Ameriie interview: “I have to write or I’ll go crazy!”

She's racked up an impressive six UK Top 40 singles since her 2002 chart debut and it's been nine (yes, NINE) years since Top 5 pop anthem 1 Thing. To mark the release of infectious new single What I Want, OfficialCharts.com caught with the lady herself. 

Hi Ameriie! Your new single What I Want features Sugar Hill Gang’s Apache (Jump On It), how did the sample come about?

"My husband [record executive Lenny Nicholson] presented me with the idea and asked if it was something i’d be in to. He knows I love my hip hop and that live band sound and I was definitely down. I knew it would be challenging to write to because it’s very strong and busy and there’s a lot going on, but I was up for the challenge!"

We first heard the song back in May but there’s still no video?

"There’s one coming! I actually just wrote the treatment about a week and a half ago and we’ve decided on a director now – it’s going to be really great!"

What I Want is on your new album BILI, but you actually have TWO new albums coming?

"Yeh, BILI is a very soul/hip hop/live sound but it’s also very new wave, I love the '80s new wave stuff. BILI’s a fusion of those sounds. The second album, Cymatica, is very heavy and big. I approached the instrumentation as if I was scoring a film – it’s very cinematic in sound. The two bodies of work [BILI and Cymatica] definitely wouldn’t fall on the same album."

BILI stands for Because I Love It, which is the name of your 2007 third studio album. Did you feel like that album wasn’t quite finished?

"Because I Love It is my mantra, and the reason why I create. BILI feels like an extension of Because I Love It. The new stuff wouldn’t necessarily go on that album, but it’s like an extension."

You’re very involved in every aspect of your music, is that important to you?

"I can’t help but be involved. That’s just my personality. The reason I do it is because I love to be able to express myself through the music, so I can’t see it being any other way. It’s not like it’s a conscious decision one way or another, it’s just being myself. There’s no other option. No other way to be!"

You have an English degree, did you ever have another career path or were you always going to be a musician?

"It’s always been writing, ever since I was really young. My mum was really surprised [when I became a musician], she thought I would be a writer or a professor or something like that. When I decided to pursue music I didn’t write as much because I was working on my demo when I was in university. Then when I began to write again, I was really intimidated because I was looking at a lot of the great literature and it’s easy to become intimidated by that. Finally I just got over it and went for it!"

So can we expect an Ameriie-penned novel soon?!

"The funny thing is, in publishing it takes about two years for a book to come out. I’m still revising with my agent right now, so there’s probably a bit of time. I have a few books written. I’ve been working on them while I’ve been doing promo, I feel like I have to write or I’ll go crazy!

"My books are adult sci-fi/fantasy and speculative fiction. They’re kind of realistic but there’s a hint of something fantastic in there."

You must have a great imagination then!

"I do have a big imagination! My parents always said that. They said I’d never get bored because I’d have somewhere to retreat to, and that’s definitely the case!"

Ameriie’s new single What I Want is out now.