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Perth MusicSandi Thom Interview
When your debut single is number one in seven different countries and your album goes on to sell more than 700,000 copies, you get to choose where you record the follow-up. And having made her first album on a minuscule budget in a freezing barn in Cheshire, you might think Sandi Thom would want to go a bit more upmarket this time. But Sandi tends to do things her own way, no matter how unconventional that may be. Which is why she recorded the whole of her second album, The Pink & The Lily in the basement of her flat in Tooting. Sandi Thom talked to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.
Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (14:12 - 1.6Mb)
I asked Sandi to explain the process of the creation of the album. “A lot of the album was written out on the road because that’s pretty much where I’ve been spending a lot of my time the past couple of years. It’s basically a reflection of the last few years and everything that has been going on, all the ups and downs, the highs and the lows and the tour-bus life and missing your loved ones. The recording of it all took place in my studio at home in the basement which was partially for convenience and I wanted to keep the roots element to it.”
“It was ace. I didn’t really want to think about it when I came home and had some tea I would just go down and start doing demo’s. And then we thought why would we go anywhere else. The quality of it doesn’t suffer because these days you’ve got such great microphones and great equipment you can buy and setup and you can get a really good quality recording anywhere these days. Myself and the two guys I live with, who are also my producers and co-writers and one being my boyfriend and the other a really good friend of mine, we live and breathe (music)” Sandi said.
Most debut albums contain songs that the artist has accumulated over a lifetime and follow up albums usually contain songs that are much put together in a much tighter timeframe. Sandi disagreed “I wouldn’t have anybody hear the stuff I was writing when I was 14-15 because it was just terrible so to be honest my first album was written up to three years before it’s completion. I didn’t really take a lot of songs that I had floating around my head my entire life. I think along the way I got better at it. So in the same way I think it was a similar timeframe, the second album was two and a half years in the making. I’m actually surprised it took that long but it did in the end and just gradually pieced together. We didn’t just sit down for 6-8 weeks and went hammer and tong and record it, it was recorded very gradually over time.”
Sandi’s first hit single I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker was a huge hit and spent 12 weeks on top of the Australian charts. I asked Sandi if she felt pressure following up such a popular song. “I think Punk Rocker represented a time and I’m sure for a lot of people when they hear it they think of the summer of 2006. For me it represented a certain time in my life and these new songs represent another time in my life and they are equally as important to me. I wouldn’t intentionally go out and try and rehash Punk Rocker or make another one because I don’t think I could and I think it would be really lame if I tried. This is a new chapter and new material and Punk Rocker will always be a song that a lot of people embraced and that will never change. If I get another one like that it will be amazing.”
The Pink And The Lily is out May 24. For more info on Sandi Thom visit www.sandithom.com
