Joss Stone
At the recent Brit Awards in London, UK soul singer
Joss Stone’s new American accent caused a bit of a
stir. Her publicist later told the media that Joss Stone’s odd behaviour was due to ‘nerves’ pure and simple, regardless of the other nasty insinuations floating around. Gaynor Flynn spoke to the 19-year-old at the
Sundance Film Festival in January, where the singer
revealed that nerves did indeed often get the best of
her.
The Sundance festival has lined up a series of
intimate music concerts in small venues. What’s more
difficult, performing to a small or large crowd?
Joss Stone: Smaller is scarier, because its more
intimate. But I’m always scared so the size of the
venue doesn’t make much of a difference. Plus in a
smaller venue they’re all quiet so you feel more
attached to them in a smaller venue but that’s what
makes it scarier for me because they see you so much
closer than they would on TV, or than they would 50
feet away. Its like wow this person is looking at me
and the world is judging you.
You haven’t had a song out in Britain for a while,
have you been concentrating on America?
Joss Stone: No I’ve been busy writing and I’m not ever
going to come out with a shit album again I promise.
I swear, because now I get to make it. Before it was
somebody else’s vision and I was just kind of helping
them out which was nice and everything but this time
I’ve got to make it and I’ve got to take my time with
it as I should, I’m only 19, I haven’t hit 20 yet so I
have a lot of time.
How would you describe your new album?
Joss Stone: Its' difficult to describe really and
that’s a good thing I think because I don’t want to
put it in any genre. I don’t want to call it soul,
R&B, hip hop I don’t want to call it anything I just
want people to listen to it.
Do you think it’s good?
Joss Stone: I think its good. I like it but I don’t
know but I like it, its kind of cool.
What do you make of the Sundance Film Festival as a
musician?
Joss Stone: I like that it’s all about art, and that’s
what I’m really about in my life just everything
revolves around art and wherever there is art you will
find me so this is another section of that so its nice
to combine music, with film with photographs with
everything, with scripts its all somebody expressing
themselves and I think its beautiful to bring
everybody together and if we can just sort of mash it
up and make it all one muddle that will be lovely.
You’ve been acting this year any plans to make more
movies?
Joss Stone: It was an interesting moment. It was
funny though and it was a bit of a laugh. You know I’m
a singer, well I do my best, that was an accident in
itself but it ended up happening but now people come
to me and ask me to be their lead in their movies.
Why? Really why? When I ask I’m not joking because
you’ve never seen me act so it’s the craziest thing to
me. You know they come to me and say we have this
script and we have all these people in it and we want
you to be the lead in it. Why? I wouldn’t want to be
the reason for somebody’s movie messing up. So when
they came to me with Eragon I liked it because it’s a
real fantasy adventure film, its not real whatsoever
which is great and I love that, you know to go into a
completely different world, not just somebody else’s
life but a completely different world that doesn’t
even exist and plus it was one scene so I thought
alright, I’ll do it because then it’s a laugh, it’s
not so much pressure so I did it and it was fun.
Would you like to do it again?
Joss Stone: Maybe if they come up with something
that’s worth having a bash at why not? I just don’t
want it to be like way too much pressure because I’m
not an actress quite yet if ever I get good at it
maybe I’ll turn into one of those but right now I’m
just working on the music and I just like to have fun
you know if it sounds like a good idea I’ll do it. If
not I won’t.
You said before, you don’t want to categorise your
music is it upsetting when others categorise it?
Joss Stone: No it’s really interesting because I get
to see what people really think of it. What I say to
them is this, they’re like so what type of music is it
and to call something soul music is very vague I mean
because rock can be soul, jazz can be soul, country
can be soul, classical can be soul because we can all
feel it and we all have a soul so to categorise it is
impossible. So what I do when people ask me what I
sing I say you know what honey I just sing and I hope
that you like it and that’s all I do and you call it
whatever you want. Once you’ve heard it you decide
what it sounds like and she’ll decide something
different to what he decides and that’s what’s so
beautiful about it because there are no limits there
are no pigeonholes, there’s no box, I don’t fit and I
don’t want to fit.
You mentioned before that this new album is all you
and you’re not relying on other people’s opinion
anymore. How long did it take you to realise that you
should rely on your own intuition?
Joss Stone: Well I was 14, and imagine this that
you’re like a CEO of a big record company, you’re like
40 years old you earn millions every year and you’re
putting millions into this little girl and she comes
up to you and says ‘alright I want my beats to be like
this, I want the melody to go like this, I want to say
this, I want to work with him’. You’re going to look
at that 14 year old little girl and you’re going to
say, bless you’re little cotton socks no, you’re going
to do what I tell you to do and that’s what happened
on the last two albums and that’s fine because it
bought me to a great place and I was lucky enough to
sign with somebody with passion for music thank god
because otherwise I’d be f*****. So he inspired me to
make this one really great. You know it pissed me off
for four years so that just really made me want to
make this one perfect.
Will this new album be really different to the others?
Joss Stone: Yeah this one is me, this is what I made
and yes its different but people are saying you know
its not you but the thing is I called it Introducing
Joss Stone and the reason I did that is because its
like me putting my hand out and saying nice to meet
you I’m Joss because you didn’t meet me yet because
there was no chance to. So its exciting but its so
scary also because this year I’m going to find out if
I’m good enough
Gaynor Flynn
