Church Outing

SHE’s one of the world’s biggest selling artists, has shifted upwards of 11 million albums and is reputed to be worth well over a cool £10m.

So what is Charlotte Church doing playing a small room above an Oxford pub?

“I wanted to do it this way as the music is really different,” says the woman who made her fortune as the Voice of an Angel, at the age of 12, but who has since been in the papers for less divine reasons.

“I just want it to be about the music and, by gigging, people will get that.”

The simple truth is that Charlotte has changed. The one-time choirgirl, whose break came at the age of 11 with a rendition of the devotional Pie Jesu live over a telephone on breakfast TV, has discovered her inner rocker.

And she will be showing it off in the intimate surroundings of the Jericho Tavern, in Walton Street, next Friday.

“I wanted to keep it small rather than big venues as I didn’t want it mixed up with the whole celebrity thing as it’s not about that. It never really has been – but I was led into that by my record company.”

And the gigs, she says, are intended for real music fans – not those spectators hung up on her celebrity image.

“It will be much more intimate,” she goes on. “And there will be a different sound. I have been working on it for a while and I am excited. I want people to open their ears.”

Charlotte is talking to The Guide the morning after her festival debut at Cornbury at the weekend. It was “an awesome” experience she says, and is still buzzing from the experience – despite technical problems with the sound, and the more pressing problem of a case of tonsillitis in her daughter Ruby, whom she tenderly comforts and reassures throughout the interview.

“It was a lovely festival with a great crowd,” she says, “though there were a couple of huge technical issues.

“It was great though, as all the material was new, no-one knew what to expect. When you play under bright lights you can’t see the audience, but at a festival when it’s still light you can see everyone’s faces – and they were all getting into it. It was so cool!

“I have never toured before,” she says. “When I was 14 we went to America for six weeks, but I’ve never actually toured. It’s totally new.”

As well as Ruby and second child Dexter, Charlotte was joined at the festival by her boyfriend, the singer-songwriter Jonathan Powell, whom she started dating months after breaking off her engagement to the Welsh international rugby player Gavin Henson.

Powell, who also plays in her band, will also be joining her on tour – and playing at the Jericho Tavern.

She admits her relationship with the musician feeds into her own work – with Powell working on the new album as well as performing it live.

“He’s really enjoying it,” says the former GQ Woman of the Year (2005) who can also grace her mantelpiece with three Brits, three Glamour Awards, a Rose d’Or and a Rear of the Year Award.

“I’m writing with him, and it’s much more of a ‘band’ thing. We have a musical dialogue and understand each other. Our writing styles complement each other. It’s intuitive. We can communicate with a look!”

A former child prodigy himself (he was a gifted viola player), the pair have much in common.

“He plays guitar and violin and is a very smart boy,” says Charlotte.

So what exactly does her new stuff sound like?

“I don’t like genres,” she says. “I find them limiting and silly. A lot of music you can’t put into a genre and that is just put into the category of ‘alternative’.

“I just want people to listen for themselves and see whether they like it – rather than me saying it’s this, that or the other.

“It’s very different. There’s proper lyrical content which we’ve agonised over and which means something.

“It gets pretty raucous,” she adds. “But it’s all about the vocals and melody.

“I’m using my voice and range, and when the band is on stage it goes like clockwork.”

So strong is the collaboration, Charlotte admits she considered dropping her own name.

“I thought maybe we should go out as a band name, but that would look like I was ashamed.”

While charming, Charlotte makes no secret of her hatred for the more unsavoury side of the British Press. She appeared at the Leveson Inquiry complaining of shoddy treatment and intrusion by tabloid journalists. Then earlier this year she accepted £300,000 in damages arising from a phone hacking complaint against News International.

The experience has left her bitter and inspires her music – particularly the suspected-anti-Murdoch song Mr The News. And while she was less than warm to the photographers in the pit at Cornbury for her Friday evening set, wishing them ‘good riddance’, it’s as well she didn’t bump into two of the festival’s other visitors – former News of the World editors Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks.

So, as she enters a new phase in her career, how does she view her earlier life as an angelic choirgirl and child star – and her rapid ascent to becoming a household name.

“It was a totally bizarre experience and weird,” she says.

“It was a psychological thing to go through but I’ve pretty much come through the other side.

“As I told Leveson, I’ve been portrayed as a caricature, but I was not like that then and am certainly not like that now.

“They try to pigeonhole you. But there are lots of other things that can be made into a story than the varying shades of a 26-year-old girl and what their life is.”

Yet, despite the upset and intrusion – which, at its worse, saw her parents’ private lives dissected for public consumption, she has no regrets.

“I’m proud of everything I’ve done,” she says.

“But what I’m doing now is just so different.”

So who is coming along to her shows?

“To be honest it’s a real cross-section, which I wasn’t expecting. And everyone seems to be enjoying it.

“When you’ve been around for so long, people think you are part of their family – like some cousin. But I’m now meeting loads of new fans and people who were never interested in me. And they are really warm and nice.

“I don’t want people thinking I am a mixed-up celebrity. I’m really pretty normal. I have good days and bad days, like everyone else. I have two little ones who are everything.

“I’m getting loads of positive feedback.

“I’m enjoying my career for the first time in years – and I’m happier now than I’ve ever been before.”

* Charlotte Church plays The Jericho Tavern, Walton Street, Oxford on Friday, July 13. Tickets are £12.50 from wegottickets.com. Doors open at 8pm