Hot Press Meets Dido

“I am the sound of conflict.” Thus read the heading of a BBC interview with Dido this February, atop a piece that centred on the utterly surreal notion that Syrian rebels had adopted songs from the London singer’s latest album Girl Who Got Away as anthems to soundtrack their struggle.

It was more than a bit of a leap to imagine Dido’s loverlorn tones washing over war-torn cities, mixed into a soundtrack of gunfire and roars. But a quick YouTube search does indeed show an upload at the start of the year that puts her recent single ‘No Freedom’ to a video marked “Dedicated to the Syrian Revolution.” So what gives?
The girl named Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O’Malley Armstrong – she has artistic parents – is as in the dark as anyone. The “conflict” statement seemed distinctly un-Dido and, you guessed it, most certainly did not emanate from her.
“I’d like to say for the record that I did not say I am the ‘sound of conflict’ or whatever that headline was!” she guffaws, chatting away unnoticed in a noisy London restaurant. “Anyone that knows me would get that! Though the amount of people that called me asking if I really said that was remarkable. Of course I bloody didn’t! I would have finally lost my mind. The story was quite random. But yeah, a gift from a journalist.”
She groans the last line and smiles. But the significant fact that the quote was baloney aside, it was in many ways the perfect “she’s back!” story. After all, it has been five years since Dido’s last record, Safe Trip Home, and she freely admits that half the taxi drivers she comes across are under the impression she’s been missing in action even longer. 2003’s Life For Rent was a huge success, continuing the mammoth commercial success of her debut No Angel, and lifting the number of units shifted close to the 35 million mark. However, that’s close to a decade ago.
Her third album was different. It came from a sombre place, reflecting the grief that Dido felt at the time of her father’s passing. An Irishman, songs from Safe Trip Home such as ‘Grafton Street’ were paeans to him. Ironically, the record garnered much critical acclaim, but she felt she couldn’t perform it, and didn’t feel like doing all of the customary promotional work.
“The reviews were exemplary!” she laughs now, obviously at ease with the records relative lack of success, “But no-one knew it was out, other than the journalists! Instinctively, I felt it wasn’t the kind of record to go bashing people over the head with. It didn’t feel right. It was such a personal, insular record and I think when I started doing gigs, it just felt weird. I felt weird ‘promoting’ it.
“I know that sounds precious,” she adds, “but it really was that personal. It’s a really moving record but it’s really a moment of darkness. It feels a bit funny to get on stage with lots of lights and do it... do you know what I mean?”
The initial plan was to follow it quickly with material that was less intense thematically. She hit a purple patch creatively and today she admits that her fourth record could have been good to go a mere year after its predecessor. For better or worse, however, real life intervened.
“I found out I was pregnant,” she explains. “Which was very exciting (laughs). Suddenly, life went into high speed – and now we’re in 2013. I don’t really know how that happened!”
As John Lennon said: life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.
“When I got pregnant, my brother Rollo [Armstrong, also her long-term collaborator and founding member of Faithless] rightly said, ‘Let’s just leave it for a second and we’ll put it all together when you’re properly ready to release it’. I definitely didn’t want to put a record and a baby out at the same time, that would have been... bad. Not sleeping at all for the first year?! Now, it still feels new, even though it’s stuff from a while ago.”
There’s a joy to Girl Who Got Away, which makes sense when you consider that her son-to-be was kicking away, as she sang in the studio. Does Stan – yes, her child bears the same name as the Eminem collaboration that announced her to the world and, no, she hadn’t made the connection until it was pointed out! – have good musical taste?
“Well I think so...” the new mother ventures. “He likes my music! He’s quite decisive about what he likes, so there will definitely be a day where my feelings are hurt as he waves goodbye to one of my songs. So far it hasn’t happened though. But if he doesn’t like something, he waves goodbye to it really vigorously! Proper waving at the speaker!”
Another recent admirer of her work is decidedly more high-profile. Popping up with an unexpected verse on ‘Let Us Move On’, rapper-of-the-moment Kendrick Lamar didn’t hesitate to hop on a Dido track when the opportunity came his way.
“It was the usual email thing of, ‘I’m a big fan, would you like to rap on this?’ I wasn’t necessarily expecting him to come back, but he did and it was amazing.”
It seems like she has a lot of goodwill in the hip-hop community.
“Yeah definitely. I guess it’s where my music started. I was singing the hooks for rappers and dance artists, so for me it’s the most natural place. There’s always been mutual respect and love.”
Those influences abound on Girl Who Got Away, echoing her debut’s widely under-appreciated sense of adventure and experimentation. She puts it down to the confidence that comes with motherhood. There’s a freedom in having new priorities.
“That is definitely a really nice way of describing it,” she says, “very flattering. That’s exactly how it was though. You do feel more relaxed, you do feel more confident.”
It is easy to get distracted by the mass appeal of her early work, but the truth is that Dido never toed the line or tried to sound like anything other than herself. In that way, there is a comparison to be drawn between her at the turn of the century and the manner in which another British female songwriter has conquered the globe in her absence.
“I love Adele,” Dido remarks. “You can’t not love her, she’s totally brilliant. She’s still only 24 – that freaks me out. She’s got so much poise. There’s no way I could have handled what she’s handled at that age. It all kicked off for me when I was 29 and that’s a whole different thing. I have to say I’m in awe of her. She doesn’t put a foot wrong. She makes beautiful music and is somehow managing to have a life – so good for her.”
Canadian artist Grimes recently wrote an open letter on the sexism and stereotyping she’s encountered in the music industry at this early stage in her career. How does Dido relate to that?
“I think I’ve managed to avoid that for the most part and do you know why? No-one was helping me make No Angel, it was just me and Rollo. When that was stupidly successful, they didn’t want to interfere. It was almost like, ‘We don’t want to jinx it by getting involved now’. So they didn’t interfere with Life For Rent either, and they were never going to after that. So I’ve never really had ‘interference’.
“I’ve had one A&R the whole way through in America who has just been my rock, and I’ve had Rollo as well. Those are the people I go to and they’re not going to bully me about stupid stuff because they know my integrity is everything to me. So I think it’s down to circumstance. I see that stuff and I feel it, especially in this industry. I see how the pressure comes, particularly because it’s a tough world for record companies now. Thankfully I’ve always been quite immune to it, which I’m very grateful for.”
Long may it continue.

Girl Who Got Away is out now.