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Music interview: Joss Stone
'That was such fun! I played a song with Roger Daltrey then one with Dave Stewart then we all played a couple of songs together. It was awesome. It was at someone's little house – well, someone's big house. It was like a garden party."
Joss Stone is explaining how she recently came to share a stage with two of the best-known names in British pop at a $2,500-a-head charity fundraiser in California.
"I love Roger," she says. "What a cool guy. I sang My Generation for him last year at the Kennedy Center honours (the USA's "annual national celebration of the arts" held in Washington DC]. I sang for James Brown the first time I did it then I got to sing with him too. I'm a very lucky girl."
Right now it would seem things couldn't really be better for Devon's 22-year-old queen of soul – that is if it wasn't for the fact that she's just spent months embroiled in a high-profile battle with her record company EMI.
Despite career sales of eight million CDs worldwide label chiefs put their foot down when Joss wanted to release a new album of songs she'd written and recorded at her mum's live music venue in Somerset.
EMI, now owned by a private equity firm, complained that Colour Me Free wasn't commercial enough. A stand-off ensued during which Joss reportedly offered the company 2million to escape her record contract. "It got to the point where I said, 'Take my house and release the record'," she says.
In the end the label relented – but with a pay-off. Colour Me Free would have no budget at all.
"The thing is I just made an album and I wanted people to like it," says Joss. "I did not think anything of it. Why did it have to be a big deal? Why does it have to focus on being a No.1 song? F*** that, I can't be bothered."
She understands "why EMI would say, 'Look, hold on a minute. We're running a business. It's not about you having a lovely time in the studio'" – the issue for her is more fundamental, it's about her creative rights. "So it's got a low budget? That's fine by me. I just wanted to have artistic freedom."
If that means she has to do the promotional donkey-work herself, then so be it. "I'm tired of all the silliness," she sighs.
I suggest the album's old-school soul feel reminds me of the work of Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder. They were an influence, Joss agrees – "When it comes to vocals those are the people that I love" – but, she says, her tastes are broader. "There's other genres – hip-hop, especially Lauryn Hill, reggae, gospel."
She hadn't intended to record an album at her mum Wendy's venue Mama Stones – then in Wellington, Somerset, now relocated to Exeter – it just happened to fit the bill when she wanted to make a "raw record" relatively quickly. Having her mum present was just like when she was starting out as a 16-year-old. "It was nice to have her opinion," she says.
EMI may not be throwing money Joss's way but that didn't stop her bringing in a stellar cast of guests, including guitar hero Jeff Beck, former Prince drummer Sheila E and hip-hop star Nas, to help her out. Beck, she says, is “a lovely guy, very giving”; Sheila E is “so sweet, she would do anything for you”.
Nas meanwhile raps on the track Govern-mentalist, a broadside against the Labour Government for its treatment of troops injured in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I was asked a question and I said I don’t feel the boys get enough love when they come home,” she says of the song’s germination. “They are young, they go to army jail. When they have injuries they are sometimes sent to the NHS; it’s unfair. I did not pinpoint anybody; I said how I felt about it. However, this man at the Ministry of Defence got very upset with me. I said, ‘Give him my number and we will have a chat’. He never called, so I just wrote a song about it.”
The number was later used to support Barack Obama when he was running for the US presidency.
In the two-and-a-half years since Joss’s last album and Colour Me Free she has dipped her toe into acting, playing Anne of Cleves in the BBC TV series The Tudors. The experience of filming Ireland was “f***ing great”, she says. She enjoyed the novelty of having weekends off and finishing work by 7pm. “I’ve never done that before,” she says. “An actual job where you can have a life.”
The problems came when she was asked to film a second season this summer. “I was doing a tour at the same time as I was doing The Tudors,” she explains. “That sucked. On my days off I flew away to do a gig in Europe then I came back and did my German accent again. It was so exhausting.”
When her booking agent mistakenly booked a gig on the same day as filming she saw red. “A gig got cancelled which I’ve never done in my life, I was so upset.”
Joss intends to tour Colour Me Free in the new year but gig-goers at TJ’s Woodhouse Club in Leeds have already had a sneak preview of the album when she played a surprise show at the former Liberal club back in February. “That one was crazy,” Joss remembers. “People did not believe it was me. They thought I was like a tribute Joss Stone. When I walked out on stage they thought, ‘F***ing hell’.”
How her wider audience will react to the new record will be interesting to see – as will the effect of this affair on her relationship with her label. “We will cross our fingers and see what we can muster,” Joss says. “We’ll maybe see what we can do ourselves.”
l Colour Me Free is released on on November 2.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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