A bit slick, Sophie?

Sophie Ellis Bextor talks to Gay.com about her new album, gay mates, the sexually ambiguous Mika, and why she turned down Agent Provocateur

Following a three year break during which she tied the knot and had a baby, pop starlet Sophie Ellis Bextor found time to churn out a refreshingly indulgent pop album – Trip the Light Fantastic. The album promises to be one of the hottest of the summer, with a healthy dose of disco, electro, and - of course - glamour. Upon meeting, the 28- year-old doesn't look like your average wife and mother: at a shocking 6ft tall, clad in sparkling red heels and a candy-apple vintage dress, she's more of a human doll, with a flair of 1950s panache with a splash of fairy-tale-esque looks. Hmm, Dorothy of the new millennium? How fitting that she clicks her heels together in new single Me & My Imagination. Having conquered Europe with DJ Spiller's Groovejet in 2000 and Murder on the Dance Floor in 2002, she's back with a vengeance and thirsty for another whirl at the disco. Although having settled into motherhood, the indie-lead-woman-turned-pop diva still enjoys a night out with the boys. Gay.com was lucky enough to catch up with her for a pleasurably candid chat about the album , her influences, the competition, why she stepped back from an Agent Provocateur ad (which went to Kylie) and the media storm surrounding pal Mika

So, tell me about your new album

Well, it’s basically a…pop record! (laughs) A celebration of all things pop, I love pop music. Half of it is an album you can dance to and the other half is a bit more eclectic. There’s a bit of disco, a bit of electro, a bit of indie…

What’s an average day for you?

Being a pop star, we don’t really have average days. Different things are happening all the time which suits me very much because I get bored quite easily. It keeps evolving. At the moment I got the single Me & My imagination coming out in three, four weeks.Tomorrow I got a performance on a TV show to do. Friday I got interviews, I don’t really have a typical day.

What about your day off?

Generally just spend a lot of time with my little boy. He’s 2 right now, he’s gonna be three on Monday. He’s quite grown up!

What kind of music are you listening to these days?

I’m listening to music all the time, I spent a lot of time last evening downloading stuff from the itunes store. I got some Dolly Parton and Julie London and ELO. I listen to a real mixture – the new Arcade Fire album?

Oh yeah, I heard it. It’s good.

Yeah, they’re brilliant. I love the first one as well, it’s exciting that the second album is so good. It’s actually quite Bruce Springsteen, which is quite unexpected. I’ve been listening to …what else? I like Keiser chiefs, I like Franz Ferdinand, I like Amy Winehouse, Gwen Stefani…

What about pop girls….have you heard Hillary Duff?

No.

She sounds a little similar to you…

The only thing about that some of that stuff is that they’re quite songwritten songs, you know? It sounds a bit…put together. I like pop music with a bit of soul tapped in. I think mine is a bit more soul. It’s a bit slick.

Who did you like musically when you were a kid?

I really loved Michael Jackson, and I was also really into Madonna, in quite a big way.

Are you still into Madonna?

Yeah…well... she’s one of those people…there’s aspects of her career that I adore and others that I don’t understand quite so much, but whenever I see her live, you can’t help but just…she has this ability to have you in the palm of her hand again. I went to see her last year in the Confessions on a Dance Floor and it was brilliant, it was really inspiring. I can never quite leave her behind really. Songs like Hung up, and Sorry – I don’t know if they get me in the same way the as the songs I knew when I was little like Like a Prayer and Cherish and Express Yourself.

Are you going on tour this year?

Yeah, definitely.

Will yours be, in a way, similar to Madonna’s?

Well for Madonna, budget is a non-issue so…it won’t be at quite the same level obviously (laughs), but I try to see lots and lots of gigs, and you take little bits from everywhere. I do believe in showmanship. I think the thing that Madonna does, which I hope I can do, is that she has this ability to come across as quite austere at the beginning …not cold exactly but a little detached. But at the end of it she looks like she’s having a great time - she’s dancing, and you’re dancing, and it’s all great. I think that’s really clever how she gets that dynamic to work. You always feel at the end of it that you’ve somehow won her over. I don’t know, that’s a real…you know what I mean? Not everyone has that.

Yeah, this is gonna sound dumb, but she kinda takes the audience on a journey. I can see how you’d wanna do something like that

Yeah, exactly, but I’ve seen a lot of great performers. My husband’s in a band called The Feeling and Dan, the front man, is really good with the crowd, Justin from The Darkness is really brilliant with the crowd, the Scissor Sisters are really great with the crowd, there’s lots of ways of doing it.

So I was reading that you were the lead singer for an indie band theaudience. How did you make the transition from that to pop…disco pop. How was that transition? And why did you make it?

Yeah, I think, the whole thing from going from an indie band to a dance track… that was quite a big change because the indie world is quite cliquey. I don’t know how to describe it, it’s sort of a ‘boutique world’. You were in that club and no one really strayed out of it. So making the move out to do a dance record , which would never be featured in NME, it was quite a big leap for me. And really important for me because it made me realise that you can really do whatever you set your heart to. You don’t have to play by anyone else’s rules, you can make your own. But there’s also the side of it at the time I was …what I was doing with theaudience was pop. The whole Brit Pop thing was massive and there wasn’t really a pop side of things like we have now, so music itself has gone on a journey as well. So at the time everybody was doing it, pop music was indie. Indie pop.

