The following article was published on Sandi
Thom's website during 2012.
Meet
Sandi
*****
Written by the world renowned rock journalist and
author Mick Wall.
*****
Sandi Thom is not who you
think she is.
*****
For a while most people still recalled
her as the precocious next-generation talent that produced one
of the defining hits of the internet age, ‘I Wish I Was A Punk
Rock (With Flowers In My Hair)’, this talented
singer-songwriter has come a long way in the years since
then.
*****
As Sandi
now says, “The strange thing about having the kind of success
I had, people think they know you. In fact, people don’t know
me at all.”
*****
That
is all about to change, however, with the release of Sandi’s
superb new album, Flesh and Blood. Recorded at Nashville’s
legendary 16 Tons studio, with celebrated Black Crowes
guitarist Rich Robinson in the production hot seat, the fourth
Sandi Thom album is, she says, “the first album I’ve made that
is really all about me.”
*****
Describing it as “a new chapter” in
her story, personally and professionally, she adds: “I never
liked to pigeonhole myself. I feel like my sound and voice
have been naturally developing since I was 14-years-old, and
that it’s only now I’ve finally hit upon what I really sound
like.”
*****
It’s a
sound that combines the blues-rock raunch of belting opening
track ‘Help Me’ with the balladic, country-flavoured charm of
‘In The Pines’; that shows how to funk it up, as on the
strutting, clavinet-led ‘Stormy Weather’; and that knows how
to break your heart, as with the movingly climactic finale
track, ‘Lay Your Burden Down’.
*****
Featuring a core studio band led by
producer Rich Robinson on guitar and including fellow former
Black Crowe and widely travelled session star Audley Freed
(guitar), respected Nashville stars Mike Webb (Keys) and James
Haggerty (bass), and Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman, there
are also guest appearances from acclaimed singer-songwriter
Buffy Sainte Marie, famous Rolling Stones collaborator,
saxophonist Bobby Keys, and Sandi’s life-long drummer Craig
Connet.
*****
Sandi:
“The best part about it was being able to breakout and work
with all these different musicians, putting it all in the
melting pot and seeing what comes out.”
*****
Adds Rich Robinson: “I’m really proud
of Sandi’s record. With the help of a great band of musicians,
Sandi really stretched herself and made a bold new album. Her
songs are honest and very strong. Her vocal abilities are
showcased really well on this record, as well as her guitar
work, and harp playing. Sandi’s a well-rounded musician and
she made a great record. It was great working with
her.”
*****
Indeed, the relationship
between Sandi and Rich went far deeper than that of mere band
mates.
*****
“By the end of the album
I felt like Rich was a brother. When you spend time like that
in such intensity, putting your emotions into a song, it
fast-forwards the process of getting to know each other. At
the end of the sessions we’d go down the road and sit in this
Mexican bar and have a few drinks and talk about life. In a
strange way, when we came back into the studio the following
morning, it all contributed to the recording process. You can
hear it all in the songs.”
*****
They met in LA, after
Sandi called Robinson out of the blue. She played him some of
her ideas, on acoustic. “I admit I was quite intimidated. This
is a guy who when he was 19 released an album that sold nine
million copies. But he was sitting there in sandals and a long
beard, this chilled-out hippy. That was our one and only
meeting till we started to make the record. He listened to my
songs and had a couple of things to say about them. But we
just started working together straight away.”
*****
Long recognised as one of
the most exciting vocal talents to come out of Britain, Sandi
says working with Robinson helped bring her singing to new
levels.
*****
“Rich
knew I had a confidence issue, as do many singers, so on
certain songs he really pushed to get the best out of me. ‘In
The Pines’, ‘Help Me’ and ‘You’re Not My Man’, those were the
most challenging tracks for me on the new album, as a singer.
They were really, really high – and deliberately so. Rich
pushed most of my songs up by at least a key, or a
key-and-a-half. He wanted to hear the struggle in my voice, to
get me to really work for it as a singer. He forced me out of
my comfort zone and into places I’d never been before, but
that he knew I could do.”
*****
‘Help Me’, which opens
Flesh and Blood, was actually the last vocal
recorded.
*****
“I
walked in and thought, right, you’re either gonna give this
your all or you’re really gonna f... it up. So I let all my
inhibitions go and just opened my mouth wide and began to
sing. And I did it one take. Just went all out and gave it
everything I had. And it was Rich that brought that out of me.
Sometimes he would even deliberately antagonise me, just to
get me to that very angry, pissed off level, where you just
let go, you know? He was very clever in that
respect.”
*****
Unlike his brother and
songwriting partner in The Black Crowes, the garrulous Chris
Robinson, Rich is more the strong silent type. But Sandi
managed to bring him out of his shell too.
*****
“He’s a great character,
full of stories and songs, and is a very loveable, easygoing
guy. He’s also a really talented guitarist and producer. I’d
love to be able to forge a working relationship with him where
we can continue to make records together. I’d love to go on
that journey with him and make some really awesome
records.”
*****
She says she has “always
flown between the lines of blues and rock and folk and pop,
Americana and country, it’s a real blend of different
genres.”
*****
She
explains: “Songs like ‘Lay Your Burden Down’ and ‘When The Sun
Comes Crashing Down’, those songs are just me. The most me
there’s ever been. I wrote ‘Lay Your Burden Down’ about my mum
and my brother, originally. No lives are ever simple and they
have both been through a lot of heartache.
