RS: It looks like about 2004 there was a change where you became
less of a session singer and more of a featured vocalist getting
credited. Was that a step you made on purpose?
Katherine Ellis: With the Ruff Drivers, we had four hits and the
biggest one being "Dreaming," which I co-wrote. That was really where
I started to sort of focus more on my commercial writing. It was
around that time that I met my husband Max Ellis, for those of you who
are interested, junkyard.co.uk, he's an illustrator. We now have two
children who are seven and four. When we decided to have our family,
I made a conscious decision to get a studio set up at home to start
concentrating more on my writing and I signed to Ministry of Sound and
really developed my top line writing. It was only really about
eighteen months ago that I started performing again and coming to the
fore as an artist and promoting my own records again. Having children
is a huge thing and I really wanted to be there for them and for those
very early years but now they're a bit older and it's a bit easier and
we have an au pair, a long-suffering au pair who's fantastic. That
means that it's possible for me to go traveling and I can ring them up
and speak to them. I have iSight so I can actually see them and speak
to them on the computer when I'm away so I seem to be having my cake
and eating it.
RS: What exactly is a top line writer?
Katherine Ellis: A top line is a melody and lyrics.
RS: So in most cases a producer or a DJ will give you a track
and you'll write to it?
Katherine Ellis: Yes, they send me a track and I write the top line
which is basically the song.
RS: Then from that you sing a demo?
Katherine Ellis: People send me their tracks and I never listen to things until I'm ready to work on them. I load up the track, set
my
mic up, set the effects and then I just sing. I sing every idea that comes into my head and I usually find that I've got sixty to seventy
percent of the song in that first take. I find that works pretty well for me because I react spontaneously to music. I try not to let my
head get in the way and just try and sort of feel the music and sort of come up with an angle or a title. I usually come up with the title
and the chorus and most of the melodies and I've found through experience that if I don't come up with it on that first tape then I'm
unlikely to be able to because sometimes you just don't feel things.
Then I fill in the blanks and I send people a chorus and a verse and a
couple of ad libs and it's about a minute long, and I just say do you
like it. If they like it I finish it, if they don't then I keep it on
file, and I have a stock of a cappellas. I send those out to people
from time to time if I don't have time to specifically write for them.
RS: How do the producers find you? You work with some of the most cutting-edge progressive producers: Lee Coombs, Plumb DJs, Tom
Stephan...
Katherine Ellis: Well, I've been around a long time, this is my twenty-first year in the industry, so people do know me. The whole
Lee Combs, Dylan Rhymes, and Meat Katie connection came through my friend Chris Allen who at the moment is engineering and producing
UNKLE's new album, Chris lives quite near me, and I met him when I was signed to Ministry of Sound because he had a project, and I was
put in touch with him by my publishers. We've kept in touch and he hooked me up with Dylan Rhymes. I said to him, 'what made you think
of me.' He said 'you are the most professional singer I've ever worked with.' I was like 'oh, thank you very much.'
I can't remember whether I did "Salty" or "Shiver" first, but it was around the same time. I've now made about three records with Lee,
about three with Dylan, and also about three with Meat Katie. It does sort of surprise me sometimes that they don't seem bothered, because
they're all good mates but I suppose they are kind of in competition with each other to an extent. The work I do for Mark Pember, who's
Meat Katie, is much different from what I'm doing with Marvin Beaver, who's Dylan Rhymes. All three of them actually are very active
producers in that they do steer me and we work together. Sometimes they'll come over here or we'll sort of do quite a bit of batting
about back and forth across the internet. I'll send Lee some vocals and he'll chop them up and say 'I like this bit, I don't like this
bit, I think we need a bit that goes a bit like this' or whatever - so we do sort of collaborate more. In fact, the four of us are doing a
club night in San Francisco in May, which is going to be amazing. None of them have ever seen me sing live, which is really ridiculous.
So I'm really looking forward to getting up on the stage and singing their songs to them live.
RS: On the other hand, you have all the pop guys you work with, like your band, Bimbo Jones, and the Freemasons. Do you work with the
pop producers differently than you work with the more progressive producers?
Katherine Ellis: Not really, no. It's all music. Most people are very positive but there has been the occasional comment where
people
have said, how can you do all these different types of things and shouldn't you be deciding what you're doing. I think no, just do it
until they tell you to stop. I work on tracks that I like and it doesn't matter to me whether it's pop, breakbeat, house or whatever,
if I can express myself on the music and if I like the people that I'm working with, that's enough for me. Tom Stephan came about because he
heard "Salty" and his manager tracked me down. It was through working with him that I went on tour with Roger Sanchez and featured with Lisa
Pure on "Lost," so it's all sort of word of mouth I suppose.
