UK Edition
Feeds
You recorded most of the album in a week. Why did you decide to do it like that?
"I didn't really think about it. I literally just woke up one day and said, 'I'm going to make an album'. I had my friends Johnathan Shorten and Conner Reeves down in Devon writing with me, because I had no songs ready beforehand, and they were like, 'Joss, we don't have a studio or any musicians. How can we make an album?' So I called my assistant, she rounded up my band and they all came down the next day."
And you managed to book a studio at such short notice?
"Well, I wanted to record the album live, so we used my mum's place, Mama Stone's, even though she had builders in at the time turning it into a music venue. She'd already had the vocal booth put in upstairs, so we just knocked a couple of holes in the wall, ran a few leads through and made it work... and then we had an album!"
The album's been delayed for a fair while. What happened exactly?
"Yeah, in January it will be two years since we recorded it. The truth is, the delay was my fault and I totally hold my hands up. I made an album without asking permission and just gave it to my label. I'm in breach really. I didn't realise, but when you sign a record deal with a major label, you have to ask permission to make music. If you don't, they can take your voice, put in a box, shut the top, put it to one side and leave it there until you do what they tell you. But at the end of the day, we figured it all out and the album's in the shops, so it's been sorted."
How did you reach a compromise with your label?
"Um... well... I'm not allowed to talk about it! But let's just say a compromise was reached. What I fought for, and what took so long, was that I didn't want the album to be changed. When I handed the album in, my label said, 'We need you to record three new songs that sound like the radio today. There are no hits on your album and it's not going to be in the top ten'. I tried, but they f**ing ruined these songs by taking the music out and replacing it with, like, pretend sounds. It just wasn't my style."
What happened next?
"I just couldn't do it. It made me ill. I just said to them, 'Don't treat it as a commercial album. Don't even give it a budget. Just put it out in the shops. I'll do the rest and we'll be fine'. I'm so happy it's out and hasn't been f**ked up. I don't care how it sells."
'Governmentalist' from the LP stands out for being political. What's it about?
"When I wrote that song, a guy called Geoff Hoon was head of the Ministry of Defence. I said something in an interview about the troops - that they don't get given enough love when they come back. He heard I said that and got really p**ed off with me, so I tried to call him and sort it out. It wasn't an attack on him or anything. It was just an opinion, but that's what inspired the song. People don't really love opinions, do they?"
Has that been a problem for you?
"Yeah, but you gotta have an opinion. If you get asked a question and don't answer it truthfully, it's just a bit boring. One day I was doing interviews with various different artists for a radio show in Devon. We went around the festivals asking about downloads. As soon as I mentioned the 'd' word, everyone would give their own perfectly-rehearsed answer. People just become afraid when the mike's switched on and I think that's what stops us growing as a nation. I can understand why though because I get s**t for giving my opinions."
Has that made you more self-conscious?
"No. I am who I am and I'm not ashamed of anything I've said. Sometimes I change my opinions as I gather more information, but I'm not going to sit there and shut up, which people would love. My label have begged me to have media training but I'm not doing it. They tried to give me some when I was 14 and the woman was like, 'Sorry, there's nothing I can do with that!'"
Two-a-half years down the line, what's your take on the Brits incident?
"I don't think I did anything wrong! The problem was that the record company cancelled all my promo after what happened. People thought I lived in America, which I never did, but I spent a lot of time over there recording my albums so maybe it affected my accent. Who gives a f**k? I didn't have a manager at the time, so I had no one to stand up to the label. Literally every single interview was cancelled, and then they wondered why I didn't sell as well in England!"
Did that upset you?
"England is my home and that's what hurt my feelings. England's meant to have my back. It was like going home and having my family say, 'F** off!' That wasn't very nice, but if we're talking in terms of sales, it was just England. I have to sell records in every country in the world, so I wasn't angry from that point of view."
You appeared on The Xtra Factor on Saturday night. What did you think of the main show? Did it remind you of your beginnings on Star For A Night?
"Jesus Christ! It's a talent show - that's the only thing that's the same. I hadn't watched it before because I don't have a TV. I only watched it when Alex (Burke) won because she's a friend of mine. So I turned up expecting it to be like Star For A Night but it was really, really different. It's much more about entertainment than music, which is totally fine, but let's call it what it is. If we don't, I think it could hurt music."
In what way?
"Well, you can't stand there and say it's a musician's show about soul and feel and guts. They're told what song to sing, what to wear and - this killed me! - where to walk on stage. What the f**k? These poor, poor people! At the end of their performances, some of them get told, 'You didn't really seem to feel that song'. But how can you feel that song if you've got all this other stuff to remember?"
What did you think of the contestants?
"It's the ones that don't win that I worry about. They've made a name off the back of the performances they've done on that show with the help of fireworks, 50 backing singers and a stylist. That costs a lot of money, so when they leave how are they going to recreate that? I hope they have a plan going forward."
'Colour Me Free' by Joss Stone is out now.
