No More Pop Princess

Right, first up wipe any preconceptions you might have about Scottish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Sandi Thom, based on that breakthrough single. That was seven years ago and she's just released her fourth album, Flesh And Blood, which sees her drop any 'pop' pretentions you might have expected and allowed the soulful rock and blues singer to step out – the part of her that saw Brian May compliment as “the real deal” after they shared a superstar bill at the Royal Albert Hall last October. So how did she come to reinvent herself, if you will, on that new album?

“It was really a case of being let loose from the confines a pop major label that restricts you to certain criteria,” Thom explains, fresh off the plane and driving up the Great Ocean Road in Victoria on the start of her debut solo tour of the country armed with just two 12-string guitars. “So I suppose once I had control over that, it was almost like a rebellion. I wanted to do stuff that was deeper and darker, had more layers to it, and musically as well.”

That freedom came with her previous and third album, 2010's Merchants And Thieves, which she released on her own label, Guardian Angels, after being dropped by RCA, which signed Thom after I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker had gone viral and made her an internet sensation back in 2006. Of course, the major label signed her expecting more of the same.

“The third record was kind of meant to be – I had to get it out of my system and it was very cathartic. It allowed me to be a little bit more dimensional than I had been before and allowed people to see that there was also a darker side, you know, and more interesting subjects in the songwriting than there was previously. So that was kind of like the pendulum swung one-eighty with the third record and settled somewhere in between with the fourth. It's been a nice little journey to get to this point.”

The other pivotal aspect to Flesh And Blood was hooking up with Rich Robinson of The Black Crowes, whom she met out of the blue in LA – Thom has been living with American guitar gun Joe Bonamassa for the past three years and several of the songs on the new album relate to their love affair – and who, after listening to her latest batch of songs, invited her down to Nashville to record.

“What he did for me,” Thom says of Robinson as a producer, “was really take me out of my shell. It was a refreshing thing for me because it was a whole new set of musicians, new producer, new environment, new everything, so none of the history was there and none of the familiarity so we were all very much strangers in a room trying to make a record together. There's something really cool about that because you're all there for the same reason.

“So he really pulled me out of my comfort zone and did deliberate acts that were a little bit torturous for me as a singer, you know, raised everything up a key or a key and a half, deliberately making it difficult for me so that I had to struggle, and I think that was a really good idea. He was deliberately antagonising me to get a really good performance out of me, so there was a lot of psychology behind it as well. So he was very good in that respect and he got to know me very quickly.”

Sandi Thom will be playing the following dates:

Wednesday 1 May - Lizottes, Newcastle NSW
Thursday 2 May - The Vanguard, Newtown NSW
Friday 3 May - Clarendon Guest House, Katoomba NSW
Saturday 4 May - Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh VIC
Sunday 5 May - Art Gallery Of Ballarat, Ballarat VIC
Thursday 9 May - Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank VIC
Friday 10 May - Trinity Sessions, Clarence Park SA
Saturday 11 May - The Courthouse Cultural Centre, Aurburn SA
Sunday 12 May - Brass Monkey, Cronulla NSW