profile
ALISON
MOYET
With a new album
under her belt
and performances
scheduled around
the world, vocalist
Alison Moyet talks to
Heather Arnold about
her next single and
her love of touring.
“
It happened by accident”. This is how Moyet
describes the start of her music career, which
now spans over 30 years. “I was already
feeling kind of disaffected, and was a writer
of teen angst poetry. So when the punk things
happened, and everybody and their mother was
starting a band, that’s what I did.
“It had nothing to do with musicality or beauty,
or any of that kind of business. It was just about
teenage expression, and it just went on from there
really.”
In 1982, when she was just 21, vocalist Moyet came
to the forefront of popular music as one half of
the synth-pop duo Yazoo, but just a year later they
disbanded and Alison began what was to be her long
and successful solo career.
Now in 2013 Moyet has released her eighth album,
but has done so without the help of a record label.
“I was in a place in my life where I wanted to do
original recordings, but I was dealing with record
labels that wanted me to not do original work,” Moyet
recounts.
“I was determined to do the album on my own with a
producer... and once we were finished then we’d take
it to a record company. That way we could avoid all
this conversation of ‘where’s your Etta James song?’”
In February last year Alison left her record company
after a dispute regarding reality TV. Moyet famously
tweeted, “I appear to have forfeited my recording
deal because I won’t do reality TV. No one needs to
make an album that badly. Tea anyone?”
Reality TV, however, was just one of the issues Moyet
didn’t agree with.
“It did come to the point where record companies
were only interested in me in terms of making covers
BUZZ 26
records, you know the kinds of Mother’s Day or
Valentine’s Day record,” she laments. “And when that
happens you can’t twist their arm, but what you can
do is say ‘no, I’m not going to record it,’ and that’s
what I did.”
Collaborating with producer Guy Sigsworth, who
has worked alongside artists such as Seal, Madonna
and Björk, Alison began making her new album the
minutes.
“Guy ticks every box for me,” Moyet states. “Not only
is he this great inventor and really technologically
sound, but he’s got supreme musicianship... in terms
“...what you can
do is say ‘no, I’m
not going to
record it,’ and
that’s what I did.”
of his musicality he’s completely there but in a way
that’s not tired and not jaded. He’s really excitable
and really excited by what he does, and great
company.”
“It was as good as it was in Yazoo,” Alison reminisces
as she describes the experience of recording the
minutes. “What was great about Yazoo was no
record company telling us what we had to make, so
we were completely left to our own devices. When
you’re older and more sanguine about stuff, and
easier to be around, consequently you make a nicer
environment.”
“That’s what made it happy,” she says; “it was a
completely creatively free experience.”
Currently touring the UK Moyet’s new single,
Changeling, is being released only a week before she
performs in Cardiff.
“Changeling is the one that, as an artist, I would
have gone for first [as a single],” says Moyet “When
we first brought out Changeling we brought it out as
a free download and, the old kind of act that I am, I
was a bit confused by that... and that actually worked
out really, really well because it was so brilliantly
received.”
Changeling follows the minutes’ first single release,
When I Was Your Girl. Moyet explains that it
“became quite clear that When I Was Your Girl was
the song that radio stations where most comfortable
playing... so now it’s the time to see whether radio
stations are prepared to play something with more of
an edge to it.”
With her latest album and new single now out Alison
is able to enjoy the favourite part of her career: “I
just love touring. It’s my favourite thing. I notice I’m
away for two months,” she says, “and I’m thinking,
‘wow! That’s some serious packing I’ve got to do’.
But I love touring. I love the whole community of
it and I love singing live, as a physical thing. I like
physically how it feels to sing.”
Alison Moyet, St David’s Hall, Cardiff, Sun
20 Oct. Tickets: £25-£45. Info: 029 2087
8500 / www.stdavidshallcardiff.co.uk