In her kitten heels and vintage dresses, Paloma Faith brings an old-fashioned glamour to the charts
WHEN THE builders arrived to do some work on Paloma Faith’s Islington home, they were in for a very pleasant surprise. It’s not every day you get served tea and bikkies by a woman who’s dolled up in vintage sequined dress and kitten heels. “It’s not my house – I just rent – but I just feel bad if they’re working and they don’t have a cup of tea,” she says. “They’ve been trying to work out what I do for a living. They’ve asked me if I’m a model or a dancer. So I eventually told them I’m a singer.”
She's only told them half the story. The 24-year-old from Hackney, in London, has lived a lot of lives on her high-heeled route to pop stardom: she's tantalised as a burlesque performer, teased as a model for Agent Provocateur and been sawn in half as a magician's assistant. An aspiring actress, she's had roles in St Trinian'sand The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. But the movie she'd really liked to have been in was Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
You see, sometime in her past, the young Paloma broke away from the present, and skipped away into a fantasy world filled with the sights and sounds of a bygone era. She passes Harvey Nicks without a glance, and heads straight for the vintage clothes shops in search of sequined numbers from the 1940s and 50s; her record collection homes in on old jazz and blues songs by the likes of Wynonie Harris, Cab Calloway and Cookie & the Cupcakes. And Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock don't get a second glance: Paloma's movie heroines are the long-gone superstars of the past. "I was obsessed with Marilyn Monroe when I was a child," she says. "I've got a lot of books about her. I was about 10 when I first got into her. I've watched all her movies. My favourite one is Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."
Immerse yourself in Paloma Faith's fabulous debut album, Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?, and it's plain that this glamour girl was not made for these times. And yet she's perfect for these times. Here's a thoroughly modern girl with a thoroughly old-fashioned sensibility who stands head and shoulder pads above the fake pop divas whose Auto-Tuned voices twitter endlessly over the ether. It's this cultural dichotomy that makes songs such as Stone Cold Sober, Smoke & Mirrors, Romance Is Deadand the classic-in-waiting New Yorkso fresh and compelling.
“I didn’t want to be a pastiche,” says Faith. “The thing is, I hold those old stars in such high regard that to try and sound like them or emulate them would be foolish, because I feel really inferior, so to take from them but at the same time add something of myself is safe for me.”
What Faith adds to the mix is a dollop of imagination and fantasy, conjuring up an age of glitz and glitter while keeping one
heel firmly planted in the
present.
“I think it’s to do with hope, and the fact that the 1940s and 50s were an era of hope. Now we’re in an era of recession, and I think people need hope and dreams in a time like this. I want people to be transported, and that’s what I try to do.”
If you caught her sold-out show at Vicar Street earlier this year, you’ll know just where Faith’s music can take you. She’s returning to Dublin this week to play in the fragrant settings of the Iveagh Gardens, and a musical magic-carpet ride is definitely on the cards. Faith is particularly excited about this coming gig, not only because it’s another chance to wow the Dublin fans but also because her support act is another of her all-time heroines, the disco diva Candi Staton.
"Mind-blowing or what? I've covered a song that she did called I 'd Rather Be an Old Man's Sweetheart than a Young Man's Fool,and I can't believe I'm going to meet her. I'm not even telling people she's supporting. I'm telling them it's a double bill."
You can expect a few classy cover versions to be sprinkled among the set list. On her recent tour she has performed songs by Billie Holiday, Etta James and The Beatles. But the climax of her set will surely be her own New York, the hit single, which is getting a rerelease, in a new version featuring Ghostface Killah. So good they've released it twice.
The rest of Faith’s summer will be taken up with playing festivals and auditioning for movie parts, so those builders may have to wait a few weeks before she brings them another cuppa.
“I think I’m drawn to two types of film. One is that kind of fantastical, hyper-real, surreal fantasy with a dark edge, but then the other side of me really wants to challenge myself and play real human beings, and I think a lot of British actors that I admire do that quite well. I’m a massive fan of Timothy Spall and Julie Walters. I quite fancy playing everyday people, and doing stuff that moves you, about the human condition.”
And though she likes playing the glamour puss, Faith is determined that her own life remains nothing less than ordinary.
“I try as much as I can not to change the way that I live, because it’s important to me as a songwriter to try and keep as close to a normal existence as I can. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to write songs that people relate to. That’s a difficult thing to balance, and I don’t think a lot of current pop stars or songwriters are particularly concerned about that, but I am. Apart from being recognised, my day-to-day life actually hasn’t changed all that much. I used to go to the same premieres and the same openings and the same parties, and blagged my way into everything. I laugh about it now with my friends: we’re still doing the same things, except there’s not that buzz of trying to blag in any more — we are on the guest list.”
Paloma Faith plays the Iveagh Gardens, Dublin, on Thursday.
New York, featuring Ghostface Killah, is out on July 30th
