Mon. Sept 10 

 I saw Paloma Faith a few ago on a British concert program while skipping through the satellite TV channels. She looked like a saucy, ‘50s glam girl and she did this soulful cover of the Beatles’ “You Never Give Me Your Money” and I thought, “My god, this girl is good and is going to be huge.”  That she became in her native Britain in 2009 with her debut disc, “Do You Want the Truth, or Something Beautiful?” It went platinum, and Faith notched a BRIT Award nomination for Best Female Solo Artist. But she was not a presence over here in the States. No album at all. Until now, album No. 2, “Fall to Grace” has hit the racks and iTunes and her first ever US tour, a very small club affair, kicks off at T.T. the Bear’s Monday Sept. 10. “Fall to Grace” debuted at no. 2 in UK in May, dropped down 5 and went up again to 2. It comes out in the States in November. The lead single is “Picking Up the Pieces,” where Faith’s character is the one who’s there to mend the broken heart and stake her own claim. Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijel4Vcqd9g

JSInk talked with Faith last week from Blackpool, England.

JSInk: So you’re still at home in England, awaiting your US launch?
Faith: Actually, I got back off a plane from the US yesterday and am going back again on Sunday, so I’m just here for a few days. So I’m there more than I am here at the moment.

You’ve sort of climbed the heights in Britain and here you are in the US playing a very cool but very small club as your first date.

Well, because nobody knows I exist yet. Otherwise, I’d have an empty room on my hands.

Aw, you’re being too modest?
No, I don’t think I’ve sold that many tickets yet.

You’ve gotten so big in Britain. Is there a sense you’re starting over here?
I do but I’m not somebody who’s got a massive ego and am full of pride. If tomorrow somebody said you don’t have a music career anymore and you need to go back to work at Agent Provocateur where you started out then I wouldn’t feel like too full of pride to do that. Life, you take it as it comes and I’m quite excited to begin in the US and I don’t have any expectations. I’m just happy to have the opportunity.

Why didn’t your first album get released in the US?

I don’t think my record label thought that it was would make any impact. I didn’t get the impression that there was any demand for it. I feel different this time. The American label that signed me [Epic] had approached me and they want to work with me. It’s not my coming desperately knocking on the window,

Ray Davies’ collaborative album came out last year and you did this great version of “Lola” with him. (Video performance link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7yJj-dUm6c ) I talked to him around that time and asked what it was like doing this classic, sexually ambiguous song with you. He said, “She’s great. She phoned me up. And she said ‘Hello Ray, I want to do :Lola.”’ I said, ‘Are you sure you want to take on this challenge?’ and she said ‘Yeah.’ We rehearsed for a day, She’s an outrageously entertaining, funny witty girl and she added great energy, she has a great backup band. Get ready because she’s really a great artist. She sang it like a soul song. Which is her style. She’s a young artist in her twenties, but she loves Bessie Smith and we’ve written a couple of songs together since we recorded, truly collaborating.”

Aw. He’s a good man.

So you collaborated with Ray?

Yeah, I did but they’re not on my record unfortunately.

Will they come out?

I don’t know. They’re still there.

What kind of band will you have with you? You’ve got quite a set up with strings and the like.

For this tour, because obviously the venue is very small, we can’t fit my usual band in, so we’re going into rehearsal next week to work out how we can do it with half the number of people we usually have which is four. Usually, we have eight, but we thought it would be a squeeze. We’re going to rework it. I have a piano player, a bass player, a backing vocalist and a guy who a bit of a genius programmer on stage – a producer-orchestra type guy.

So, it’s a challenge.

Yeah, but it’s fun. It’s nice to figure out different configurations.

Costuming plays a fair amount on stage and from I gather in real life.

Always. I can’t not do it. I do it daily; it’s natural to me.

How does it help your presentation of your music?

I feel like my perception of life and the way I see things has always been inspired by – there’s a drama to it, in the way I perceive the world is through movie-tinted spectacles, so (laughs) it’s kind of inevitable that would be reflected in the way that I perform.  There’s a Chinese director called Won Kar Wai  and he seems to manage with his films to depict ordinary life in an extraordinary way and I’m all for that. I think it gives you hope when you mingle reality with something extra.

And it is what you put across. Is your hope to bring it to another level of transcendence. Would that be overstating it?

Well, I don’t know. I’m really into old music. What I love about people like Billie Holiday and Judy Garland and Etta James and all these female singers, they were the queens of tragedy. I love that they projected an air of hope into otherwise tragic situations. I think that’s what I’m trying to do, is like see grace and glory in tragedy and that gives it a cinematic air to it. It’s an extreme, a world of extremes.

