THIS IS THE CLOSEST THING TO KATIE
Words: james bartlett SHE HAS SOLD over five million albums, picked up numerous awards and travelled the world over as a burgeoning international star. Yet when fans of the 22-year-old jazz-pop sensation Katie Melua heard her song Belfast, few realised how close her ties were to the Northern Ireland city. Indeed, she has in the [...]
Words: james bartlett
SHE HAS SOLD over five million albums, picked up numerous awards and travelled the world over as a burgeoning international star. Yet when fans of the 22-year-old jazz-pop sensation Katie Melua heard her song Belfast, few realised how close her ties were to the Northern Ireland city. Indeed, she has in the past referred to it as “home”.
“What sucks is that I usually go back there for work,” she explains, “but my mum and I still have lots of mates there – it’s a really cool place! Whenever I play there, they always call me a ‘local girl’.”
Ketevan [Katie] Melua was born in Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia [formerly part of the USSR] in 1984. She and her younger brother, Michael, spent most of their childhood in the seaside town of Batumi, the capital of the Adjara republic in the south west. Her father, Dato, was a heart surgeon, and when he obtained a job at the prestigious Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, the family was unsure of what to expect in Northern Ireland. Ongoing political unrest in Adjara led many people to warn them that they were going from the frying pan into the fire, but the eight-year-old Melua experienced a very warm welcome in Belfast.
“When I arrived I didn’t speak a word of English,” the singer recalls, “but everyone was really friendly.I was witnessing the West and its culture for the first time, and even going to school was colourful.”
They lived in hospital accommodation – “the three green towers” – on Broadway Road off the Falls Road, and Melua attended the local primary school before going on to Dominican College in Fortwilliam. “Most of my memories are typical kids’ stuff,” she recalls. “Running around, riding my bike, playing with friends.”
The family left Belfast in 1997, and soon after moving into their new house at Redhill in Surrey, Melua, then 13, entered a television talent competition on a whim.
“I’d always loved singing, but this was just a bit of a laugh. When I was younger I actually wanted to be a pilot or a politician. I honestly thought I’d be able to bring peace to the world – if I ruled it!”
She surprised herself by winning, and while the prize may only have been a bedroom makeover and an armchair, she had nevertheless sung live on ITV – and her desire to perform had taken a huge step forward. Melua joined the Brit School for Performing Arts and was exposed to all kinds of music, although she was especially influenced by the voice of the late Eva Cassidy, and wrote Faraway Voice as a tribute to her.
Soon after graduating in July 2003, her voice caught the attention of radio veteran Terry Wogan,
“When I was younger I actually wanted to be a pilot or a politician”
who recognised Melua’s enormous potential. Wogan, just as he had done with Eva Cassidy, chose to champion her single The Closest Thing To Crazy on his BBC Radio 2 show, and before long it had become Melua’s first top 10 hit.
HER PARENTS HAD already helped her set up a small recording studio at home, recognising their daughter’s burgeoning passion for creating music.
“I strongly believe that music should be performed live and that great artists are original and talented in their music performance. I always get a warm feeling when I see someone holding a guitar or violin case on the street – I always smile and say ‘hi!’”
When Melua is not touring, she currently lives in London. Her refuge for writing music is the obvious: “Home – in my room! I’m getting better at writing on the road, but I still write best at home. Sometimes I start with a lyric, and other times it’s the melody. You need to just let it happen rather than force it.”
Her debut album, Call Off The Search, went straight to Number 1 in the UK in early 2004 and has sold almost three million copies worldwide. Since then she has performed all over the world, and fulfilled a childhood dream when she sung Too Much Love Will Kill You with Queen at Nelson Mandela’s AIDS Foundation Concert. It was a far cry from when she used to sing along to Radio Ga Ga back in Georgia.
Immediately after that concert she flew to Sri Lanka as an Education Ambassador for Save the Children, where she saw the work that was being done in the wake of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean.
“Going was not a decision I took lightly. Having seen their work at first hand I know how important their projects are and how crucial it is that funds are constantly raised so that their work can continue.”
Melua puts her money where her mouth is, too, donating the proceeds from her single Spider’s Web to Save The Children and recording Eric Clapton’s song Tears In Heaven for the Tsunami appeal. Next year, she’s planning to go even further and cycle along the Great Wall of China to raise funds.
Her second album, Piece By Piece, also hit the top spot in the charts in Britain, and produced her biggest chart success so far when Nine Million Bicycles reached Number 5. Currently, however, audiences in the US are being won over by her mellow lyrics.
“When you tour, you’re sort of in a bubble. Everyone and everything is extreme. It’s like being out on a ship at sea, away from reality.”
Being away for months on end obviously makes it difficult to maintain relationships, and although she was once involved with Luke Pritchard from
“I’m getting better at writing on the road, but I write best at home”
Brighton rock band The Kooks, Melua isn’t saying whether anyone special is getting long-distance calls. “It’s hard being apart for so long, but if something’s worth it, it’s always possible.”
MELUA IS NOT one for vegging out in her hotel room, though. Sometimes she entertains people with a Belfast souvenir – she can do several Irish accents and impersonate politicians – and her American tour diary reveals that she took the band and crew on a snorkelling trip in Boca Raton, Florida.
Despite experiencing such huge success at a young age, Melua remains level-headed. “I haven’t changed much, but then I would say that, wouldn’t I? I’m barely recognised when I’m not in stage make-up and hair, and I like it that way. My friends are great and they’ll always keep my grounded. Lots of them are in the music business, and they see what I do as a job rather than a famous lifestyle. And people around me are truthful; they don’t agree with everything I say and do, which is a relief.”
She also manages to let her hair down sometimes: “I think it’s important to have a good time when you have down time. As long as it doesn’t affect my job, then pretty much anything goes. I’m partial to a B52 cocktail [Grand Marnier, Kahlua, Amarula Cream] and a nice vodka, which just makes it harder for my make-up artist the next morning!”
In early October 2006, Melua added a very different hit record to her achievements: a Guinness World Record for the deepest underwater concert. The concert was celebrating the 10th anniversary of production on the 472 metre high Statoil Troll A gas platform – taller than the Eiffel Tower – and took place at more than 300 metres under the North Sea.
Melua and her band underwent extensive medical tests and survival training in Norway, including escaping from a submerged helicopter. “[It] was something that I will remember all my life.”
But singing for oil workers is not her first unusual experience. In Holland she has joined Pink Floyd and Rembrandt in one of the country’s greatest honours: having a tulip named after her. The special pink and white-edged flower took 15 years of cultivation, and now bears the name Tulipa Katie Melua.
As for the future, another album is due next year. Named the biggest-selling UK female artist of 2004, 2005, and probably 2006 as well, no-one is willing to bet against Melua adding to her list of awards and gold records for many years to come.
A special bonus CD+DVD edition of Melua’s second album, Piece by Piece, is available now
