Interview with NRJ Radio, Kiev

thanks to Paul and Renzo for this.

DOWNLOAD INTERVIEW:
Kiev_interview_Part_1.avi http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TDTQ1E7P
Kiev_interview_Part_2.avi http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FEJYPO8V
Kiev_interview_Part_3.avi http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BIQ7FEAP

Hello Sophie
Hello, how are you?

I'm good. How are you doing?
Very good, thank you.

So I think at first we need to prove to our listeners that it's really you sitting here right now. How can we do this? Maybe...
Sing something?

Maybe singing us something
Where are we - in a heartbreak vein. [sings] I've tried to hold myself together, I still forget you've gone away

Yes, that's right! This is Sophie Ellis-Bextor [claps hands].
All right, Sophie, first I want to say thank you for coming, for visiting our city once again. We've been really waiting for this day, and we are a big fan of yours really.
Ah, I love Kiev too, so I'm happy to be here.

Yes, because you've been here in Kiev a year ago. Can you tell us what's happened over this twelve months in your family, in your career, and how tonight's show will differ from the one a year ago?
Well, I have really fond memories of my gig here a year ago; I remember it very well, so if I can recreate some of the same atmosphere I will be very happy. It's a Saturday night; it's a very clubby show that I do here, very dancey. My main aim is to warm everybody up because it's winter out there. Lots of high tempo music so we can all have a boogie.

Sophie, your fourth album, Straight to the Heart, is filled with a lot of dance-style music. [Sophie nods affirmatively] You collaborate with a lot of heroes of dance music - Freemasons, Calvin Harris, Armin van Buuren, Junior Caldera. Is it all because you started DJ-ing with your husband, making a DJ duo?
I'm sure that played a part in it, yes. I mean when you DJ you've got those songs sounding so fantastic, so loud, all you want to do is dance. I think that must have influenced what I am doing. But also the first couple of songs that were written for this album, were with Calvin and Freemasons and I think that really set the tone. And once you've got songs sounding as phenomenal and dancy and electro as that it's quite hard to mix in different genres, so it ended up being a very dance-centric record.

So how is your DJ career doing?
It's doing fine, thanks. We just started it as a bit of fun really, so it's pretty crazy that it's something we still do. I'd say we probably do a couple of things a month - they'd be parties or a club night. Besides we fly to other places and do private things. So yes, it's been lots of fun, it's been great.

It's called Modern Love, right?
Modern Love was the first club, and now we do one called Love To Love, with other people.

So maybe next time Sophie Ellis-Bextor will come to Kiev to DJ, to make a party, can it be?
I would be very happy to come and DJ, I love playing. I mean you know yourself there's nothing more satisfying than playing songs you love really loud and watching the reaction. It's great!

So Sophie, about the hit, Not Giving Up On Love; can you give us the recipe how not to give up on love?
Um, well, a recipe... I don't know. I'm still in the earlier stages of the long-term love thing I guess. But that song is about that feeling you get when you know the odds are against you and maybe you are both under a lot of stress and there a lot of horrible things going on. You just have each other, and you come to rely on each other. I know my husband and I are like that with each other. Our jobs can be pretty full-on sometimes and its just really nice when we can go home. That's what gives you your core, you know - that's the bit that makes you re-build again.

There are some beautiful scenes in this music video. Where did you shoot them?
Ah, that was in Ibiza. The video director I worked with for the Not Giving Up video is a lovely woman called Sophie Muller, and we basically start each video thinking, "where do we want to go on holiday?". We thought, what about Ibiza, and Armin was there doing his DJ in Amnesia. So it all worked out. We went over to Ibiza, saw Armin there, had a couple of days on a boat, and by my friends' pool. It's actually my friends' house that we used. They have a beautiful house in Ibiza.

This was summer, right?
Yes, it was August.

Right, so let's leave this Ellis hit and go back a little bit. You started your career in '97 as a singer in theaudience band, right? Then after this in a couple of years you started singing solo, and it's almost ten years that you sing as Sophie Ellis-Bextor. So do you have your favourite tracks, say your top five?
The top five of my singles? Ooh..

Or are they all your "babies", your "children"?
No, I do have ones that I love doing. I mean songs like Murder on the Dance Floor and Groovejet are always just so brilliant to do live. Heartbreak, I have to say, is a very exciting track live, it really sounds so massive; I think those Freemasons are really clever guys. There's a song I did on the last record called Today the Sun's On Us, which is more of a ballad, and it was quite fun to do something that was different. I would probably put Not Giving Up in there because it's my latest one. I think you're always the most excited about your new one.

Now I want to ask you, you have two beautiful sons. By-the way, how are they?
They're good, thank you

Are you taking them with you?
No, it's not fair, there's too much travelling. I'll be home on Tuesday night.

So maybe they have favourites of your songs?
With my one-year-old it's hard to tell. He kind of head-bangs to everything. My six-year-old quite likes a couple of the album tracks from new record. There's one called Magic that starts with this quite high "poo-poo-poo-poo, poo, poo"[sings], and I hear him around the house playing with his toys singing this little bit. Maybe one of those ones might be his favourite.

We know that for your first-born baby you made the hit Supersonic. So maybe what about making a hit to honour to your second baby?
I know, first babies get a lot more attention that way, don't they. It was actually a song called Love Is Here that I wrote for Sonny. You know, I think both of the babies are infused in this record anyway. I mean you can't write except from experience. They're both represented and that's what I'll tell my second child when he's older - "Yes, you're in there, Darling. Maybe you haven't got one song but you're in amongst the whole album".