*****
“That song is really also
about myself letting go of the past and its pains, almost like
laying your weapons down and giving yourself up to the
consequences and your fate. So whenever I sing that song, it’s
with tears in my eyes. I sang that one from the pit of my
stomach.”
*****
‘When
The Sun Comes Crashing Down’ came from a two-week trip with
her brother to Malawi, in her role as an Oxfam
Ambassador.
*****
“I
was very, very moved by the whole experience. People are
living on dirt and dying right in front of you. It was
life-changing. If the rains don’t come in these places, people
die. That’s where the whole idea of ‘When The Sun Comes
Crashing Down’ originally came from. It’s a love song that
started out like a prayer for rain. It really went on a
journey from the desert in Malawi to a house in Nashville,
where I finally finished the lyrics.”
*****
Legendary producer Kevin Shirley (Led
Zeppelin, John Hiatt, Journey) was moved enough to offer to
mix the final track for Sandi. “I was lucky enough to get to
mix it,” says Shirley. “I think it’s super strong – her
writing is fantastic and her singing is great on a great song.
‘When The Sun Comes Crashing Down’ has everything it needs to
be a hit!”
*****
A
self-described “obsessive Fleetwood Mac fan”, they are also a
strand in Sandi’s new sound: the strong-minded female with the
oh-so vulnerable heart.
*****
A good example being ‘I Owe You Zero’,
of which Sandi says: “I’m not bitter but I am certainly
stronger now. A lot of people have cast shadows of doubt in my
life, or tried to pin me down and hold me back, or have really
hurt me. But I am very determined, as a person, driven mainly
by the music. But I also like to prove people wrong. I don’t
like it when people judge me and that song is me saying: ‘You
don’t know the half of me’.”
*****
Then there is the intriguingly titled
‘I Love You Like A Lunatic’, another autobiographical work
based on her “life-changing” love affair with superstar blues
guitarist Joe Bonamassa. The couple have been together for
three years now, living and loving together, on and off the
road. Like a modern version of the Johnny Cash and June Carter
story, Joe made a guest appearance on Sandi’s 2010 single,
‘This Ol’ World’, and Sandi has toured and sung onstage with
Joe.
*****
Yet they
nearly didn’t get together at all. Sandi, in fact, was on the
verge of getting married to someone else when she fell in love
with Joe. ‘I Love You Like A Lunatic’ is just one of those
songs she has written that offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse
into the emotional rollercoaster she has been on with
Joe.
*****
She sighs.
“It’s a song about being so madly in love with someone you
really can’t help yourself. I thought I’d been in love in
every one of my relationships. But then I met Joe and realized
what it really was to be in Love. And it’s true, it drives you
insane! I did turn me into a lunatic.
*****
“In the upheaval of it all my life just
turned crazy. But at the heart of it all I was just crazy in
love, completely and utterly insane. All rational thinking
went totally out of the window. Yet that’s what everybody
wants, that insane kind of love that utterly consumes
you.”*****
*****
‘Stormy Weather’ is
another song inspired by her long-term relationship with
Bonamassa.
*****
“I
was alone in Joe’s house in LA. He has away on tour and we
hadn’t quite settled into living together yet. So I was in
this strange place – physically and emotionally – kind of like
no-man’s-land.*****
*****
“The whole dream that we
talked about was to move out to the sea and live near the
beach. So I’m sitting there writing about this and there’s
this crazy storm outside, furniture blowing around the patio
and rain lashing down. But it’s not about the storm. It’s
about getting out of this limbo-land and getting to a place
where we can make a life together. It’s a song about longing,
and about being in a transitional state.”
*****
She goes on, “I feel like
I deserve this now. I’ve worked my a... off to get where I am.
I’ve taken some serious leaps of faith in my life and done
some crazy sh... To be here now and think that it actually
paid off, that it all finally came good, it’s like I’ve been
playing a video game and I’ve progressed to the next level at
last. I feel like I really have weathered a storm.”
*****
A statement that is
itself a metaphor for the journey Sandi Thom has been on since
going to No.1 in seven countries with her very first single,
‘I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker’ and multi-million selling album,
Smile… It Confuses People.
*****
“‘Punk Rocker’ painted a very firm
picture,” she explains. “Everybody expected that everything
that came after would sound like that too. Hopefully this new
album will change people’s perception of me as a musical
artist, and become more open to me again. This really shows
what else there is to me.”
*****
Part of the same generational influx
that saw other major artists like the Arctic Monkeys and Lily
Allen find their way to the top of the charts via the
internet, Sandi’s career has transcended her pixelated
beginnings to the point where she now fronts her own record
label, Guardian Angels, and calls the shots on every aspect of
her career. She even single handily secured a worldwide
distribution deal with Universal Fontana.
*****
“I just got back from
Kuala Lumpur, meeting with distribution companies to talk
about servicing Guardian Angels throughout South-East Asia.
That’s the other part of me that people don’t know, The
Mogul.”
*****
Like
David Bowie and Elton John, who both enjoyed early one-off
hits before finding their true niche as musical artists, Sandi
feels that Flesh and Blood is her coming of age
album.
*****
“All I ever want to do is
write songs that connect with people. And with this album I’ve
finally found a place where I can make the very best music I
can achieve. The people that only know me from ‘Punk Rocker’
won’t recognise me on this album.”
*****
Now the media spotlight has moved on to
blind other unsuspecting victims, the truth can finally be
given a good, proper airing. Behind the hype there is simply
that voice. Heartfelt, soulful, sincere… Sandi Thom is not who
you think she is.
*****
She’s something
else.
