4Music

Celebrating ten years in the music industry, Alesha Dixon has gone from garage queen to disco diva, losing a record deal and winning Strictly Come Dancing. Back with a new single and album, Alesha tells us about what she has in store as well as her thoughts on Mis-Teeq and knocking out one of her dancers… 

How would you sum up your new single Drummer Boy? 

Ballsy. Loud. Quite fiery. And quite unique in its sound. It’s not afraid to be different. When I heard that track for the first time, I got excited. I felt like, yeah this is a song where I can really go for it. The energy of the record knocked me over. I am always looking for a song that is a full of life. It just sounded like an event. 

The video was directed by Ray Kay, who shot Lady Gaga’s Poker Face. What was the concept behind Drummer Boy’s music video? 

Well 4Music played it first! And I watched it. How sad is that? I’d only ever seen it on a little computer screen so I was dying to watch it on TV! 

The song is so energetic and I wanted to shoot it with Ray Kay because he’s great at shooting really colourful videos. I knew that I wanted lots of drummers and dancers, and I just wanted it to feel really tough and represent strength through the styling and dancing. It was the best video that I’ve done in terms of fun. We did a 21-hour shoot and we did seven costume changes, but it was just wicked. I felt really lucky. 

Is it true you knocked a dancer out? Was she stealing the limelight? 

No, she’s a little star and I felt awful. I was wearing a finger ring, a big solid metal one, and there’s a part in the video where the dancers are on the floor behind me and I’m doing all this stuff with my arms and I went ‘Bang!’ I got her right in the head. She just fell back and didn’t move. She was lying there, really trying to fight back the tears. I started crying because I felt so bad! She had a massive bump on her head immediately. But she was back up by the end of the video because she’s a professional. But it was horrible! 

What can we expect from your new album The Entertainer? 

The mood of the album is quite fiery. Don’t mess with me! But in a nice way. I feel like I’ve made the record that people thought I would have made when I left Mis-Teeq. It’s got the MCing back and the attitude back, but it’s still got those nice, vulnerable moments on there as well. I didn’t want any ballads on this album but there are still some more thought-provoking moments. It’s definitely a character record and hopefully it takes people on a journey.

 We haven’t heard you MC for a while and you were known for that in Mis-Teeq. Did you miss it? 

I did. I really did. It was just a conscious decision not to on The Alesha Show album because that’s what I was known for in Mis-Teeq. It was an opportunity to show another side. Now I feel like this feels the right time to merge the two together.

 Apparently you’ve been working out to the new material in the gym… 

When I was in the States, I did. I was out there for a solid month recording and literally it was gym, studio, bed, gym, studio, bed for a month. What I was doing to motivate myself in the gym was, as I was recording songs, I was putting them on an iPod playlist. I’d get on the running machine and think, if I was on a stage now I wouldn’t be able to stop, and my shows are like a workout. I try to work out just for stamina reasons.

 Did you learn anything while making The Alesha Show that influenced you with the new record? 

I did the majority of that album with Xenomania and then I was lucky enough to go over to the States. Going over to the States as a solo female artist and going into the studio with all these big producers is really intimidating. I was quite nervous and quite shy. Now with this album, I got over all that anxiety. I was treading on egg shells before so it was nice to go in, head up high. 

You’ve been in the industry for ten years now and you still get shy?

 I am a very confident person but I do get intimidated. I was nervous when I wrote with Gary Barlow. It’s a bad quality but every now and then you think you’re not good enough. You always want to impress someone and make sure you hold your own.

 Do the days of being in Mis-Teeq feel a long time ago? 

It feels a long time ago! It was such a massive, massive chunk of my life. They were some of the best days of my life. If it wasn’t for Mis-Teeq, I wouldn’t be here now. That was the time of my life because I was fearless. We were young girls and we were the underdogs signed to a tiny label. Everything we achieved was a massive deal because we came from nothing. 

When I heard Drummer Boy for the first time on the radio, I still had those same feelings I had when I heard a Mis-Teeq song on the radio. I’m so grateful I have that as I could become complacent but I’m not. It still moves me. I never take it for granted. I’ve been dropped from a record label and I know how it feels to not be in a record deal and how scary that is. I don’t want to feel like that again, and if it weren’t for those two girls in Mis-Teeq none of this would have happened.

The new single Drummer Boy is released on 5 September.