Interview: 10 Minutes with Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Original Post - Ahlanlive.com

What can you tell us about your new album?
I’ve started doing some unprocessed, live sounding stuff as well as music that picks up where the last album left off. I hope to finish writing it this year!

What do you get up to when not performing?
Family life takes over. That’s my priority and what keeps me sane! I also love cooking and seeing my friends. I have a group of girlfriends I’ve known since school. We’re very close.

How do you juggle family life with work?
It’s chaotic at times and now that there are three it’s definitely logistically a little more complicated but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love my little boys and wouldn’t say no to another child one day but let me get my new baby [Ray] a little bigger first!

You have great style. How important is fashion to you and what’s your fave look?
Fashion and music have long been bedfellows. I love vintage clothing as it tells a story and is unique.

This year loads of celebs are getting a re-style. Any plans to shake up your look?
Post baby, just getting back to my classic look will be enough for me! I’m a creature of habit and I know what I like so no, I’m happy as I am.

You’ve recently done a track with Bob Sinclar. Any more collaborations planned?
I’m up for trying a collaboration with pretty much anyone. The worst that can happen is you write a bad song but you might just write something that changes everything. I love that possibility.

Mathieu Bouthier ft. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Beautiful (out soon)

French DJ Matthieu Bouthier collaborates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor on a hard-hitting dance track called "Beautiful", and as the track title itself suggest, the song is simply beautiful. Ellis-Bextor sounds absolutely gorgeous on the track. The chorus is brilliant - it just explodes in your face. The "la la lala" bit had better stretch on for a whole minute on the track...she sounds sexy when she la-la's.

Listen below:
Mathieu Bouthier ft. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Beautiful (extend snippet):


In other news, Fear Of Dawn release their remix of Fuck With You. Its very good; but I only wish they didn't cut out the second set of verses.
Bob Sinclar ft. Sophie Ellis-Bextor & Gilbere Forte (Fear Of Dawn Remix):


And SEBOfficial have upload the Not Giving Up On Love performance. The live version is so good. Its criminal they didn't release a DVD.
Armin Van Buuren vs. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Not Giving Up On Love (live @ Java Soul Nation, Jakarta):

Official Catch Up + Baby News + Jakarta set + Fuck With You Official Video

Hi all. I've been away for quite sometime; been very busy with my studies and my career. Also, nothing much was happening in Sophie-world all these days, so things were quiet around here. But now we're back online. Sophie has given birth to her third child, she is working on her fifth solo record - lets hope this year goes well for her.

So before we get to the official catch-up, here are some of the significant things I have missed out on all these days.

1. The FUCK WITH YOU video - It is branded NSFW.

2. Videos from Java Soul Nation (Jakarta) - SophieHQ have been uploading one video a week, and they promise to upload the entire set over a period of time. Its a good way to keep fans occupied, really. Although, I hope she considers releasing an EP of songs that didn't make it onto Make A Scene, just so we can kill time waiting for the next album.
Here are the videos:

Dial My Number

Bittersweet

Take Me Home

Me And My Imagination

Today The Sun's On Us

What Have We Started

Catch You

Starlight

3. Have you heard the latest leak? It's called "Work It Out". The entire song isn't out yet, but a snippet of the song was recently uploaded to Soundcloud. It sounds like the old Sophie, from the Read My Lips days..

4. Sophie gave birth to her third baby boy, called Ray Holiday Jones on April 25, 2012. A couple of tweets that followed the birth of the child -

5. A couple of other interesting tweets caught my attention. There was one with Billy Reeves (yes, The Billy Reeves of theaudience. Its nice to see they're still in touch). And another with Jake Shears...possible collaboration maybe? I hope so. Jake knows his way around good hooks. And an interesting response by the dirty rapper to what Sophie said on her interview.

6. And finally, here is the official catch-up from her official website. She revealed two song-titles - Love Is A Camera and The Wrong Side Of The Sun. The latter sounds phenomenal - hopefully it will be another Today The Sun's On Us / What Have We Started / Cut Straight To The Heart.

Hi Sophie, how are you?
Not too bad thank you.

Blooming and full of child!
Haha! Yeah I am. I'm at 38 weeks now.

So it's third time lucky with going the full term.
I know. It's been phenomenal. The people at the hospital have been absolutely brilliant. I do really appreciate it.

Have they had to pay you a lot of attention because you've had the two premature babies?
Yeah, exactly. They've had to keep an eye on me in case I started to get ill again, but I didn't. It's all good.

So you've never brought a newborn baby home before?
No, this will be the first time. Kit and Sonny both came home after about four or five weeks.

How are you feeling at the moment?
Excited, really. I have moments where I feel like I don't really know what to expect, but I just want to get on with it now, really. We're as ready for this baby as we're ever going to be!

Do you have an inkling of the sex.
We don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be another boy. We had quite a big visual clue at one of the scans!

