Nerina Pallot: ‘I don’t have the right genetic make-up for this career’
By Nick Bond
Singer-songwriter Nerina Pallot’s musical journey has taken some unlikely turns in recent years. One minute, she’s a pop songwriter for hire, churning out bespoke pop songs for her heroine, Kylie Minogue (no big deal). Next thing you know, she’s an independent artist embarking on one of the most ambitious / insane musical projects in recent memory: Releasing one EP a month for a whole year.
Now, she’s back with a new album to lure in those casual fans who perhaps couldn’t keep up with 2014’s new EP’s worth of material every four weeks. The Sound and the Fury cherry-picks highlights from that project, polishes them up and combines them with a handful of new gems to deliver arguably her richest body of work to date.
Let’s talk about that ‘Year of EPs’ first, as they were the genesis for this new album. Was there any point in the process where you thought, ‘Oh god, what have I done’?
Yeah – every month. It was slightly alcohol-fuelled, this idea. Originally there was a Christmas EP called We Made It Through Another Year, and when we made it, the mulled wine started flowing fairly early on in the day. At the end, everyone was like, ‘We should do this every month!’ and I was like ‘YEAH, let’s do this every month!’
Probably about three EPs in, I was like: ‘Oh, fuck. How do I do this’.
In the past, you’ve taken a gap of a good few years between albums – this project must’ve felt like going from one extreme to another.
Yeah, but effectively, all I was doing this time was lifting up the curtain and showing people what goes on between those albums. In the major label album cycle, I think people imagine once you hand your album in, you’re off on a lilo with a margarita, but there’s a lot more stuff going on behind the scenes.
And I’d already written a few songs for The Sound and the Fury – songs like There Is A Drum and The Road – and I was aware that if the last someone had heard from me was [2012 single and lush ballad] All Bets Are Off and then they heard them, they’d be like ‘What the fuck?’ I wanted to move the music across a bit, to prepare people and take them on a journey. So I had an ulterior motive in all this.
Given the sheer volume of music you released (around 60 songs in total last year), those EPs were more geared towards hardcore fans. How did you then decide what songs to cherry-pick to present to a more casual fan in the form of this album?
I was able to look at what became more popular – looking at things like Spotify, it became really apparent what songs from the EP project people were liking. Things like [first single] Rousseau: it was head and shoulders above the others as the most popular song last year – almost a million plays on Spotify. A few fans posted end-of-year compilations, which was sweet, and what was really, really heartening is the ones they’d choose were the ones that, in my head, were always going to go on the record. If they’d all come back saying it had to be the When I Grow Up EP, which was the uber-pop EP, I’d be a bit like, ‘Oh, god. How do I do that for a whole record?’
Even with The Sound and The Fury, you’re biting off quite a bit creatively – you’re creating original artworks to send to people who order through Pledge Music. You’re like a one-woman cottage industry.
It is quite labour-intensive – I run my own label so there’s a lot of nuts and bolts boring stuff that can get in the way. But I’m always painting; I love painting so it’s a no-brainer that I would involved that. I mean, one year, I wrote a book of short stories for a fan show – it’s all part and parcel of the same thing, to me.
From the EPs to the artworks to the short stories – do you often have a grand creative vision, commit to it, then think, ‘Oh crap, how will I pull this one off?’
Yeah, every day… every day! I approach every single thing in life with dread. Even just leaving the house to go buy bread: ‘Oh god, I’ve got to do this.’ I’m really not a brave person. I don’t know why I chose this profession because it involves getting on stage in front of other people, but there you have it, I did.
So stage fright’s an issue?
Oh god, yeah – I dread it. I have to just block it out and live in denial. I suppose you get used to it and you learn coping strategies. And yet, the high I get when I get off stage is second to none… but I guess I don’t necessarily have the right genetic make-up for this career.
So you don’t have it in you to be a Britney or Beyonce?
No, and I realise that now, in hindsight. When I was younger I did want to be like that – not Britney, but I aspired to that level of success and fame. Maybe like Adele – but then she has that ridiculous voice that comes along once every 20 years. Now I’m older and I know myself better, I realise: I could never do that. I’d probably top myself! It’s just as well that everything’s on the level it is, because I can just about manage it.
You’ve had a taste of the pop star life in recent years – behind the scenes, at least. You’ve been a songwriter-for-hire for people like Kylie Minogue…
My publisher’s always trying to make me be more involved [in songwriting], but I’m really bad at it because I only want to work with my heroes. Kylie for me was like falling off a log – I had a whole catalogue of things ready to offer her. I’d spent my whole life [thinking], if I’m going to write for anyone it’s going to be Kylie or Madonna. A lot of my family are Australian, so I spent the first five minutes of that particular phone call [to Kylie] disbelieving it – I thought it was my sister Helene ‘doing Kylie’. I’m sure at one point I said ‘Helene! Stop being a total dag!’
But I find co-writing really tricky. I co-wrote a song with Kylie but that song didn’t make the record – she just picked the ones we’d written for her [Aphrodite and Better Than Today]. She’s really good like that – she just wants the best songs she can get her hands on, whether she co-wrote it or not, and I really respect that. A lot of artists are too focused on getting a co-writing credit so they don’t pick the best songs.
After I did all that, obviously my phone did ring, but it wasn’t Kylie Minogue ringing – so I found it a bit demoralising.
The lead single from your last album, Put Your Hands Up – is it true that started life as a Kylie song?
It was one of those songs that was knocking around before I met Kylie. The original demo was a bit Tori Amos-y, a bit Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights. It was quite meandering, until my husband [producer Andy Chatterley] helped me knock it into shape. When we started working for Kylie we decided to Kylie-fy it… I think she did do a version of it, but she also recorded another song called Put Your Hands Up for the same album, and I guess they thought it was too much putting your hands up. So then when I went to work with Bernard Butler [on her album Year of the Wolf], we reworked it again into that Wall of Sound, Northern Soul sound that it became.
Your new single Rousseau comes with a simple but striking video, shot in the heart of London. I understand you shot it during the tube strike?
Yeah, and it was really bizarre being in London at rush hour and seeing all the tube stations closed. The great thing was they put on extra buses and they were those gorgeous old vintage buses, so the video was more London than ever – more cabs, more old London buses. It was a very London video, by virtue of the tubes being shut.
If you feel anxious whenever you leave the house, how about trying to film a video all frocked up on the streets of London while everyone’s trying to get to work? How does that rate?
People just thought I hadn’t been to bed yet! It was fun actually – I was wandering around with people in dog heads and foxes heads. I think people thought we were just mad and on drugs.
info: The Sound and The Fury (Idaho Records) out Friday September 11. Nerina plays The Scala in London on September 17.