In the song “The Beauty of the End,’ there’s the complexity – with something going away, but the memory of the pleasure lingers. It’s not a bitter, angry song. It’s warm, almost. It’s not a point of view that’s usual in pop.

Yes.

This emotional layering is important, much as the way the musical layering is too, I gather.

Yeah,  definitely. I try to think of life from every angle. I don’t want to get into how quite a lot of artists get into naming and shaming their subjects. I kind of appreciate life with all its (rough spots) because it makes you turn into what you’re going to be. It’s sculpture,

Looking at your own life, what changes happened to you with success over the past few years?

Well, I’m obviously a lot more well-known in the UK, like it’s funny I come to America and I feel free again. Yesterday I got off the plane as soon as I got off the plane, people were running after me and going “Oh my god! Oh my god!” and the guy at immigration is saying “Welcome home Paloma!’ and it was all a bit oh my god. I didn’t realize how different it was ‘til I’d gone away and come back again.  I tend to try remain the same as much as possible because if you can’t keep (some things personal) in your life then you can’t write songs that people relate to.

It’s trying sometimes when artists write about life on the road, or success as a rock musician. Is this really something we need to know?

It’s funny, isn’t it? I was laughing about that. On the second album, people always seem to talk about that. I don’t write about being on the road, because I don’t want to be Michael Buble. (laughs)

People talk about you in terms of the retro-soul thing a la Amy Winehouse and Adele. Is the comparison valid, something you aspire to?

I aspire to? I wouldn’t say that. But I do think it’s complimentary, but I don’t really judge myself against other people. I’m not that way in private. I tend to just stick to what I’m doing and hope for the best. I don’t take offense when people say that if that’s what you’re asking. I think they’re both incredible artists. If I can anywhere near either of their success, a small portion of it, in America, I’d be absolutely over the moon. I do think I’m different, but I understand that there are nuances about what I do that are considered to be similar and I think I probably am influenced by the same artists as them.

That’s fair and honest. Rumor has it you were asked to join Amy’s band at some point?

No. Well, yeah, I was kind of, but only in fleeting. I was at  a party and she I asked if I played any instruments ‘cause she was looking to put a band together and I don’t so that was where it ended.

You’ve got an amazing past from what I gather – a magician’s assistant, worked in a sex shop, did burlesque. All or any of this true?

I didn’t work in sex shop. I worked at Agent Provocateur which is an underwear shop. We live in an age of prudishness, and everyone likes to blow it up. Burlesque? I used to sing in burlesque clubs but I never stripped. I was around a lot of strippers.

You’ve talked about how you and your mother disagree about your notion of feminism. How do you explain your feminist side and the sexuality you present?

I would say I’m a post-feminist that embraces my femininity and I take it back as an empowering thing. But I view myself as an equal and I don’t feel like because of the way I conduct myself, I never feel in my career people treated me different because I’m a woman or patronize me. I believe that because of the way I conduct myself, occasionally I feel like I’m treated differently in the sense that when a man is funny it’s embraced and when a woman is funny she can be called mental or crazy. That is something I have noticed. I don’t think in terms of success or especially in music now because British women are doing really well, so I don’t feel like at this point we’re being held down or whatever. Everyone’s got their prejudices and of course it’s never completely there but I’d call myself a post-feminist. I appreciate being attractive, but I don’t bare flesh to do that – I’m not likely to wear provocative short skirts or whatever.  And nothing is designed for the male gaze. It’s designed to make myself more confident and in that I think you become more attractive.

The 50s were an influential era for you, fashion wise.

I just really like the style because I think it fits my body. When I hit puberty, I began to notice the way my body was changing and clothes that fitted that physique and that’s when I started to dress like that as opposed to trying to fit into what’s around now, which looks dreadful on me.

As a child, you were fairly shy, I understand. Was there anything in particular that brought you out of that shell, allowed you to blossom as a performer?

Yeah, I was in a play at school. My teacher was worried that I needed to do something to build my ability to assert myself. And she sort of forced me into being this – I was only 7 or 8 – she forced me into being the head dinosaur in this dinosaur play we did in school. I had to roar and be really scary, and I think that really brought me out of my shell and the fact that I was a different character to do it, helped me do it. When I was myself I was quiet; and when I was that dinosaur I wasn’t. And I think that was an escape. I was always it felt like I was on.

Tickets: $15. She's on at 10 pm.

10 Brookline St., Cambridge, 617-392-0082 www.ttthebears.com

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