LeAnn Rimes wrinkles her sugar-plumb nose and fixes me with a measured glare.
“I don’t believe pop stars should talk about politics because the things they say can have such an influence over the public," she says. "I have huge admiration for what Bono does, but it’s not my place to preach my own political viewpoint. It would be irresponsible.”
She may be only 24 but Rimes, who warbled her way to the top of the charts with the Wagner-proportioned smooch rocker ‘How Do I Live?’, has the unflinching chops of a veteran. We’re talking about Dixie Chicks, like Rimes a southern country act with crossover pretensions . Or rather, I’m talking about them. Rimes, an absolute sweetheart but steely with it, is unwilling to be drawn on her political opinions. Asked straight out if she voted for George Bush in 2004 and whether she thinks he has since been exposed as a cynical bumbler, she flutters those flawless eyelashes (a make-up guy pops in intermittently to freshen her up) and, always polite, converses in circles.
“There’s a difference between a pop star going out and campaigning for a good cause and trying to force their own political beliefs on another,” she says. “For a worthy cause, I would do most anything. I’ve no interest in preaching to my fans, though.”
Rimes grew up in rural Mississippi, a region that last year suffered the final, fading furies of Hurricane Katrina. Does she agree with those claiming the US government botched the crisis?
“Katrina was so, so terrible,” gasps Rimes, her mooncalf eyes widening. “In Mississippi, we caught the end of it, and compared to what people in New Orleans suffered, I guess we got off kind of lightly. But I went back there, to Mississippi, afterwards and there was still so much devastation. I tell you, it broke my heart.”
She hasn’t, of course, answered my question. But, giving Rimes her due, she at least goes to the effort of sounding sincere. Her music is in much the same vein – drive-time schlock delivered with (just) enough empathy to cut through the turtle-wax production job and encourage the listener to feel something. She’s quite a trouper too, a teen starlet who, by all appearances, has grown into a rounded adult – ambitious sure, but not bent, Stepford-like, on success to the detriment of all else.
There was, mind you, that lawsuit business with her father, Wilbur. In 2000, Rimes sued his management company, alleging he had siphoned off $7 million. Dad countersued, claiming owed royalties. The dispute was settled out of court.
“The biggest lesson I learnt is that family, friends and business do not mix,” says Rimes, insisting her relationship with her father is today steady and loving: “My dad and I have an incredible friendship. Business is business and I wanted that separate. Now he’s just my dad.”
We are speaking in a primped and vaulted suite in Dublin’s Four Seasons Hotel. Rimes is in Europe, promoting her new record. In the context of her backstory – sweet country girl with the grown-up voice becomes a southern rock darling at 13 – the album is practically revolutionary. On the cover, Rimes, apparently wearing little but lace stockings and a negligee, gazes demurely at the listener; within, she dabbles in Aerosmith-tinged rock and – what was she thinking? – duets with Brian McFadden.
Who, I wonder, stands to gain most from the collaboration, a huge, blubbering ballad called ‘Everybody’s Someone’? Could the song be the making of McFadden in the US?
“Well, people already know who he is there,” claims Rimes. “At least, some of us do – there is certainly an awareness of Westlife. Working with him was fantastic because there was such instant chemistry, which is important when you're doing a love song. You’ve got to sound like you mean it.”
Dueting with McFadden was a departure for Rimes to the extent that the two were actually in the studio together. She’s collaborated with Elton John and Ronan Keating in the past – in those cases, technology conspired to keep the singers an ocean apart: “It can be kinda creepy, being in a studio on your own, with this disembodied voice. It’s not ideal. With Brian it was so much a better experience – I could actually look over and see him there.”
Rimes describes her voice, rather predictably, as a ‘gift’, something which she goes to lengths to protect. She takes yoga classes to increase lung capacity and, before a show, will spend an hour performing breathing exercises: “It’s basically an instrument and if you take it for granted, you'll damage it.”
She says she wasn’t always sure whether that voice really belonged to her: as a teenager, the songs she was given exuded a world-weariness she didn’t entirely understand. Rimes was 15 and had never had a boyfriend, when she recorded ‘How Do I Live’.
“I was a pretty good actress as a kid,” she says. “My dad would explain the songs to me. I had to put myself in the position of imagining how an adult would feel,when I sang. Now, I am an adult and I’ve experienced those things first-hand, so it feels as though a lot of what I’m doing is brand new.”
Having made the leap from country to rock, is it possible I wonder, that Rimes might follow the lead of such stars as Gwen Stefani and Nelly Furtado, hooking up with a fashionable hip-hop producer for a thug love makeover?
“Well, you can’t ever rule anything out,” she says. “But I can’t ever imagine doing a hip-hop record. Right now, that’s just not the person I am.”