’s old BLEEDING LOVE compatriot Ryan Tedder. Rising from a fragile, almost acapella intro, a gorgeous piano line carries it to an anthemic life-affirming chorus featuring a gravity defying vocal performance from Leona.

 

“That vocal was totally spontaneous, I sang it down as soon as we finished writing, Sometimes it’s better not to overthink things,” says Leona shrugging off any fears of recreating those head-spinning high notes live. “It’s weird because the highest parts of my voice – my head voice - are the actually ones that I find easier singing. I was trained in Opera so that comes really natural to me.”

 

Leona says it was hard to think of a title for the album straight away, but when it finally came it made absolute sense. ECHO not only reflects the record’s ‘epic and ethereal’ sound, but what’s more it appeals to Leona’s innate love of fantasy and otherworldliness – the places she would go in her head as a child ‘to escape’ and start creating the songs about other worlds, other lives.

 

“Echo was a nymph in Greek mythology and she fell deeply in love with a boy who didn’t return her love,” she recounts. “ But she loved him so much that she pined away till only her voice remained. That’s a really sad and beautiful story.”

 

If there’s a whispy, head-in-the-clouds quality to Leona at times (she’s currently besotted with fashion icon Vivienne Westwood she says because of the period references in her work – “if I could walk around in period costume all day I would”) it’s more than countered by a certain steely determination at her core. Don’t forget – when X Factor was just a shimmering Emerald City on the horizon, this girl would spend her days working in a succession of part-time jobs (“oh, everything receptionist, Pizza Hut waitress, there were loads”) to fund her fledgling night time studio sessions and confidence building early gigs around East London.

 

“I think sometimes people mistake shyness for someone that doesn’t have motivation – but I have so much motivation,” she states. “I’ve got a lot of ambition and drive – it probably comes from my parents being really supportive of what I want to do and knowing in life you have to work for what you want.’

 

It’s that quiet but resolute determination and complete focus on her craft that has seen Leona rise in a few short years from gigging around Hackney to sharing stages with the likes of childhood idols Beyoncé and Mariah Carey (“When they asked me I was like ‘are you serious? I can’t believe these people even know who I am”). You saw it in 2006 when week after week she returned to the X Factor stage and belted out pitch perfect takes on standards like ‘Summertime’ and ‘Over The Rainbow’. No frills or gimmicks - just that voice. Now, having spent the summer in the Hollywood Hills, LA (somewhere definitely not on her old number 55 bus route from Hackney) she’s been turning down invites for swanky celebrity dos to spend hour upon hour in the studio perfecting and polishing ECHO.

 

“I’m sure there are people out there who embrace everything and go to every party and that’s fun from time to time, but to be honest I’d much rather be in the studio or at home with my boyfriend or my family. I think that’s what keeps me grounded.”

 

This is a girl who still lives round the corner from her parents in Hackney (“paparazzi don’t come to Hackney, it’s only when we go to Islington,” she jokes) and has had the same steady boyfriend since she was 17 (they first met when she was 10). One of her few indulgences is frequent – as frequent as her schedules allows – horse-riding sessions in the countryside where she is free and left to her own thoughts (Leona is great animal lover and tells an odd but utterly sincere story about buying a baby rabbit from a homeless man in LA. The rabbit now lives with her and is on nodding terms with Ne-Yo).

 

In the increasingly here-today-gone-tomorrow world of fame hungry wannabes selling their privacy for column inches, she is that rarest of creatures, an old school star with integrity.

 

“I was asked to open the Harrods Sale this year but I had to refuse. My principles mean a lot to me. I’m a strict vegetarian so I don’t think fur should be sold in any way,” she states. “It’s about time everyone came up to date with their attitude towards the fur trade.”

 

Vivienne Westwood’s strong, ethical stance is one of the reasons Leona has turned to her for the understated glamour of her punk couture look for her return to the public eye. That and the fact that “she’s British, and I like to support Britain… oh, and she does great corsets”.

 

Even so, in typical Leona fashion, she quickly adds that you’re as likely to find her rummaging through the racks of Miss Selfridges or New Look (“great for vegetarian shoes” apparently) in Oxford Street as you are in the swankiest designer stores.

 

But for now, all Leona’s energies are focused on the imminent release of ECHO to an eager public. So eager in fact, that the recent much-reported illegal leaks of certain unfinished tracks have formed the highest profile case of its kind. Second time around, the stakes may seem even higher but with typical understated self-assurance Leona seems quietly undaunted by it all.

 

“I’m actually more confident with this album than the last. I’ve taken more control this time and I feel more at ease with everything. To me, it’s all about great songs and I hope the songs move people as much as they move me. I hope so anyway.”

 

http://www.leonalewismusic.co.uk/index.php/bio

I feel oddly excited by the fact she talks about Islington and bus 55, which is the one I use most :wub:

 

 

A short interview here where Leona talks about the album: "Pretty much all of the songs I've co-written" :dance:

 

 

New song 'Stone Hearts' leaked :)

I've been trying to download it for like an hour :drama:

 

Eventually got it! Gutted another leak though.

 

Weird, but I love hearing her say "echo" now :kink:

 

Hope this wasn't already confirmed for the album as fab as it its :(

It's GORGEOUS! I really hope it makes the album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbf_GgoEr8

Edited October 4, 200915 yr by MrLovett

It's a pretty song but I wouldn't play it all the time so I'd rather it not make the album.

I've had it on repeat :blush: I really really like it!

I love it!its amazing.

Defenitely prefer this to "Happy".This is exactly what I wanted for a lead single.

I hope this is what she meant by "organic",because I'd love the rest of the album to be like this.

Oh god no, Happy $h!ts all over this IMO.

 

This is album filler if not a b-side at most.

I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!

It truly gorgeous. It's now one of my favourite Leona tracks :wub:

Wow, "Stone Hearts" is beautiful. It builds so nicely, and what a climax. I like "Happy", but I find it's a little anticlimactic. This, however, reaches an amazing high, being built from the opening verse. I don't think this would've been lead single material, but it's definitely worthy of making the album. The more I hear "Happy", the less confident I feel about it being released as the lead single.

With all of these damn leaks, you'd think we'd hear some bangin' uptempos by now?! That's what I'm dying for. Hopefully the leaks stop here as it's just tarnishing the project.