Sheffield singer Helen Boulding may not be a current face inflicting itself on the screens on mainstream music TV, but she boasts such an impressive musical CV she could shun the rest into shame. If Boulding was ever to lose her touch of modesty she may be compelled to brag about her musical conquests. We wouldn’t like to name drop on her behalf but fellow admirers and co-writers of the singer would include a Mr Bryan Adams, a legendary Simon Tong and renowned song writer Billy Steinberg. She even coaxed a retired Rick Wright from Pink Floyd into co-writing with her; this is not by any bewitching charm, this is the influence of her musical brilliance. Soothing our ears from the aftershock of pedantic pop Boulding brings us her first album New Red Dress, which was released in February 2008. The album is beautifully crafted, the songs well woven form and poetically pleasing style shows how years of professional experience can eventually pull off a masterpiece. We catch up with the talent musican and persuade her to spill the secrets of her magic touch with have seduced so many cynics and celebrities.Your new single ‘Way To Go’ is being released on April 7th and has been added to the play list at Radio 2 this week, how do you feel about that? Very happy! Very happy indeed. Well we got album of the week then we got play listed on Radio 2 so I was really haven’t hoped for anything better than that because we’ll be getting constant rotation and single exposure. You have made a new video for the single that is now released (http://www.helenboulding.com) what can we expect from this video? It’s got a little bit of a story to it, it kind of has a achy-ness like the song does but it’s quite an up-lifting tune.

Your new album is titled ‘New Red Dress’ how did you decide on that name for your album?

Basically ‘Way To Go’ that’s the next single and that is one of the lines in the chorus. It’s a strong image, it just felt right. I tried loads of different other things but I was writing that down and I was like yeah, give that a try that’s the one. I knew straight away.

What other ones have you tried before?

What I wanted to do was I wanted to get a line out one of the songs so it was part of the album as an opposed with something that had nothing to do with the album. So I kind of wrote down loads of lines form the song and then that was the one that stuck out to me the most I thought yeah, this is it. I thought that would be great imagery as well because of the photo on the front.

Your photo on the front took by Bryan Adams. How did you get him to do that?

Basically I already knew Bryan, he rung me up when he heard my demo and said he really loved my music and I knew that Bryan is a photographer as much as an artist in his own right he’s taken pictures for Vogue so I thought I’ll ask him if he fancies doing the album cover. So I asked him and he said yes! So I was like great, fantastic! And it was great because he’s an artist himself it wasn’t just like having a photographer. Someone can take a nice picture of you but it might not capture the character or something striking for an album cover and he understood that concept, he really had a hands on influence in the way it was styled and getting the character across he was really great.

Is there ever a chance you would duet with him?

That would be nice I might ask him!

What kinds of sounds can we expect to hear from your new album?

Basically it’s got up tempo songs and it’s got very mellow songs the influences are very kind of 70s with a classic sounding production mixed with a flavour of today. It has a lot of love songs it’s a real kind of achy but with an uplifting tone to it too. It has, and I will say this myself, classic songs.

Does it draw upon any heart break experiences of your own?

No it’s all different stories from my life some are about dodgy boyfriends obviously but one track is about my granddad there’s one track about a friend of mine who’s husband died there’s lots of different stuff on there mainly love songs but there’s lots of other things. It’s like a little journey over the last few years.

You’ve worked with some of the biggest names in the music industry, including Simon Tong and Pink Floyd’s Rick Wright, who had even come out of retirement to work with you. How do you get these big names to work with you?

I just ask! A lot of these people hear about you through someone it’s basically word of mouth so Rick Wright from Pink Floyd Chris Difford told him about me because Chris has always loved my stuff and he’s always been a bit of a mentor. Word of mouth is the most powerful medium when someone tells someone about something else it’s not a review it’s someone going check this out its great. And if it’s someone like Chris Difford people are going to listen because it’s someone who’s very musical themselves. It’s really flattering to be able to write with Rick and the same with Simon Tong. On the very first track of my album Simon came along to play on it and he loved my music and he said you want to do some writing? So I did some writing. So I’ve been quite lucky really that people have really liked my music.

Out of all the people you have co-written with who have you had the best experience with and made the best music?

I think the best experience is the guy that produced my record, I’m glad I picked him because when it came to making the record I was doing stuff slightly more acoustic and he really pushed me to try things and open up and really got the best out of me vocal wise and really pushed me to do the best I could do. Out of making that record I was looking at things slightly differently so some of the tracks I would have thought should have been very acoustic but he was like no, let’s have the band on it. I was like oh no, drums. He did it and I was like wow, this really works! I think he was the right person because I trusted him and let go. That was a great lesson because sometimes if your head going in one space and you think I want it to be like this you don’t see what it could be something else there’s lots of roads to go down. So that was a really quite a life changing experience making a record with him.

You write your own music and play your own instruments, what do you think of all the manufactured pop that’s out there?

I think with manufactured artists there’s always a market for them. You always need pop stars because it’s a different market. Your selling to 16, 17 year olds there’s always going to be a place for Spice Girl type bands. Leona Lewis I think she’s a really great singer but I think there’s room for everyone. Adults will buy a different type of music, adults are likely to go out and but an X factor album. I do think at the moment though there is a kind of confusion to what a sing song writer is because when I watched the Brit award it was like the British school award those artists were like plucked manufactured artists that were taking awards that would of ten years ago gone to people like Annie Lennox as opposed to manufactured artists. Even five years ago people like Dido Jem and K. T. Tunstall are artists who have been on the circuit for a while where people like Kate Nash are plucked manufactured artists. It’s great if she’s a pop star but she’s coming under the bracket of sing songwriter now for some reason sing songwriters have become pop just like R’n’B were pop a few years ago.

You come from a very sporty family; did you pick up the sporting gene at all?

Well I used to play netball for the county and hockey for county at school and tennis. When I first moved to London I was playing for the High Park Ladies netball team and I did a marathon last year. So I do like sport it’s one of my passions. I used to be the one you had to drag out on the tennis courts especially if it was cold I just wanted to be on the piano all the time so that was my passion.

Do any of your brothers or sisters share your passion for music?

They do actually, Rory and Mary who’s the youngest they really good at the piano. Rory has been getting shockingly good recently even getting better than me at the moment! So those two are musical so that’s crossed over really. He’s a man of many talents a professional foot baller and a great pianist.

Out of all your songs which one means the most to you?

I really love Cobenhagen, I’m proud of them all in different ways but Coperhagen is my favourite emotionally I like to listen to that one. I’m very proud of Blue (I Always Look This Blue) because it’s very musically and technically quite challenging song. I’m very proud of Way To Go that one is very simple and I’m proud of that in a different way it’s just a great song! I sound like I’m being so cheeky thinking I’m so great!

Female First- Claire Williams