Miss Congeniality

London’s Home House Hotel on Portland Square is perhaps best known as the haunt of choice for Madonna whenever she is in town. In reality, it has become the backdrop against which the glitzy circus of celebrity in London is played. The hotel’s décor is vaguely reminiscent of that in ‘Gosford Park’ or ‘Upstairs Downstairs’, complete with ancient period features, a rickety lift, chintz curtains, expensive mahogany furniture and meals that almost certainly require a mortgage arrangement of some sort. Somehow it seems entirely appropriate for the day’s event: for today, the hotel is the location for a press junket for one of the country’s best-selling artists.

Most of you are familiar with what a ‘press junket’ entails: Hugh Grant made the whole event seem highly comical and novel in ‘Notting Hill’. The reality, however, is somewhat different, particularly when there isn’t a ‘Horse & Hound’ journalist in sight. Often, the assembled world-weary rock hacks trade war stories like much-loved baseball cards and hobnob with the impeccably attired record company staff (ALL record label personnel appear to be gorgeous, particularly if in PR… it’s the first rule of the music industry). Journalists from the UK, Scandinavia, France, and Spain are in attendance, with the American, Argentinian and Japanese contingent flying in tomorrow. There’s a definite air of hushed protocol in Home House this afternoon, with BMG staff working with an almost military-like attention to detail (I mean, has she got Saddam in there or something?). We’re not in Whelan’s anymore, Toto.
Then, of course, it hits me like a freight train. We are, of course, about to talk to Dido, who has sold over 15 million copies of her debut album, No Angel, worldwide – which is roughly 14.999 million copies more than any other band I’ve ever met. Since ‘Here With Me’, placed on the opening credits of ‘Roswell High’ made her a household name, she is simply one of the world’s most ubiquitous female stars. Her face is familiar largely from stylish Rankin photo campaigns, or from multi-million dollar videos shot in LA. While other female vocalists have had to strip, gyrate and backflip their way to the top of their game, we’ve watched Dido quietly and gracefully get there simply with the help of a truly beautiful album comprised of slickly-produced space-age lullabies, and a clean, simple but distinct vocal style.
With that said, it quickly becomes apparent that Dido is enjoying a very unique strain of celebrity. Most people know her music, and certainly everyone is familiar with her name, yet curiously enough for an artist of her commercial stature, she is largely left alone by the media, and can feasibly walk down the street without being overly bothered. By the time I’ve waited to meet her, though, she has already worked her way through the Scandinavians, the Spaniards and the Brits, the strains of answering the same questions about Eminem, her haircut, and her brother’s band Faithless are, quite understandably, beginning to show (“I get really embarrassed just talking about myself all the time. I could really do without them to be honest”). In spite of this, she radiates confidence and quiet self-assurance; paradoxically, she is the quintessential girl next door – her accent is largely unaffected, she is still living in the London neighbourhood in which she was raised (Islington), she is truly convivial company, and her confidence is laced with a sweet humility. One thing is certain, she is genuinely excited about the impending release of Life For Rent, the highly-anticipated follow-up to No Angel.
“Anything from family, friends, relationships, thinking about how my life has changed, what I want from my life, growing up from your mid-twenties to your thirties… all of it went into the writing of the album,” she reflects. “The album is all about enjoying and engaging in life, being less afraid, telling people what I really think. If I’m more honest and open to people, I feel a hundred times more alive. When I was younger I hid things a lot more.”
While Dido may be able to walk the streets relatively unnoticed, the rumour mill has been particularly busy; interestingly, most of the rumours circulating about Dido pertain not to her personal life but to her musical collaborations and plans. If anything, this bears testimony to the notion that she is more regarded for her songwriting abilities. Speaking of songwriting, it turns out that she co-wrote the track ‘I’m Not A Girl (Not Yet A Woman)’ for Britney Spears. “They needed some help with the lyrics for the song, and I think Britney’s really sweet and cute, I like her, so I helped out. It was really interesting. I hadn’t written a song for a market, or for a person ever before. I did it in one evening. I kept trying to put dark shit into the song, though, which they kept taking out. In fact, it was pretty difficult to do, but it was a challenge.”
