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Huw Knight caught up with Judie, to discuss the new album, and to find out why it may be the closing chapter in the first volume of Judie's career.
Judie started off by explaining that she'd recently got over a bad case of bronchitis, and that her voice hadn't really returned to normal yet, partly contributing to the delay with the latest album, "The End Of the Beginning".
JT - I wake up with a smokers chest, and I don't quite know what's going on. It's happened before, prior to Secret Agent, and it took me months and months to come back properly. I'm taking loads of vitamins and stuff. I'm really busy though, I've more or less completed all the vocals for the album now, I think. Just got to check a couple of them, but I've done as good a job as I can now
I commented on the fact that from what I've heard of it, the album sounds really good to my humble ears.
JT - Those are the rough mixes, there's still some mixing work to be done yet. We're using new technology - to us at least - where we're mixing in stems. What that means is that we mix parts of it, and can then go back and change bits within it, but we've still got the mix of the original track. It means that the process, when we do the final mix is a lot quicker.
I asked Judie how she felt about the album - always a difficult question as she has been so close to it for so long.
I am really really very fond of this album. Songs wise there have been no hassle with them - I've never had so many songs to choose from. Unfortunately Keep The Faith didn't make the album, though I love the song and always have we still haven't got it quite right. We will though and hopefully it will be available as our first download.
With 3 years passing since the last album of Judie's own songs (2001's "Queen Secret Keeper"), I asked Judie whether she had been writing continuously since then, or whether she'd had some time off.
I've been writing continuously since I started writing with Lucie (Silvas), and am now in the frame of mind where I'm virtually writing something every day. I'm on a real high at the moment because I wrote something yesterday with Graham Kearns and an artist that I cant mention yet, that I love, I think its one of the favourite things I've done, I'd be happy to have it on any of my albums. It's great the way it's working out - I'm getting calls from all sorts of different writers and companies at the moment. I'm about to sign a new deal - one of the most amazing of my career…as a writer.
This is the perfect career for me, I can use all my creativeness. I have an overload of emotion and I need to use it positively. It doesn't mean that I'm going to stop performing though. It just means I can now use everything I do and put everything into it.
The next Phixx single is a song I co/wrote - It's pretty different for me but still has a lot of me in it. I've also got the Tiesto album out too. He's one of the top dance DJ's in the world. He travels all over the world and does this huge show for each album he does. His album at the moment is called 'Just Be' and that's my song that I wrote in Thailand with Jimmy Gomez- which is great!
My Life is really exciting at the moment!
I asked Judie how she felt about this, given that for the last 25 years she had been writing, singing and performing her own material to a music industry that, shall we say, hadn't really taken too much notice.
It's absolutely fantastic - I wonder sometimes why it didn't happen before. I haven't changed but maybe the music business has? That was my career till now - this is the end of the beginning of this section of my life. I'm not going to stop working though. I will still be gigging and making albums - they'll be slightly different from now on that's all. I'll just be writing with so many different people, that I can pick those songs that I want to sing myself. I have this whole new future that is looking so rosy for me at the moment"
Judie previously mentioned Lucie Silvas, and I asked her how she felt now that Lucie was on the point of breaking through herself.
I'm just so grateful that she gave me a massive opportunity to write with her, and to discover this new part of me - I'll never forget that. It'll be fantastic if Lucie's massive and I've helped her with that, and I'm doing my writing and she's helped me with that - at the moment life could not be more exciting. Though I'm really nervous to be this positive !! (laughs)"
I moved on to ask Judie how she was looking forward to the tour.br>
I'm scared at the moment to be honest! We can get the music sorted out and pressed up onto CD's, the delay is the credits on the artwork and that's not anyone's fault. We couldn't give her all the information until we'd finished the songs. We've only just finalised the running order - I think (remember folks this is less than a month before the show hits the road!).
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| from left: Baily, Judie and Lucie Silvas |
We discussed the album, and started with a track called Move Me, which is a departure from what we know and love from Judie.
laughs... it's something that Dave Goodes and I wrote, we were trying to do something in the style of N.E.R.D, more for someone else to record. It was just a bit of fun, and I never ever thought we'd release it. The vocal on there is the original I did at Dave's, and I made him promise that he would never play it to anyone else - especially the talking bit
The album is in places, very haunting and dark, with a theme appearing to run through tracks like 'Written Word', 'Move Me', 'Fight' and even 'I Will', and I asked whether they were difficult to write and record.
Not at all, no. 'Written Word' I really like - it conveys how my life in the music biz has been, very frustrating, you know, but it's just me saying to some people "you will hear me, even if its only via the written word"
I'm hoping to do about 8 or 9 songs from the album live. It's a very new band, and as they'll be having to learn a lot of songs anyway, I figured we may as well do a lot of the new songs - which is quite scary really, especially as the album won't be out probably, and they'll be completely new to a lot of the fans.
I really love my audience, and really respect and appreciate them - I just hope that they like it. Band wise it's going to be nerve wracking - there's a new keyboard player, maybe a new bass player, Mia may have to disappear if Lucie's on tour, Dave Goodes had a prior engagement and unfortunately can't do this part of the tour, so we'll have Graham Kearns on guitar - he's equally as amazing as Dave though. It will be strange without him though, as I'm so used to Dave being there! I always need my friends around me on stage, but Graham is certainly my friend too but it will be scary"
I reassured Judie that she'll have loads of friends in the audience.
I love reading the website and getting letters from people, I really do appreciate all the support I get you know - it means SO much to me. I hope they appreciate that I couldn't finish the album without doing it properly.
The album is supplemented with some wonderful strings and I asked how it all came about.
We had this string quartet that we recorded in the garden. Paul was holding this big umbrella over them to keep the sun off, Jamie was running around with a wasp zapper, and in between the trains and planes and building work going on down the road, we just got on and did it , it was just magical... those really are Surrey birds you hear twittering away at the beginning of 'Damage Done'.
and with that Judie was gone....
Interview by Huw Knight - August 2004
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