Do you have names sorted?
Of course, yeah. I always do that. I'm a bit tragic. By the time you start telling people I already know what the names are. I like to be organised.

Has your girl's name been the same all three times?
No, I've changed it actually. I think you get to different points in your life and things have different resonance. Actually, people say to me, "I bet you want a girl" but I don't really feel like families work like that. When your child is born you just think, "Well, I was always going to have that baby". I didn't really realise that there was a bit of a thing about that. I've got three sisters, two brothers, we're all very higgledy piggledy. It didn't really occur to me that I would have any preference. But the amount of people that, if I say I think it's a boy, say "Aww" as if they feel sorry for me! And I'm like, "Well, I quite like the way they turn out!" And you do go into it knowing it's 50-50!

You really do get that?
Oh totally. I had it a little bit with the second one, but I've had it tonnes this time around.

The idea that you would be disappointed with a boy because it's not a girl.
Yeah, exactly. Like, "This is a disaster! Why did nobody warn me this might happen?!"

So, once you've had the baby presumably you'll be taking a bit of time off work?
Yeah, well, I don't really know how I'll feel. I've got a couple of things in June and we'll see how it goes, really. There are a few things in the diary.

And it's nice to have that other side to your life still going.
Definitely. It's been quite a peaceful start to the year for me - which has been lovely - and I quite like seeing that I've got stuff going on. But we'll see. I'm going to try and sort the baby out with a passport quite quickly so that I can take it with me as well.

The other big news in Sophie world is that the Bob Sinclar video is out.
It is! How's that for synchronicity!

It's certainly quite a viewing experience.
Hahaha! Yes. There's a lot of really peachy bottoms. But hey he's French, what did you expect?

What do you think of it?
You know what, I really like it. I think it's really kitsch and cool. Bob asked me if I'd be able to do the video and I was like, "Um kind of, but only from certain angles!" So he decided to do it that way. And, actually, I think it's great. I'm happy.

And are you pleased with the song?
Yeah. I don't even think it's that rude any more - I just find it quite funny. But some people are still adjusting to it, I think!

It's incredibly catchy. You have to be careful or you find yourself singing that chorus in public places!
Well, there is an "I wanna rock with you" version. You'll be safer with that. Actually, I had to play the sweary version to my 7-year-old because I wanted him to hear it from me and noone else. I told him that in France it doesn't meant anything rude, it's only rude here. So he thought that was OK. He's obviously quite anti-swearing and he's never heard me swear either. I'm not really a very sweary person.

The song certainly makes up for that.
Haha! Exactly.

Remind us how you came to do the song?
I was sent an email from Bob and I was obviously aware of what he does, but then I saw in the subject heading of the email attachment, "Fuck With You" and I thought that was ridiculous. But then I heard it and thought, "Well this is really catchy and quite fun". And I always thought it was quite tongue in cheek. It's not just a sexy thing, it's more of a woman getting her revenge on someone. Like, I wanna mess with you. The rapper, Gilbere, is the really rude one. I wonder if he's told his parents yet!

And the timing of the song, with you about to go and have a baby is pretty good.
I just think it's hilarious. It tickles me.

So, what else have you been up to?
I've been doing a little bit of songwriting. I've been working a little bit more with Ed Harcourt. And I did a song with Cathy Dennis the other day. So, yeah, I've been keeping busy but just on a low-key, at home sort of way. And Richard and I have been doing a bit of writing as well. It's been fun.

What kind of stage are you at with an album?
I'd say I still need to knuckle down and do a few more months, really. But it's definitely taking shape. I've done some great stuff with Ed and we've found a bit of a musical direction. But I'm going to take a pause while I have the baby.

Is there a song title you can tease us with?
We did a lovely one called Love Is A Camera and we did another one called The Wrong Side Of The Sun.

Obviously we've been posting the Jakarta videos and they've gone down really well.
Yeah, that's been really good. They filmed it for TV, I think. It's quite good quality, I thought.

The crowd looks amazing.
Yeah, it was fun. We really had no idea what to expect going to a country I hadn't been to for a long time, so it was a nice surprise.

Do you have any notion of when you might start to put some new music out?
Not yet. It's a bit early to say on that front. We shall see.

And have you been filling the house with new paraphernalia for the baby?
Not really. The only thing we got was a new buggy, because the old one was looking really tired. We've gone for another Bugaboo.

What colour?
Navy. I always go for that. I know they come in really loud colours but I like it a bit more restrained. Black always seems a bit too severe, so navy is quite good. And then I got a new Moses basket because the handles on the old one were held together with string! But that's all we've done.

It's going to be so strange to have a tiny baby in the house for the first time.
I know! It's quite odd for Richard and I because we've actually been quite busy in the last few weeks, and then suddenly we're going to have this little baby in the basket and he'll actually be here. I can't imagine it at all.