One particularly persistent rumour pertains to the notion that she has worked with Elton John. She rolls her eyes at the mention of it. “Honestly, I don’t know where these things come from. People keep asking me this, and it’s definitely a new one on me. I met him on a plane once, does that count? There are many rumours knocking about, but wow, that’s a random one. These things go in one ear and out the other. People call me up and say they’ve read something, but I’m just like, ‘yaaawwwwn… okay,’ although the showbiz magazines like Heat have left me alone for a while now. I don’t need it, and I don’t see it. It’s like, I’ll be having a fantastic day, with some friends, getting coffee or whatever, and then some guy comes after you with a camera. I mean, I don’t need it, it’s just bullshit.”
Another rumour has contended that she is set to usurp Kylie Minogue as the ‘muse’ of Dolce & Gabbana. “It’s a total lie,” she says, somewhat amused. “Yeah, I heard that they were totally reinventing me. I love their clothes, I wear their stuff all the time, and they dressed me for my last tour, but I don’t know how a designer would reinvent me.”
Asked about her image, she says she is a consummate girlie at heart. “I love getting dressed up, although normally I just wake up and throw on the jeans. Right now I’m wearing Marc Jacobs, Levis and Topshop, and Calvin Klein underwear and Jimmy Choo shoes.” I confess to her that I broke junket protocol earlier in the afternoon by taking a taxi to Oxford Street and doing my own 45-minute power shop in H&M. “Oh wow, I love H&M. Do you have one in Dublin? Dublin’s pretty great for shopping normally. Topshop here is just amazing.”
She is predictably and famously cagey over her personal life, although it subsequently transpires that a few wily tabloid journalists have recently managed to extort details of her split with fiancée Bob Page and recent relationship with Faithless label boss Ferdy Unger-Hamilton. The single, ‘White Flag’, is unmistakably a product of that turbulent time of her life. “It’s a song about that situation where you still feel something for someone, or you’re still in love with someone, but you don’t say anything to them as you know you will mess them up, so you just keep it to yourself.”
She is US-bound the following week, where she will shoot the video for ‘White Flag’, which will star David Boreanaz, star of ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Angel’, as her love interest. “Making videos is a real laugh,” she says. “Sometimes though, I don’t really like defining a song visually too much, as I’d rather everyone used their imagination while listening to the music.” Ever the queen of understatement, she stops to think before noting that “the amount of money they spend on my videos, though, is pretty cool. It makes me feel really important!”
She is set to tour the US in October, after the release of Life For Rent. “I really enjoy it… we head around in a van, and get wheeled out in a few hours, getting ready in the toilets in a radio station. It’s a real giggle actually. I can’t wait to get out there after being in the studio, I’m sick of not being able to look out a window and be on tour… eventually I’ll be dying to get back into the studio. It will be great now though, seeing as there are two studio albums. Beforehand, I felt as though I was stretching out the first album into a set.”
Her last live performance in Ireland was somewhat memorable: “My whole family were out there. I was so nervous about their heckling, which of course they did. In fact, I go to gigs in Dublin more often than in London, sometimes it’s just nicer to be there. There’s a better crowd there too.” She then goes on to extol the numerous virtues of Irish music: “I saw Damien Rice in the Union Chapel there a while back, it was just incredible. I really rate him. He was amazing… but the girl that was singing with him (Lisa Hannigan)? Oh. My. God. I was just like ‘who the fuck IS she?’ Her voice is just totally extraordinary. I mean, she’s amazing, isn’t she?
“There’s always great stuff coming out of Ireland… I’m coming across some stuff from The Thrills too, people are talking about them here quite a lot, and I’m getting to hear a lot about David Kitt, he’s pretty great. But Damien has been my favourite for a while.”
She is set to stop by Dublin on her impending world tour, although a venue has yet to be decided. “I want to do it somewhere pretty intimate, but I’m not sure where yet.” Momentarily forgetting the 15 million album sales, as you do in her company, I just stop myself in time before I blurt out “You should try The Sugar Club.”
With that, a PR person motions that my allocated time is up, with a barrage of other journalists waiting to meet her. Her voice and her music may be recognised across the world, but she is also, in a world full of fakers, sharks and hangers-on, a genuinely warm, engaging, funny person who happily chats away as if catching up with an old friend.
As only a woman who has sold 15 million records could.

Life For Rent is out now on Cheeky