CityLife

Interview: Rumer

Rumer

Band On The Wall - January 17, 2011 (Monday)

There was a time when admitting to liking The Carpenters was a mortal blow to credibility. Now that Karen Carpenter’s place in the pop pantheon is assured – aided, doubtless, by an unremittingly tragic life – it’s possible to idolise the deceptively sunny Californian and still be cool.

This is good news for Sarah Joyce, aka Rumer, a London songstress who invites comparisons to Karen Carpenter.

She brought it on herself, by name-checking Superstar in the song Thankful (“the radio’s playing Superstar”).

And Rumer’s debut album, Seasons Of My Soul, is as much a guilty pleasure as anything by the Carpenters.

Heard one at a time, the songs charm and soothe. Consuming the album at one go, however, is like gorging on a box of chocolates. The pleasure increases, but so does the guilt and complex emotions.

Does she consciously model her singing-style on Karen Carpenter, or is the resemblance entirely coincidental? The answer is slightly alarming.

“One of the ladies that I go and see says that I have a spirit guide who is female, and I sometimes think that it’s Karen,” says Rumer.

One hears the same beautiful tone and flawless phrasing. She similarly connects one word to the next smoothly, with perfect enunciation.

But, like Carpenter, the sumptuous surface conceals a deep vein of melancholia. Indeed, Seasons Of My Soul makes the typical Carpenters album seem positively sprightly.

But if Rumer is channeling the spirit of Karen Carpenter, she is also influenced by other singers.

Take Me As I Am evokes the breathy sensuality of Dusty Springfield, and On My Way Home borrows Joni Mitchell’s favourite vocal mannerism (the dying murmur an octave low).

“If you’re trying to be anything now, the first thing you do is study the great ones,” says Rumer, in no doubt that the time just before she was born (in 1979, in an expat enclave in Pakistan before her family returned to England) was the golden age of pop music.

“I remember looking at the 1970 Grammy Awards for Best Song on YouTube . The nominees were Let It Be, We’ve Only Just Begun, Fire And Rain and Bridge Over Troubled Water. That’s what it was like then. That was the competition.” 

But it seems the compliment is being repayed. Simon and lounge king Burt Bacharach have professed themselves fans of Rumer’s crystal clear voice. Bacharach famously flew the singer to the States just to hear her sing.

She met Leon Russell, the writer of Superstar, at the recent Electric Prom with Elton John.

“I said, ‘I really like your song, My Cricket And Me’. He said, [imitates gruff Southern drawl] ‘You’re the third person to tell me that. The first person was Willie Nelson. The second person was Jerry Lee Lewis. And now you’.”

Rumer performed This Masquerade, a Leon Russell song with Carpenters associations.

“It’s not ideal to be constantly compared to someone who is one of the great singers of all time,” says Rumer, evincing a deep knowledge of her idol.

“Karen was a tomboy. She could do as well as the boys, and play the drums as well as the boys, but she was treated like she was a doll.

“One, the marriage was a disaster, and two, her solo album was a disaster.

“I think her anorexia was her way of getting back control, of reclaiming some private space. It was so tragic.”

Perhaps the ability to write one’s own material helps give the control that Karen so tragically lacked?

“A little bit. But I love to sing other people’s songs,” says Rumer, who is herself a gifted writer. “And I’m older. I’m the same age as Karen when she died. She died at 32, and I’m just starting.” 

Ah yes, the late start. Few pop stars can claim an apprenticeship that includes dishwashing, waitressing, hairdressing, selling popcorn and repairing iPods.

The reason is simple. “I couldn’t get a break. I was waiting for the right producer, the right record label and the right deal. Because my kind of music does need that support.”

The right producer turned out to be Steve Brown, best known as Glenn Ponder, Alan Partridge’s bandleader in Knowing Me, Knowing You. Brown brings subtlety and old-fashioned virtues like the love of a good tune.

The right record label is Atlantic. A corporate giant, yes, but one with the foresight to nurture conspicuous talent. Rumer mentions the success of label-mate Paolo Nutini as an example of the company’s enlightened policy.

The right deal? Whatever it is, it’s working. The dreamy Slow, Rumer’s debut single, virtually monopolised the airwaves at Radio 2.

Yet the Rumer aesthetic is introspective and the subject-matter is mundane: going to school (Aretha), working in a shop (Saving Grace), walking through fallen leaves (Thankful). All unremarkable, never to be repeated moments, captured in evanescent splendour in the bittersweet songs of Seasons Of My Soul.

“I do need to be true. I can’t pretend to be something I’m not,” she says, asked about the preponderance of ballads on the album.

“Hopefully it all comes from the heart.”

Presumably, the upbeat songs will appear on the next album, when Rumer, buoyed by the success of Seasons, will extend the emotional range to include happiness. She is congenitally incapable of not being real.

Rumer plays Band On The Wall on Monday at 8pm. SOLD OUT. She also plays the Bridgewater Hall on April 3. Tickets are £23.50.