Goulding of Hard Knocks
She’s the golden girl of English singer-songwriter pop, thanks to a Brit award and a place on the BBC Choice Poll. But Ellie Goulding didn’t always have things so easy, as she tells Olaf Tyaransen
The Hot Press Newsdesk, 02 Mar 2010
When Ellie Goulding was growing up in her family’s tiny, two-bedroom cottage in Hereford, her mother and two sisters used to constantly tell her to shut up with her warbling – eventually only allowing her to sing at certain allotted times. “They used to say my voice was weird,” the 23-year-old electro-folk artist recalls. “Kind of. But I laugh about it now, I think it’s quite funny. Because I suppose my voice is pretty weird.”
Fortunately, it’s the good kind of weird. On striking new single ‘Starry Eyed’, she comes across sounding like a helium-inhaling cross between Bjork and Dolores O’Riordan.
“Some people listen to the record and think that my voice has been treated with special effects in the studio,” she laughs, “but it hasn’t at all. If you come to one of my gigs, you’ll see that that’s how I sing. I’ve just started working with a voice coach and she told me that I really need to be careful because the way I sing puts terrible strain on my vocal chords.”
We’re talking to the singer shortly before she’s due to be presented with the 2010 Critics Choice Award at the Brits (she’s already topped the BBC Sound of 2010 poll). “It’s such an amazing award to win,” she says, “and I felt, in a way, that I didn’t deserve it because I haven’t even brought the album out yet. It was something I used to watch every year when I was younger so to be given it myself is just amazing.”
With a major buzz building and her album, Lights, out imminently, she’s pretty busy at the moment. “Well, I’m doing a lot of phone interviews so my brain is a little fried,” she laughs. “It’s been some busy days, some not so busy days up to now. But it’s been all full-on for the last few weeks. I did a gig last night, but I only did one song. It was for the Brits party. But at least the album’s finished so that pressure’s off, because I don’t need to be in studio anymore. I’d say it probably took a year or so. It was a very slow process.”
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