Yeah it seems difficult to sometimes differentiate – I feel even these days NME covers pop too..it kinda covers everything

Yeah well again, pop again is has moved on. Now you get The Arctic Monkeys being covered by Girls Aloud and vice versa…these things I know they’re on different sides of the tracks, but the way they move, is sort of in tandem, you know what I mean?

Yeah, makes sense. Are you pretty clued into the Internet and do you use your Myspace? Are you tech-savvy?

Yeah I do. I’m one of those people who almost likes to have too much information so yeah, I’m always checking out new people’s music you know, seeing how things are doing around the planet! Yea, it’s all out there. And I love Youtube and things I’ve heard people mention saying, ‘oh this is really funny’ and if you’ve missed it, you can catch it.. I watched Avril Lavigne on Pop world. Did you see that?

No, I didn’t. But I do occasionally see her on Perezhilton…do you look at that?

Yeah, yeah, sometimes.

Yeah he slates her pretty harshly

Well when she was on the show, she didn’t know what Pop World was, so she was being asked all these questions and she just looked very uncomfy. She kept looking at her PR person with a look of ‘what is going on?’ It’s awkward, I felt sorry for her really.

So you have you tried to break out into the states a bit?

Mmmm, not really, I dunno, when I had success with Murder on the Dance Floor, I kinda had to go where the song took me, and I was really swept off my feet. I learned it’s best to go where people are inviting you really.

Well I have to tell you, that when I used to Tigerheat in LA, I guess your equivalent to G-A-Y? I remember dancing to that song all the time.

(Laughs) Yeah I think there are little pockets where people have heard it. I know there are people on my website from New York, from LA, from San Francisco. I’d love to do a few performances in gay clubs in the states. That’d be brilliant. But like I said, I’d rather go where I’m invited.

It’s interesting right now how British pop music has boomed in the states – Lily Allen, Mika, Amy Winehouse has done really well. I think that’s a lot to do with the blogging and Myspace and how people are more connected through the internet…

Yeah! But these things have also gotta be a bit organic. Yeah, and you can go and tour America for as long as you like, but if you don’t get people playing your records on radio, if you don’t get interviewed or get TV performances it’s all a bit pointless. So I’d rather just wait until something… if one of my songs gets picked up – fab. But I’m just as happy if it happens in France, I’m just as happy if it happens in Mexico. I don’t give it any more importance …but I don’t give it any less importance either, is that makes sense

Right. Yeah, that makes sense. So your mother was on Blue Peter. How did that affect you growing up? Did you get teased?

Yeah, I did, not because of Blue Peter exactly, but just because kids get kinda jealous of special treatment. I used to be able to get into museums, and cut the queue. I used to get new toys she’d bring in from work, so the kids got quite fed up and ganged up a bit. So yeah, and I probably was a bit annoying about it as well.

Do you have a gay best friend?

A gay best friend? I’ve got loads of friends who are gay. Absolutely. The lead singer of my husband’s band is a gay man and he’s my son’s godfather (the sexy Dan Gillespie-Sells of The Feeling) He’s got a lovely group of guys that I love going out with…and there’s his boyfriend Ryan …so we got a little network! And they’ve introduced me to some of my favourite clubs in London.

Which ones?

Wig Out is one of my favourites at Ghetto. I also love Rebel Rebel.

When is Rebel Rebel?

It’s the first Saturday of every month at the Phoenix Bar. Wig Out is actually my favourite – it’s a real party night.

What was it like working with Fred Schneider of the B-52s?

It was great, Fred is brilliant, I saw him last week actually, and luckily he’s become of a friend. And they’re coming over, they’re gonna play the Love Box festival which will be their first gig in a long time. Yeah, he’s lovely, really funny. He’s really secure in his skin.

So I saw that you were at the opening part of Mika’s album release party…

Oh yes.

Well as you probably know the gay media have kinda been after him - or rather, the media in general have been after him to talk about his sexuality. Do you think that’s fair to ask that? Do you think it’s right for him to say he’s not gonna talk about it?

I actually think he’s completely entitled to it. I know that Dan, someone I know as a gay musician, he was actually fine to talk about it, but it’s kinda beside the point. With Mika I kinda respect the fact that he doesn’t have to tell people everything. Why do we feel we have to know? I mean he’s got lyrics like ‘I tried to be like Grace Kelly, and I tried a little Freddie’. And if you want the answer, I think he’s kinda giving it to you. I think he’s completely entitled to do his own thing.

The reason why I asked you is that it seems to be a big topic of discussion. In every interview he does, someone asks him.

I think he should just tell them all to just bugger off. I don’t know why people think they’re entitled to know all that. More than I’d want people asking me about my sex life. It’s not because you’re ashamed or embarrassed or anything, but just because it’s just like, ‘why do you need to know?’

You were in line to do an Agent Provocateur ad a few years back, that went to Kylie (click here to see the final product) why did you turn in down?

Well to put in context, it was about 5 or 6 years ago, and I had just come out with my first record, and I was doing the video for Murder on the Dance Floor, where in the video I was playing this horrible girl who’s killing people, and the advert for Agent Provocateur was basically me, on a bucking bronco in my underwear, arousing the men watching. I just thought, every girl watching this is gonna think I’m a complete bitch. I’d probably do it now, but at the time…I’m a big believer in serendipity, right thing at the right time. It just wasn’t the right time for me to be in my pants on a bucking bronco! Laughs. Maybe now is!

Sophie’s third album ‘Trip The Light Fantastic’ is out on May 21st.

Click here to watch Catch You

Click here for Me & My Imagination