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 10th 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?