Are the kids excited?
I think so. Kit wants to call the baby Rose, whether it's a boy or a girl. Before that he wanted to call it Power Ranger. He's a bit obsessed with Power Rangers. If any of my fans have got any Power Rangers that they're getting rid of, they can always donate them to Kit's Power Rangers collection. We have to know the name of all of them - and they have different names in each series. There's probably about 12 different versions of them and he likes to know each of their names. But, yes, Sonny is really looking forward to the baby, because he loves babies.

That's great.
Yeah. And I think Kit's just got his head around it in the last month or two. He's three now so he's starting to find his feet a little bit more. I think he's really warming to the idea of being a big brother. Sonny's going to be 8 on Monday, so I'm hoping he'll actually be able to give me a bit of help. I was 8 when my brother was born and I adored him and used to give him his bottle and look after him. And now he's my drummer!

And it's so nice that you've not had the stresses of the last two births.
Oh totally. I sort of want to tell people that. I know that a lot of women, if they've had two bouts of pre-eclampsia severe enough to have premature babies, they'll probably be really apprehensive at the idea of a third. I know I was. So it's really nice to know that it doesn't always happen. It's just been so lovely to be able to enjoy it this time.

Bob Sinclar feat. Pregnancy Hormones - Fuck With You

1. What you're going to hear might make you extremely happy, and at the same time really sad. You're going to be very embarrassed when the song is done, but you'll press-play again, cos lets face it, this is the catchiest thing Sophie has done since Catch You.

2. I'm going to quote dsdlovespop's post from PopJustice, "This song is a groundbreaking genre-defining MASTERPIECE." Yes. It's over the top amazing, and if it was a random somebody on this song, I'd play the shit out of it. Oh that chorus and bridge! If she used a tune like this on Make A Scene, it wouldn't have flopped like it did. But I wouldn't change a thing about her album. It's perfect the way it is.

3. Am I embarrassed because Sophie used the F word? Not at all. She's done it before in theaudience. It's actually funny because she seems sort of embarrassed to say the word, so she's using her falsetto for it.

4. She's really trying to be a big thing on the commercial scene, isn't she? Fair enough, everyone wants to make it big. The sad thing is, Sophie Ellis-Bextor just went from that classy-but-slightly-eccentric-posh-diva on Starlight to this trashy man-stealing-Ho. What really confuses me is that she was just singing about girls like this on her own album, and she's now playing that character. Explain yourself Bextor, NOW.

5. By now, you'd have reached the middle-8. Brace yourself, you might have a stroke. Surely she couldn't have been in her right senses when this decision was taken, don't you agree? Maybe, like ansintheboy said on PopJustice "she's taking the piss out of 'rent-a-rapper'", or maybe she's just FUCKING wit her fans...we know she loves to do that anyway.

6. To sum up:

• Sophie Ellis-Bextor just achieved the newest low in the world.
• Bob Sinclar took the purest thing in pop and turned it into the next Britney Spears. Shame on you man.
• I blame Sophie's pregnancy hormones for this (sorry love, I'm extremely happy for you and the baby, but clearly you weren't in the right mind when you sang this song.)
• The cover is rather lovely though.

Here's the song: Bob Sinclar feat. Pregnancy Hormones - Fuck With You. Apparently the song is going to be the soundtrack to some movie.

Bits from here and there.

Sophie's album peaked at #33 in the midweeks on the charts. That is higher than what a lot of her fans were expecting from this album, especially after a series of failed singles. Nonetheless, the album is amazing, and will be this year's BEST ALBUM, and possibly Sophie's best album yet.

The album peaked at #8 on the UK Indie Albums chart. The album and the new single Starlight are available for download on iTunes.

Sophie recently recorded a song with Bob Sinclar. Remember World Hold On? Its crazy how this entire era has been so full of dance music. The fifth album will be a breath of fresh air. Anyway, here's hoping that the Bob Sinclar collaboration has more success than the rest of her singles.

Sophie signed up as a guest judge on the new series of Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model. The pop star is joining host and executive producer Elle Macpherson, who said "We had Sophie Ellis-Bextor and she was really interesting, because she is successful and unusual. She is not a stereotypical beauty. She gave great feedback."

Sophie revealed to DigitalSpy that she is filming a cameo for Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's new comedy series Life's Too Short. Writing on Twitter, singer Ellis-Bextor said: "Filming today w Warwick Davis, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant & Sting for series 'life's too short'. cameo for me, playing myself. Testing. (sic)."

PurplePR are doing a fabulous job with Sophie.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: NEXT TOP MODEL - http://entertainment.stv.tv/tv/259354-sophie-ellis-bextor-joins-up-to-britain-irelands-next-top-model/

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: LIFE'S TOO SHORT - http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a326008/sophie-ellis-bextor-confirms-lifes-too-short-cameo.html