Singer Victoria Hart shot to fame over night when she was invited to Cannes to sing for none other that George Clooney and Brad Pitt.Off the back of her performance, which took her away from her life as a singing waitress, she released her debut album Whatever Happened to Romance as well as being a hit at Glastonbury, despite the poor weather.Now the nineteen year old singing sensation is back with the release of her mini album Mood Swings, a collection of favourite covers. I caught up with her to discuss her whirlwind career, the new record and the future.
Did you always want to sing? And how did you get started?
I've always wanted to sing, for as long as I can remember. I was in classical singing training when I was tiny like eight or nine I got entered into all these competitions and I lost , I came last in every single one. I kind of stopped then but all I wanted to do was sing. Then I was singing throughout school, in all of the plays and concerts, and a piano teacher asked me to come and sing at this jazz concert when I was sixteen and there was a producer there and he was like 'you have really got something I want you to come into my studio'. He thought I was twenty or twenty two and I was this fifteen year old girl but that is where is started and we started recording and getting everything together.
And you sang in Cannes
I did I guess you could say that was my big break.
How did all that come about?
I moved to London when I was sixteen, just to go to a music college and start following it seriously, and I started working in a restaurant as a singing waitress I needed to earn a bit or extra money so I thought I might as well do it using my talents.
I was there for about a year and then I finished the course then this guy came in and he was like 'I really want you to sing for a party' and I was like ok, thinking it was a wedding or something. The next thing I know I got a phone call saying ok in two weeks you are going to sing for George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Cannes and I was like you are kidding me.
And what was the experience like?
It was incredible. But when I found out I didn't want to get my hopes up thinking it would be a cool experience but I kind of even thought they won't even be there. I grew up in Cannes and I have been crashing Paris Hilton's since I was fourteen and they come in for five minutes, the celebrities, and then they go to do their own thing.
But they were all at this party and it was incredible it was so weird, because at the beginning you were kind of watching then and they didn't look real they looked like moving Madame Tussauds models.
It was such a whirlwind and afterwards I can't believe it exploded like it did, we had to change our flights for the next because we had to do all the TV stuff out there. I had no experience with all of this stuff and I was just so overwhelmed, this giggly little girl it was so funny.
You are about to release a mini album called Mood Swings can you tell me about that?
The first album that was out, What Happened to Romance, was all original stuff, we had it recorded since I was sixteen, this new album, the lead song is 'Some Day' my favourite song from the last album we just changed the backing track and funked it up a bit, the rest of them are the favourite songs from all the gigs I have been doing. We went to just get them recorded because we thought that they would just be nice to have and we were listening to them back and we were like 'oh they are pretty good might as well release it'.
And how did you go about choosing these songs, I presume that you have got a few favourites?
Oh yeah, god yeah. It was kind of what we got from feedback, what people said and liked the most. I go through phases with songs I pick one and it's my favourite for a month and then I'm like no I can't listen to it again. And that's what's so funny about doing your original stuff on gigs it's like oh I've heard this song fifty million times. When you are listening to it it's like you can turn that off now but with gigs I never get bored of it I love being on stage so much.
And how would you describe your sound?
I would say it's kind of swing, I wouldn't call it jazz so much now, swing pop, that's what I call it, with lots of inserts from everywhere I'm just mucking around with it which is quite fun.
You have shot to fame quite quickly how are you finding all the attention?
I love it! (laughs) I have always been like that I'm the biggest attention seeker you'll know. it's so much fun, I haven't had any problems yet, you get some weird people but I don't mind it's quite funny.
It's really surreal, I had been back a week from Cannes and I already had three fan sites on the Internet it was like hang on this isn't real I had to keep pinching myself.
Your debut album Whatever Happened to Romance did really well how did you find the recording process?
It was really fun we did it all kind of live so we just went in the studio for four months one summer. It was really fun! Being in the studio is such a creative thing, and we go up to the studio in Gloucestershire amongst the horses and cows, and it's really chilled out and you get the creative juices flowing. I really enjoy it.
We are just in the studio now writing the fourth album, how scary is that? Because we have got one coming out, a Gershwin project that I'm, doing, so we are writing the music for that so it's really nice to create something new.
I was just about to ask about the Gershwin record can you tell me a bit about that and why Gershwin?
I love him! My first jazz ballad that I ever learnt was Summertime I think when I was six I heard the person before me singing it and that is when I first started knowing that I loved that jazz old school music. There is a little story behind the Gershwin thing because I'm doing it with my string quartet, the Pavao String Quartet, but that's a secret so I'm not allowed to tell you about that. We are going out to New York next week to talk to some of the Gershwin family which is really cool. So it's all very exciting.
Apart from this new album what is next for you say for the next twelve months?