I hear you made a video after your second baby was born - it's Heartbreak, right?
Right. Ten weeks after.

You're singing there Heartbreak Make Me a Dancer. How do you go through your obstacles in your read life?
Like a lot of people, I do use music as my companion, whether it's to celebrate happy things, to let out when you're feeling angry or sad - you know, it's completely autobiographical. I've definitely been in that position where you're feeling really heartbroken and you go out to a club and feel you've just got to dance through this. I think that's human nature actually.

Yeah, I feel the same. I want to ask you who inspires you, what kind of music, what are you listening to, what do you have on your iPod, your iPhone?
Um, what have I been listening to? It's quite diverse really. I like listening to dance music, but I quite often listen to old disco, and old Michael Jackson and David Bowie, or I listen to bands like Phoenix or Arcade Fire. You know those people here?

Yes, they're all here.
Yes, it's quite a big mixture. There's a lot of chart stuff I think is brilliant. I think, you know, Florence and the Machine, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry... There are loads of good people out there.

If you were to sing a duo with some artists, who would you take with you to sing?
On the world of dance it would be quite fun to do something with David Guetta. For a duet I'd like to sing with another female artiste, because it's quite unusual see women singing together. I think that might be fun. So maybe someone like Gwen Stefani or Nelly Furtado - I like their voices. Or maybe Brandon Flowers from The Killers; he's got an amazing voice.

Sophie, we know you were offered a major role in Moulin Rouge!" Can you tell of all those characters the one that most fits you?
Well, I have to say I was not actually offered a part. I just auditioned. I met with Baz Luhrmann. Nicole Kidman is the only person I know who was offered it. So who would I like to do? Well did you ever have the series Twin Peaks?

Yes
Maybe I could be a character from Twin Peaks.

Which one?
Maybe Audrey.You know the hotelier's daughter, with the dark underside. That would be fun. That's why I learnt to tie a cherry stalk in a knot with my tongue watching that.

Now Murder on the Dance Floor. Which year was that?
2001

In the video you win a dance competition using all sorts of crafty ways. Has this happened in real life in show business?
I do think of all the videos I've done this was the most fun because I sat down with the director (Sophie Muller again, the same one who did Not Giving Up) and we made a list of the most awful ways we could get rid of people if we were in a competition. It ranged from poisoning people or make them slip on butter, to making it look as though one of the boys had an affair. It was great, I really enjoyed making that video.

Now I can't imagine Sophie Ellis-Bextor performing without heels, without baby-doll style dresses, red lipstick and sometimes {trait?} on their eyes. Is it, Sophie, your own style, or do you have a stylist telling you how to dress and what to do?
No, I'm a real creature of habit. I've loved that look, that sort of 1950s, sometimes 1960s look, since I was little. Sometimes I do my own makeup for the shows and I help design what I'm wearing for the gigs. Sometimes I think, "maybe I should try something different" but I always end up coming back to the same stuff because it's my favourite. I always do the black {tick?}. It's not always red lipstick; sometimes it's pink or orange - I love all of that.

So you just feel just comfortable with {tail?}, right?
Exactly.

The blonde time, was your idea, right?
Yes - it was rubbish I know!

So never again, right?
I don't know. It served its purpose. I was going through a bit of a transition, so that is what it was about really.

One more question for the girls - one of the most popular. How after two babies, you kept your body so perfect and skinny. How did you do it, please tell us your secret - especially for me.
Well, Firstly I didn't really have such a brilliant figure to start with, so I did not have such a high standard to return to! I didn't do any diets or anything like that, but with both children after about a year I started feeling like myself again. Just by going to the gym - and I jump around a lot on stage - in about 12 months I was back to normal.

How many times a week do you go to the gym?
I try to go three time. But sometimes it's just twice or once, or not at all.

An interesting question - have you read any hoax stories about yourself on the internet or in magazines?
I think the biggest one I heard was I was going to be in Friends - the American comedy. I read this whole story about how I'd been offered a part, and how excited I was to be doing it. It was all complete rubbish, I'd love to have done it, but....

Do you like the sit-com, Friends?
O yes, very funny!

What is your favourite character?
I think it might be Ross, I think he's funny. David Schwimmer plays him well.

A big holiday is coming, Christmas and the New Year. What are you planning to do? Will you be celebrating with your family, or working, or not working?
Christmas I will definitely be at home and not working. It's a really exciting time in our house, especially with two little boys. They can't wait, and every day it's all the Advent Calendars, and we're going to get our tree on Wednesday, and decorate it. I've actually got 18 people at my house on Christmas day that I've got to cook for.

So it's like a tradition every year in your house?
It has been for the last little while, yes. And then for New Year, ideally I'd be singing somewhere because I don't really like New Years Eve. So I'd rather work.

And the last question. If I were Santa Claus right now, what presents would you like?
Well, I'm always partial to the same stuff, you know, clothes, and nice shoes, and so on. But what would I really like? Well we moved house not that long ago, so anything for the home. I'm very inspired by a programme called Mad Men. So any of that 1960s-inspired home-ware. Beautiful! I'd like any of that. And I need some new luggage - I need a mid-sized overnight bag. Something like that would be good.

Sophie, I wish all your dreams come true. Thank you very much one more time for coming [all applaud] . We wish you a great performance tonight, a cool concert, and make us dancers!
Yes, Yes, I shall. I'll make it my mission.

Thank you very much. See you tonight.
Thank you.