KBPS Interview: Alonestar

Alonestar

Jethro Sheeran is better known as Alonestar, a pioneering writer, producer, rapper and once model who has teamed up with long-time collaborator Rosie Ribbons on new single ‘LoveLorn’. We caught up with Alonestar as he landed in Denmark for a promotional tour to ask him about the new song out in February.

It’s a song about the pain of unrequited love where two people are having a relationship at the weekend and having lots of fun, and one falls in love with the other but it’s unrequited, he doesn’t love her back. It’s an experience that myself and singer Rosie Ribbons went through at separate times and we came together [to write the song]. I wrote the verses and she did the chorus and you can hear the pain in her voice at what she went through in her relationship. It’s about the feeling of being in love but someone not loving you back and that pain you feel when you can’t eat, can’t sleep and you love them so much that it hurts!

When you write songs, is it mostly from personal experience or that of your collaborators?

I always write straight from the heart as I feel so much, and I write mostly when I’m in pain, when I feel loss or pain. Sometimes I’ll get the idea from the collaborator with the chorus and if I can relate to it and write my verses alongside it, and I think it’s a great song, I’ll do that. But usually it’s me that starts it and it will come from a place of emotion or pain and I’ll send it out to my collaborative artists or I’ll just write the hook myself and sing it or rap it. That’s usually how I work. When I’m happy I don’t write as much, which is a problem, as I generally like sad songs in minor keys!

Strong emotions lead to strong songs…

Absolutely!

You mentioned Rosie Ribbons, who appears on the track. What was it like working with her?

She’s amazing. I’ve been working with her for years. She was signed to Telstar after appearing on Pop Idol back in the day! She made Pete Waterman cry, and I saw how she was so amazing and blew them away with her vocals. I was modelling at the time and I got a call saying I’d been picked to be in her new music video, as the love interest! I met her the day after and we got on really well. We shot the video, spending the whole day working together, and from then on started working on our own stuff together. This time it’s one of the best vocals I think she’s ever done for me and when she was writing it she had so much emotion. She’s just such a great, powerful singer, a really lucky girl. It was a real pleasure to have her [on the record]. She lives in Wales now so I hadn’t seen her in a while. She came to the studio in Bristol, we sat down, I played her the song and what I’d written and she just started writing, and we worked it out together. Her voice is amazing; she has such talent.

You mentioned your role as a model, but you’re a writer, rapper and producer. Does having those skills help you make the music sound like you want it to?

Exactly that. When I was just rapping and writing poetry and raps I was paying producers to produce the backing tracks and the music for it, and I could never really get across what I wanted. I gave them reference songs and really tried to get into a studio with them, but all the sequencing programs baffled me. I didn’t know how to use it, but I felt so frustrated as what they were doing wasn’t how I wanted it, so I started learning to produce myself. So I continuously learnt and started producing the tracks I wanted, and things got on much better, and then I started producing for other artists [as well].

Do you prefer doing your own material or working with others?

I don’t really have a preference. Coming from Bristol I have been brought up on Massive Attack, Tricky and Portishead, and these very bass-heavy acts. Bristol is known for its bass heavy music. It’s influenced me. The lyrics are always real and raw, and underground and very dirty and edgy. I’m a fan of fusion. In the early days there was reggae mixed with hip-hop mixed with punk music, so it’s a massive melting pot of styles, so I kind of developed that myself. I went to Trinidad to work out there, working with live musicians, brass players, calypso artists, chanters and reggae [acts] and mixed that with classical music I’d sampled, or I’d sample Native American flutes. I love all music. I just try to take the best bits of each genre that I really like it. My cousin Ed (Sheeran) when he was a kid was into folk singer-songwriters and guitar and I was into hip-hop and drums, so I’d program the drums, he’d play the guitar, I’d rap and he’d sing, and we’d put it together and again it was a fusion of different styles of music and to me it just works. Personally I thought that was amazing. I’m developing my style and you can’t really pigeonhole it as it’s got so many style influences and genres, and that’s what I am as Alonestar, a massive melting pot, and I collaborate with lots of different artists, from my back catalogue of music.

It must be good to have all those inspirations to keep things fresh?

Absolutely. It keeps things interesting and alive for me. I like rock music, and some forms of heavy metal. I love Led Zeppelin. It’s not just hip-hop. Being a rapper, people think ‘who’s this white, old guy from England rapping’ but when they hear the music they go ‘I didn’t expect that’. When you hear the word rapper you think ‘bling, bling, 50 cent, bitches, ho’s, cars’, that sort of thing from gangsta rap. But it’s not really. I call it spiritual hip-hop. It’s very conscious. I speak about real issues [and] real life and I think that’s why people relate to it so much. For instance [with] ‘LoveLorn’ who hasn’t fallen in love or had someone not love them back or had the pain of missing someone. A lot of people can relate to that. I kind of shy away from the pop angle though. I do like popular music, [but] personally I’ve not collaborated with that many pop artists as sometimes it’s a bit generic and made for younger people. I make music for my peers. An artist has to give me a buzz or a feeling inside for me to really want to work with that person.

As well as the song you’re also working on a video for LoveLorn?

We’ve put the video back now as we scrapped the first one but we’re just about to film a new video because we came up with a new treatment, which we think is amazing, and we’ve got Sarah Harding from Girls Aloud playing a part in it. We’ve just got a really raw, organic and creative concept that I really wanted to put forward to the director, so we are shooting it in a week’s time and it should be out in the next few weeks.

You have a launch party for the single in London in March. Can you reveal anything about that?

I don’t want to reveal who’s coming as there’s quite a lot of celebrities that are going be performing and be there. It’s on the 10^th March at a Fu Man Chu, [which] is a great little club. It has an underground tunnel vibe. We’ve got some really exciting artists that are going to come and play music and support throughout the whole night. Our last two completely sold out. The last one was on my birthday on a boat! There’s going to be all sorts of music people there; it’s always such a great fun night!

What was it like performing on a boat?

I got a bit sick! I was playing for forty-five minutes and there was really bad wind as it was in January and it was swaying side-to-side. But it was packed out and we had the Gogglebox girls there and they made me laugh all night!

You also released your album ‘Cornerstone’ last year. How did that go?

Really well. It got to #3 in the iTunes chart and was received really well, and I was really proud of that body of work, working with people from all over the world. I went a bit darker, working with a lot of the Massive Attack band members. I just went into the studio to make what I wanted to make. I didn’t really think about who I was selling the music to or who would like it; I just made it for myself and dedicate to my grandmother who passed away, who I never met. Her face is on the album cover. There’s a song on it called ‘Lillian’ which is my favourite song out of all I’ve written and that’s dedicated to her, and again Rosie Ribbons sang on that, and it was a great, haunting track. I was really proud of that.

Finally, do you have any big ambitions for 2017?

To perform more! I want to go out to the States. Last year I made a conscious decision to focus on the studio, making more music, and I produced ‘Bars and Melody’ from Britain’s Got Talent. I executive produced their whole album; they have such an incredible fan base. I was focussing on producing other artists and writing songs for myself so now I have a big body of work which I can go and perform, so this year I am going to do all the festivals. I’ve booked up for Glastonbury and a whole bunch of private gigs. Then after the summer I’d like to go out to LA and New York and perform, and maybe get some more gigs out in the states and talk to some labels, get some radio play. I’d also like to do more in Europe as well.

Plenty to keep to busy then?

Absolutely, non-stop. That’s how I like it. I work great under pressure and I like being busy. So I’m excited about this year!

Find out more about Alonestar on Facebook.