We are really busy with the music side of things, which I'm really happy about, because in the beginning after I got back from Cannes you would forget about the music because you were doing so many photo shoots. So we have the Mood Swings record coming out and the Gershwin record coming out so we are doing lots of cool gigs for that because it's just voice and strings, so it's really quirky, so hopefully we will get lots of posh place we will play for when the Queen has her tea.
I'm doing loads of festivals this year, mainly jazz festivals, they are my favourite gigs to do because it's people who really want to watch music and so hey listen to everything you say and do and you really pick up great fans at festivals. So I', excited for the summer.
How did you find playing at Glastonbury?
It was incredible, I was a bit nervous because I thought I'm not this type of music, but I had the best time ever and the best crowd, I even reply to people of MySpace still. It was so much. It was so muddy which was so funny there was like a metre of mud and I had these Marc Jacobs heels and this new dress all planned out and I got there and I went no way and stayed in my pyjamas and put a jumper over the top. No way am I getting my Marc Jacobs shoes muddy.
What have you found to be the benefits of MySpace?
I have made actual proper fans that I feel really connected too you look at other people's Myspace's, other bands, and it's just people saying 'I really love the music' and that's it. Where as I want to make a relationship with them, that is the way that you get a fan for life. Sometimes if you talk to them it does get a bit weird you get some people giving me their numbers and saying 'come out' and it's like no why would I do that?
Victoria Hart's mini album Mood Swings is released 17th March
FemaleFirst Helen EarnshawSinger Victoria Hart shot to fame over night when she was invited to Cannes to sing for none other that George Clooney and Brad Pitt.Off the back of her performance, which took her away from her life as a singing waitress, she released her debut album Whatever Happened to Romance as well as being a hit at Glastonbury, despite the poor weather.Now the nineteen year old singing sensation is back with the release of her mini album Mood Swings, a collection of favourite covers. I caught up with her to discuss her whirlwind career, the new record and the future.
Did you always want to sing? And how did you get started?
I've always wanted to sing, for as long as I can remember. I was in classical singing training when I was tiny like eight or nine I got entered into all these competitions and I lost , I came last in every single one. I kind of stopped then but all I wanted to do was sing. Then I was singing throughout school, in all of the plays and concerts, and a piano teacher asked me to come and sing at this jazz concert when I was sixteen and there was a producer there and he was like 'you have really got something I want you to come into my studio'. He thought I was twenty or twenty two and I was this fifteen year old girl but that is where is started and we started recording and getting everything together.
And you sang in Cannes
I did I guess you could say that was my big break.
How did all that come about?
I moved to London when I was sixteen, just to go to a music college and start following it seriously, and I started working in a restaurant as a singing waitress I needed to earn a bit or extra money so I thought I might as well do it using my talents.
I was there for about a year and then I finished the course then this guy came in and he was like 'I really want you to sing for a party' and I was like ok, thinking it was a wedding or something. The next thing I know I got a phone call saying ok in two weeks you are going to sing for George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Cannes and I was like you are kidding me.
And what was the experience like?
It was incredible. But when I found out I didn't want to get my hopes up thinking it would be a cool experience but I kind of even thought they won't even be there. I grew up in Cannes and I have been crashing Paris Hilton's since I was fourteen and they come in for five minutes, the celebrities, and then they go to do their own thing.
But they were all at this party and it was incredible it was so weird, because at the beginning you were kind of watching then and they didn't look real they looked like moving Madame Tussauds models.
It was such a whirlwind and afterwards I can't believe it exploded like it did, we had to change our flights for the next because we had to do all the TV stuff out there. I had no experience with all of this stuff and I was just so overwhelmed, this giggly little girl it was so funny.
You are about to release a mini album called Mood Swings can you tell me about that?
The first album that was out, What Happened to Romance, was all original stuff, we had it recorded since I was sixteen, this new album, the lead song is 'Some Day' my favourite song from the last album we just changed the backing track and funked it up a bit, the rest of them are the favourite songs from all the gigs I have been doing. We went to just get them recorded because we thought that they would just be nice to have and we were listening to them back and we were like 'oh they are pretty good might as well release it'.
And how did you go about choosing these songs, I presume that you have got a few favourites?
Oh yeah, god yeah. It was kind of what we got from feedback, what people said and liked the most. I go through phases with songs I pick one and it's my favourite for a month and then I'm like no I can't listen to it again. And that's what's so funny about doing your original stuff on gigs it's like oh I've heard this song fifty million times. When you are listening to it it's like you can turn that off now but with gigs I never get bored of it I love being on stage so much.
And how would you describe your sound?
I would say it's kind of swing, I wouldn't call it jazz so much now, swing pop, that's what I call it, with lots of inserts from everywhere I'm just mucking around with it which is quite fun.