Interview: Dido

No, because I’m not a big worrier and I’ve never really worried about the reaction to my music if I feel good about it. I make music in such a personal way that I’m never thinking about people’s reactions to it. I get excited and go “I wonder what they’ll think about it” but I always just put music out that I feel good about having made. The rest of it is whatever really.

Completely. I feel so lucky. I feel I can make exactly the music I want to make. However it’s all panned out well up to now which has enabled me to do the thing that’s most important to me, which is to go into a studio and record from the heart. I still love it. The biggest high is when you write a song you’re proud of. In the morning that song didn’t exist, then by the evening it’s written. That feeling never gets old.

At first I thought, I don’t want to write a song about having a kid. I was quite adamant about that because it felt separate from everything else, but I sat there one day and it just poured out. It's a very simple song about unconditional love and how I felt about Stanley from the moment he was born.

Yes, it does. It’s all I know how to do, in a way. I put all my emotions in there, although I don’t always include specifics about my life because I prefer people to hear their own thing, if that makes sense. But I can’t help but write what I feel and what I know, and my brother writes some of the lyrics so it all gets mixed up with that perspective as well.

It’s really tight. We’ve always been really close and he was a good older brother when I was growing up. We’re six years apart so we’ve never had to compete or tread on each other’s toes and we’ve always enjoyed each other’s company.

It’ll be a mixture of stuff. All the albums will be represented as well as the new music. I’m just going to have fun.

When I get to a new place I like to go for a really long walk because I like knowing where I am. Sometimes on a tour in the past if I didn’t do that it could get really confusing. It’s important to me to either get out on a bicycle or go for a really long walk and just feel the city I’m in. And I always like to take a good pillow and earplugs with me when I’m touring. So long as I can sleep then I’m all good.

I usually end up just getting nervous and running to the bathroom. I’m normally pretty quiet before a show, just getting into the headspace of it. When I’m singing I’m sort of in the headspace of each song so it’s a bit of a journey. 

I do, yes, but once I start singing I’m good. I’m back where I feel comfortable but sometimes the build-up can be nerve-wracking, especially if someone is telling me how big the audience is. I’m like, “Oh God, shut up! I don’t need to know that.”

Absolutely. It had been a long time coming and I was on, like, my eighth tour of America when it really kicked off. That was great because if it had happened as immediately as people perceived it to have done I don’t think I’d have been prepared for it. 

But I’d been touring for a few years and it was a like a gradual and natural progression. It didn’t hit me in a weird way but I’d not have been ready had it happened right away. It was great that I had those years in America, going round in a van, doing a show every day, playing not even in the radio station but in the lobby. Those were really happy times. I felt like I was living in the dream.

I quite like it. I sort of dip in and out of it but what I do like is being able to communicate with fans on the other side of the world in a way you never could have done before. When I used to meet people and hear their stories it was always after a show. Now it’s much more instant. Since the record came out I’ve had all these incredible comments about what it means to them or the songs they like or what they think should be the next single. That’s really cool and I like having that input.

[Laughs] It so isn’t. It’s funny to me and all my friends that people think that, but I don’t mind if they do.

Dido’s new album Still On My Mind is out now and she tours the UK from May 26. For more information visit didomusic.com.