Girls from Brazil

“I want to be Jack Kerouac, Mona Lisa, Ghandi and Mother Theresa all at the same time”. As far as statements of intent go, it’s a little more ambitious than ‘we want to be big in Belgium’. When I remind Nelly Furtado, dropping by for the small matter of supporting now regular touring partners U2 at the second Slane, of the words she literally curls up in her chair with embarrassment. “I wrote that when I was nineteen, just for a disclaimer”, she laughs. “It’s a little pretentious. It’s certainly different.”

Well maybe, but would it be fair to say that Nelly is interested in more than just selling a few records? “I’m happy to be doing music. What I like about it is that I get to connect with people. I love inspiring people. You get past a certain point with what you’re doing in a live rock show… For me I want the connection to be even further than just playing shows. I want to write prose and literature, I have done since I was young. For me, it’s about poetry and moments, no matter how I get that.

“I’m using music because it’s what I do naturally”, she continues, barely pausing for breath. “It’s kind of in me, for me it’s like ‘eating, drinking, music’. It’s like breathing. I literally don’t think I could survive if I couldn’t create. It’s like meditating for me, the way I clear my head, the way I feel alive, the way I feel spiritual, in touch with nature.”

If there’s one thing that comes across about her, it’s that Nelly is a real music fan. She certainly is determined not to let her new pop star existence (and for all her credible comparisons, Furtado is a proper pop star) cut her off from what’s happening in the rest of music. Not for her a life travelling round in the back of a limo in her own little world. “I’ll be in the back of the limo listening to music. Last tune I listened to in a limo I was in LA and I had just finished the Missy Elliot remix for ‘Get Your Freak On’, I was with my friend and we put on our shades and played it really loud. It was pretty much the first time I felt really proud all year. Obviously I was proud of my album but this was the second time, I heard that remix and went ‘yes!’, I’ve done a good job here. It only took a couple of hours, it was really spontaneous. That was a lesson I learnt for my next album, where I don’t have to spend that much time on it because it’s all about feel anyway.”

How long did Whoah! Nelly take to come together? “Eight months of intense recording. It obviously wasn’t a problem because it’s worked out, but for a while we got so caught up in production and the equipment that we were using that we sometimes forgot about feel. You listen to the album and luckily there’s enough feel in the songs to carry it through. My problem is I don’t like taking a chance because I want to tour something that I feel really good about, because then you’re stuck with those songs on the road. I wanted a fun album so I could tour a fun album and not be depressed on the road, that was the initial plan. I’ve learnt that you can’t plan everything like that, you’re going to be depressed even if you’re singing a happy song.”

For the young Miss Furtado, her first musical revelation came though hip-hop. “Up until twelve I didn’t have my own ghetto blaster. My parents had a bunch of pop records around – Abba, Blondie, whatever – and then I started listening to the hip-hop urban stations, my friends brought me mix tapes. I started writing rhymes in addition to writing songs. We had a real small hip-hop scene, but some of the MCs have gone on to record albums that have gone worldwide on the indie hip-hop circuit. I was lucky to have a really creative childhood that way. I’d sneak out of the house just to watch someone turntable. Then I moved to Toronto…”

It was in Toronto that Nelly first began to make her own music.

“I did back up vocals for my friend’s hip-hop group and they were based in Toronto, so I went there to see if I could do some stuff when I was seventeen. I became obsessed with trip hop, which was really big at the time. I made that kind of music for about a year then got bored and thought my songs weren’t good enough. So I went back home, bought a guitar and went to work songwriting, going to school, deciding what I wanted to do.”

Despite the overt studio technology employed on her records, it’s that songwriting craft that still means the most to her.

“I base all my songs on melody and lyrics, all the best music captures that. Nirvana and Hole did that the best, a fusion of the lyrics and music that carves out an emotional space in you. I have to write with my guitar, when I was younger I used to write melodically all the time but now it’s the guitar. It dictates production a lot of the time, feel and rhythm. Guitars are a great instrument to write pop songs on.”

A young artist bursting with ideas and creativity, what happens next for Nelly Furtado is anyone’s guess. Thrust into the mad, mad world of pop after just one album, she is already planning her next great adventure. “It’s totally up to me what I want to do with my next album. If I came out with a trip-hop record, no-one would bat an eye lid because those influences are already there. Or if I made a rock record, or a folksy singer songwriter record. I’ve basically set myself up so I can do anything now and I just have to take it and run with it. My albums aren’t going to sound the same but you can guarantee they’re still going to be my own style. I don’t know what it is, but I just don’t belong to any one thing.”

If she can get the sounds in her head down on record, they’ll be no stopping her. Watch her fly. Like a bird, if you like.