A lot of people will know you for Wherever You Will Go, but is it true you were knocking back whiskey that morning?

I did. It was early in the morning and had this whole deep, croaky, husky voice going on and I asked if there was any chance I could get some whiskey. I’m not an alcoholic, honestly I never really drink, I hate getting drunk, but there’s just something about whiskey that warms up your voice and gets it to work. Then the piano was out of tune, so we had to wait a couple of hours for a tuner to turn up.

So, obviously I decided to have another Jameson’s. And when we were recording I thought it would be good to have one beside me. It’s a very low song in my range to sing. It’s in the key of A, so you’ve really got to relax you voice and I’m basically talking in tune to those verses.

What was it like when that song nearly went to the top of the charts?

We never planned for the song to do well, we never had a plan for it at all really. I just thought I’d do the song for the advert and the money I got from that would cover the expenses for this little label I’m on and then we’ll have broken even. I thought that may be a couple of hundred people might want to download it, so we put it up on iTunes.


I look back now and think that if I’d had any anxiety recording the song, hadn’t had one of those Jameson’s or thought it was a bad idea, it wouldn’t have come out the way it did. I think art is just an honest expression of where you are in life. People really liked it though and it got me through to a bigger audience and I’m honoured. We would have never have reached that many people, I’m very grateful for the Twinings ad happening in my life.So I was on tour with this band Fink for ten days and on the last day someone called me and said ‘Oh Charlene, I see you’ve got one of your songs in the charts’. I was just thinking they were having a joke, then I had to try and find out where the charts were without Top Of The Pops, which when you’re stuck in 1968, it’s hard to remember it’s not on anymore. It was really weird for me, my label and my manager as we really didn’t expect.

You’ve got a customised, vintage guitar. Are you a bit of a guitar geek?

I am. I’ve been playing guitar properly since I was five. I’ve never had any lessons though, I’m completely self-taught. I started playing live when I was eight and proper gigs when I was ten or eleven. When I was about ten, I took my dad’s old guitar out of the loft and took all the electronics out of it, being the inquisitive child I was. The problem was that my sister accidentally threw them all away as she didn’t know what they were.

Then, when I was seventeen at music school, a lot of the kids there were being bought ridiculous instruments by their parents. I didn’t have any money back then. I’ve never had any money, I’m South London born and bred. We don’t have money down here. So, I took the same guitar into school as asked my teachers if he could help me fix it up. So he taught me about electronics and we rebuilt this guitar together and it’s the same one I’ve been using live ever since. I love it.

When I was at school, I did fix up guitars and helped people; it’s kind of what I do on the side. I’ve not had much time lately, but sometime I’ll have some time off and just spend a week in a workshop building something.

Like a mad professor in a shed?

Yep, with a soldering iron, a saw, little old me and splinters flying everywhere (laughs). That’ll be fun! We’ll have a little montage! Let’s get some proper eighties montage music!

Is it true that you suffer with synaesthesia too?

I wouldn’t say I suffer with it; it’s just the name for something I have. It’s when you hear songs, you see colours. I think everyone’s capable of doing that though; it’s almost like a method of meditation. I don’t know what causes it, but it’s like timbres of sounds have colours to me. I can feel them not just resonate in my body, but I can see and feel a colour too. It’s hard to explain.

 I always knew I did it though, as I was always asking people if they’d seen what I’d seen when I listened to something. When I was little, people would look at me thinking ‘What is she talking about’. When you’re a child, you’re really open but as you get older, you’re taught to close down certain perceptions and ways of being. I think that innocence of being a child is a beautiful, honest thing. We kind of need that in our lives a bit more. We’re  all capable of doing everything.

I’m really tough on myself and I’ve been really ill the last month and it’s made my mood be really down. Then in the last couple of days, I’ve really tried to pick myself up. Everything we perceive in the world is a state of mind, and that’s something I want to get through to people with my new album Love Is The Law.

We can learn to love and accept ourselves for who we are, and love everything around us. Not just that boyfriend/girlfriend love, although that’s important, but something else. If you’re not happy or in love with your life, then only you are capable of changing it, because only you can see it how you do.

You’re also playing the BAFTA Nominee party. Looking forward to it?

I’m a bit excited about that. I’m not too sure what to expect, but I hope Alan Rickman’s there. I like Alan Rickman, or Benedict Cumberbatch. He’s a beautiful man, and we have the same birthday. I don’t think that’s a reason for him to really know me, and there must be fifteen years between us, but I might not be able to help myself.

Same with Alan Rickman, I just love his voice! I watched a short film recently called The Song Of Lunch with him in recently and it’s so heart breaking. I want to make a music video with him, but he’s already done that with another Charlene, the one from Texas. So that part of his life’s all done now (starts fake crying).

So, apart from that, what’s 2013 looking like for you?

Hopefully two more singles before the actual album comes out, making a couple of music videos and the design of the album’s one of the last things to do. We’ve got the front cover. When I was in New York making the Ghost video, Seth’s sister did a photo-shoot with me and we went around lots of really great places in New York doing lots of picture taking with an old film camera. So, we just need to design the inside bits. That’s all I’m doing with my life then.

 

Charlene Soraia’s new single Ghost is out March 18th.

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