Claudia Morris
Claudia Morris is back with her new single Light Of My Life and she is currently working on a new album.
I caught up with her to discuss the new single, which is being released in support of Allergy UK, and what we can expect from a new album.
- You are about to release your new track Light Of My Life so what can we expect from the new record?
It is a very uplifting and slightly moving song. The top of the songs opens with violins it’s a little bit unexpected and it’s a little bit sad and then it goes right into a pop track - so there is an element of surprise in it.
- You have touched on my next question really this is a pop track but there is a real laid back and quite emotional feel to the record so how would you describe the sound of the track for anyone who hasn’t heard it yet?
It’s a warm, gentle, easy track I am an emotive singer so when I am singing I believe what I am singing at that point in time. It’s a gentle pop track it’s not a Madonna single (laughs).
- The track is being released in conjunction with Allergy UK so how did you get involved with them?
Twelve years ago I developed the first allergy free cake because I have a daughter who has multiple food allergies and asthma, my son doesn’t have multiple food allergies but he also has asthma and eczema, but she has always been the focus as she has it quite severely and it has affected her life.
In 2000 I developed the first allergy free cake because I was so angry that everything has got warnings on, people don’t really understand allergies and they will say things like ’give her a nut’ but it is actually a life threatening condition.
I made a promise to her then that I would do something about the fact that everything in the supermarket has got warnings on such as ’contains nuts’ all the supermarkets do it because they want to safe guard themselves but nobody actually does anything for the person who has the allergies.
I made a promise to her when I was really little that I was going to do something about it and then tah da there was may cake. That went really well but then there was a problem with the shelf life and it got axed, at the time I was going through a divorce and I just thought ‘oh god I don’t think I can start all over again with this’ so it was put on hold.
Since returning to my singing career, I have had a massive gap of eighteen years, I was showing little boy Milo the cake thing that I did because there were a lot of press cuttings and I got a lot of letters from mums and he said ’mummy why don’t you do that again?’
And suddenly the penny dropped and I just thought ’of course’ it is a natural link to do something through my music and raise awareness again and try and raise some money for Allergy UK. I was quite well connected with them all those years ago and so I phoned them up and asked if they would like me to do a single for them, and they were absolutely delighted. So that is how we got going really.
- The track is produced by Andy Murray so how did that collaboration come about?
I wrote the track with Andy Mallon, who is a very up and coming song-writer who has had a lot of hits abroad but not over here at the moment; in fact I think he is writing for Pixie Lott at the moment.
But Andy wrote me one of my tracks on my album Twelve O’Clock Tales and that got play listed on Jazz FM for two moths.
He is really talented so I called him up and said ’I really wanted to write a song can we do something together?’ And he put me in contact with Andy Murray and he said ‘you need someone a little more poppy and mainstream because I do Jazz normally’. So that is how I met Andy.
- He has written for the likes of Cathy Dennis and Gary Barlow so what does his experience bring to the record? And how did you find working with him?
He is just an amazing arranger and he just brings it alive, the arrangements that he has done on the track are just fantastic. He is very good at strings and we have only had a string quartet on the record but it doesn’t sound like it and it has not been doubled and over dubbed; we were going double it but we didn’t need to.
There is something about the way he hears a song he just gives it an energy and vibrancy that is quite extraordinary really. He is a lovely guy and he is really sweet plus he has had a lot of top ten hits and one his walls at home he has all these gold records and platinum and I was like ’bloody hell’. So hopefully his skills will have the magic to do well.
- So is there a new album on the horizon?
I am currently writing an album with Andy Mallon but we want to see how these tracks go (laughs). On my website you can buy the hard copy of Light Up My Life and there is a bonus track on there, Andy actually wrote that song for me and everyone has gone mad for it.
So we are thinking that that will be the start of the next album and we have written a few other songs together as well. So we are in the process but these things take time and we are in the very early stages. I am not going to completely go away from my jazz, because I love that, but I do need to branch out a little bit.
- Well that was my next question really I was wondering what sort of path you were thinking about taking this album down?
Mixed I think a bit more jazz/pop and a bit more retro - I am not Amy Winehouse but what she did was very clever as she went retro, while it is the same sort of thing I don’t have a soul voice, I have got quite a white voice (laughs). I would love to have a soul voice but that is not what I have been given.
- You had a career in the West End before you decided to take a break so why did you decide that that break was needed?
I was in the original cast of The Buddy Holly Show and doing the same show every single night seven days a week it kind of does your head in (laughs), actually I was doing six days a week but I was doing two shows on a Friday and two shows on a Saturday.
It was a hit show and we were getting standing ovations every single night and I was just like ’oh my God’. The beginning stages were amazing because it is exciting and then it becomes like an office job.
When I came out of that I was offered Les Miserables to understudy one of the leads and be in the chorus and I had to turn it down I just thought ’I can’t to it. I can’t be in another show like that’.
Then I met my now ex-husband and I just wanted to have babies, it’s funny I just turned my back on it. I never stopped thinking about singing, my ex husband was a musician and I use to sing with him, but I never really thought about doing it any other way than in musicals - it took me eighteen years to realise that I could have my own band and do my own thing (laughs).
- You made your return a few years ago so how did that break give you a new zest for your career?
Oh wow that’s a very good question. I am just totally driven and I have got a totally different energy. I know that I love to sing and I get a real enjoyment out of it and I know that it is what I am supposed to be doing. I have got a lot more energy and excitement for it.
I think it’s the years actually because when you are younger… I nearly had a big break when I was eighteen when I auditioned for Opportunity Knocks and the producer absolutely adored me and he said ‘you are going to win this show’.
I was at drama school at the time and basically the college said that I would have to leave if I did it because it wasn’t part of their contract, when you are training you are not allowed to be in the media basically, so I turned it down.
So you never know where it would have gone if I had stayed on that path, that’s life. It is different because I am older and wiser if you know what I mean?
- While you had a career in the West End it wasn’t until 2010 that you released your debut album so how have you found the transition to being a recording artist?
It is very different. I had done some recording before as I had done some demos and I was on the cast album of The Buddy Holly Show so it wasn’t such a dramatic change.
The change was when I did my first gig I did an hour’s show, I do two forty five minute sets now, but I did an hour’s gig and every song I am the star of the show and that is quite daunting, when you are in a show and you are part of something it’s very different to standing up and singing by yourself with your band and having to chat to the audience.
When you are playing a part you are a part you are not playing yourself so it is a little scary and it has taken quite a few years for me to be really comfortable in front of an audience in the way that I am not nervous and having a good time (laughs).
- You have mentioned that you are writing tracks for the new album so how have you found developing my song-writing skills?
I think working with someone like Andy has helped a lot because he is such an amazing talent. What we tend to do is I come up with what I want the song to be about and the feel of a song and then he comes up with the tune and then I might tweak it, so we really do work together.
For me to go away and write a song on my own I think would be disastrous (laughs). But with him, because he is so gifted, I think we bring out things in each other he teaches me and I teach him.
He is really the musician and I am more the ideas person - I don’t want to sing about junk I want things to be meaningful to me.
- Finally what’s coming up for you as a singer and do you have any plans to return to the theatre?
Only in my own gigs, I have been theatre gigs as I have been supporting The Soldiers; I also did a gig with The Springfields. So I have been doing quite big theatre gigs so I am back there and I am loving it this time around because it is my own shows and I can do what I want.
It is a completely different feeling because I choose my songs and I choose my band, it’s much more grown up in a way than being in a show when you are told what to do and where to stand and what your lines are.
You can visit iTunes to get your hands on Claudia’s new single Light Of My Life
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/light-up-my-life-single/id513290647
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw