Natasha Bedingfield

 

 

 

29 June 2007

 

 

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of her performance at the Diana memorial concert on Sunday, pop singer Natasha Bedingfield took time out to talk to Music Week about charity, success in the US and her siblings' plans to enter the music business.

 

 

 

You’re going to be playing the Diana memorial show at Wembley Stadium this weekend. Are you nervous?

That is something I’m really, really looking forward to. I just came off a plane at about 4.30am today and went straight to the rehearsal to practice with Paul McCartney’s band, who I’m going to be playing with for the show. I’m very excited – I’m going to be doing two songs, Soulmate and Unwritten.

 

You’re a global ambassador for the (Red) charity. How did you come to be involved with that?

When I was in LA, I was living right next door to Bobby Schriver, who is the guy who started Data, and (Red) is a joint venture between him and Bono. So I heard about it from him, he showed me all the stuff, and I just think that it’s a fantastic idea for charities to use more creative ways to make it easier for people to give money.

 

There’s a huge mistrust towards charities, and rightly so because a lot of charities use a lot of the money they receive on their expenses rather than going and actually helping people. You can’t just give people money in developing countries because there’s a lot of other factors involved. It’s that whole concept of teaching someone how to fish rather than just giving them a fish. In looking at the whole (Red) campaign, I just feel like it’s a really good thing to be involved with because they are looking at creative ways to help and make a difference.

 

Did your recent trip to India have an effect on you and increase your desire to do charitable work?

It did. That wasn’t with (Red), that was me visiting one of the projects that my mum’s charity is involved in, because she runs a charity called Global Angels and that’s about helping kids. I went to visit India myself because I’d never actually been to any of the projects and I felt that I’d always focussed on my career.

 

I’ve always felt supportive but I’ve never really stepped out of my way to go and actually experience what’s going on in people’s lives and watch the process of how people can help and how there can be hope. I’ve been disillusioned before, it’s very easy to switch off when you see people in difficult situations because it can feel like there are too many problems in the world, so it was really just great to go and experience it for myself, bring a camera and really be touched. It was inspiring.

 

Live Earth has had a lot of critics, including – most vocally – Bob Geldof. How do you feel about the event?

I think that anything that gets people to think about the planet and to help put effort into helping it is a good thing, because people have been ignoring it for too long. I appreciate that on a global scale people are starting to be aware of it and apply pressure. When I go up to New Zealand, you have to put so much sun-block on and you can’t go in the sun for more than 10 minutes without getting completely burned, and that’s because of the ozone layer. And it hasn’t always been like that.

 

Your single Unwritten was the first US Billboard chart-topping single by a British female in almost 20 years. Why do you think the song struck such a chord with the US public?

 

Well, it was just Top 10 here, it wasn’t a number one here - the song that did the best here was These Words. Unwritten, for some reason, was a song that the American public just took to. I think, in part, it was the time of the year - it was summer, it was graduation, and the song is about new beginnings. It just felt like it was the right time for it.

 

Do you feel part of a “new Brit female movement” that’s storming the US, what with Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen and Corinne Bailey Rae also scoring stateside success?

Yes, I went out there before Corinne Bailey Rae and I hadn’t heard her music - she broke over here while I was in the states - and I feel like British females are doing well in general. It’s really exciting to come back and see all these really amazing girls like Amy Winehouse all doing so well. The scene just feels really open to real music.

 

I feel very excited to be a part of that in America as well. It was like a personal challenge to go to America and try and break it, but when I heard that my song had topped the pop chart – it had been 19 years since Kim Wilde had done that – that to me put a new significance on it.

 

It's no secret that the market for record music is pretty tough for a lot of artists at the minute. Does that concern you as an artist?

I just really feel that it’s a positive time because the consumer is realising their power and realising that you don’t need to be just spoon-fed something that a marketing company comes up with. With the internet people are discovering stuff for themselves and that’s a really positive thing.

 

Are your younger brother and sister going to be following you and Daniel into the music industry?

I think so, they’re pretty good. My sister is fantastic, she’s called Nicola Rochelle and she has her own MySpace site, and she’s got a really unique sound and a really sultry voice. Josh is very musical too, he can do the whole beatbox thing as well. I don’t know what my parents were eating or drinking, or what someone put in their water, but somehow we’re all very musical.

 

 

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Natasha Bedingfield will perform at tomorrow’s Diana memorial show at Wembley Stadium, and last week performed a Live From London acoustic set for iTunes at the Apple Store in London’s Regents Street. RCA releases her new single, Soulmate, on Monday (July 2). Interview by Adam Benzine.

Unwritten and Soulmate, it should be amazing!

 

Thanks for the article, it was an interesting reading!

Yeah, an interesting read so thanks for posting Mikey!

Great song choices for the concert, especially when the performance will air in the US and we all know how much they love Unwritten! :D

She didn't do Soulmate :( Unwritten was fab tho! :D