UK Pop Singer Pierre Lewis- Unplugged (Part 3 of 5) DEBUT ALBUM, MTV, and SHE BANGS

Links to related Pierre Lewis Posts

Debut Album “Mindset”…

Is Colonel Music your record label?

“Yep, it’s on my own label. It’s on Universal Music here in the UK so it’s like a self label. A lot of the UK artists, like the rock bands and stuff, are having their own rights, their own label attached to a major label. It’s kind of what I guess Madonna did with ‘Maverick’ I think it is, and a few sort of major artists are sort of doing that now. It’s cool for me because it means as I develop my songwriting and as I develop as an artist I can look to take on new talent and develop them on my own label which is really cool and which is something I think really started back in America, I think that kind of trend.”

Tell me about your album title “Mindset.” How did you come up with the name?

“Originally it was called ‘Letter on the Door’ and that was a song I actually had on the album but as I said I took that off. It didn’t set relevant to the rest of the songs, and then I thought, you know, ‘What am I going to call it?’ I won’t lie it’s been a real challenge putting the album together, really emotional. It’s been hard times. It’s been good times, and really I think to be an artist you have to kind of have a focus and a certain mindset and that’s why it kind of made sense, you know, so I’m going to call it ‘Mindset,’ and I think the good thing is that it’s fairly ambiguous, and people can see it and read into it what they kind of want.”

Where will it be released? I ask for those of us outside of the UK. Will it be available in stores or online or on iTunes?

“‘Broken’ is already out worldwide on iTunes and ‘Going’ is out as well on iTunes on the 11th of May and with the album and kind of the physical format, the CD, that’s going to be in UK shops in October. Hopefully, we’ll do a US release. I mean I’m over there (the US) for about 3 1/2 weeks. I’m going over to San Diego, LA, Las Vegas, and Vancouver as well, so hopefully do some radio and stuff over there and just pick up a vibe to see how the American public likes my music and stuff so that’ll be really interesting you know to kind of see how that goes…As a British artist it’s always that’s the real test, you know, if you can break America that’s just incredible…The great thing is that there’s a real trend with new UK talent going over there (US) such as Leona, you got Natasha Bedingfield, Amy Winehouse, you know and it’s great. It’s seems to be a lot of the female singers so it would be great to be a male songwriter coming over to do that. It would be amazing, but that’s big dreams.”

I don’t know. I see it. I see it already. First of all the accent will get all the girls going crazy, and you’ve got a great pop sound and a great look so I do think you have a lot of great potential here in the US. You’ve got all the ingredients already. Were there any other producers that you worked with on the album?

“Ya, I worked with a guy called Joe Lawrence who’s incredibly talented. He’s a young guy…21. He’s really young, really incredible talent…I’ve worked with Stephen Williams who loves kind of an orchestra based real band live stuff which I really love, you know. I think it’s great to have a live band and sort of real live soulful sound to it and so some of the singles there is that, but they won’t necessarily be the commercial singles because I think really with the mainstream pop …the singles have to be exactly down one route.”

From what you shared earlier, it sounds like you’ve done a lot of the songwriting on your album as well.

“Ya, definitely. I’m really trying to kind of develop myself as a songwriter here in the UK. It’s great because I’m actually starting to get known as a songwriter in sort of in a separate right almost, and it’s an amazing thing. Actually being dyslexic it’s um, you know, it’s something really that I can be proud of…It’s a great thing to write the whole album myself, it’s really kind of an accomplishment to me. I’m really proud of it.”

Have you written any songs for anyone yet?

“I’ve been writing with an artist called Kylie Valentine…I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the Brit School where Amy Winehouse…and Leona Lewis [and] a lot of the real British female talent, and Kylie’s actually hailed as the next big Brit School talent. So, I’ve worked with her. It’s amazing. I’ve worked with a few sort of rap artists here in the UK and that’s something again that is really flourishing now. We had literally an unknown rap scene here and now kind of we got a lot of emcees and stuff, and it’s really cool actually. It’s really flourishing and a lot of the R&B and hip hop scenes is coming over. I mean obviously, we’re highly influenced by the US, undoubtedly, but also hopefully on the cast is a collaboration between myself and a US rapper actually so that’s going to be really cool, but that’s kind of in the process of being confirmed. I’ll definitely let you know. It’s real exciting so I’m really keen to kind of pursue.”

MTV, Holla!!! …

We started going down this path a little while ago in the interview, but I was thinking of how you have the MTV look. That was the first thing I thought of when I was introduced to you and your music. I see you on, well TRL isn’t around anymore, but I see your video being requested. I see you out there talking. Have you talked to MTV at all?

“My last video was on a lot of the music channels here in the UK. MTV, we’re talking to them at the moment actually, breaking news, they’ve come to my management and they said ‘Look we’re really keen on him’ so hopefully I’m going to do some interview bits and stuff and then they’re going to push the video with that so yes that’s actually kinda cool and obviously MTV, if you’re on MTV you’ve already part made it, certainly here in the UK.”

Ya, it’s the same here. I see that really happening for you so that’s good that you’ve already talked to them…

She Bangs. He Blogs…

…Changing gears a bit so people can get more bits and pieces of who you are. I did see that you do have a blog and I was checking out a few posts. You’ve done that fairly recently. I was thinking as you describe writing, as someone with dyslexia, that starting a blog would be difficult, too.

“Ya, definitely. You know I’m sure that anyone that reads it can see that it has loads of spelling mistakes and stuff, but…I leave it as it is because I am who I am.”

Why are you so critical of yourself? With blogs there are no rules. That’s the nice thing I enjoy about it.

“It’s cool. I love the fact that you can kind of rant on…so I’m kind of using it as an outlet to me. It’s new to me. So it’s great, and then also Twitter as well. I think the two almost link you know you can say ‘Hey, check my blog out.’”

It works for me as well, and actually, I think I first learned of you from a link to your myspace page that someone posted on Twitter. I think you’re doing all the right things, especially to reach a broader audience outside the UK.

continue to Part 4 of interview…

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Links to related Pierre Lewis Posts

INTERVIEW TEASER- INTRODUCING UK POP SINGER PIERRE LEWIS (exclusive interview coming soon!)

PIERRE LEWIS (PART 1 OF 5) PRE-PREFACE and PREFACE

PIERRE LEWIS (PART 2 OF 5) THERE ONCE WAS A BOY, IDOL VS BRIT’S GOT TALENT, and JUGGLING GENRES

PIERRE LEWIS (PART 4 OF 5) SEX and PAPARAZZI

PIERRE LEWIS (PART 5 OF 5) LOOKING FORWARD, FOOTBALL, and EPILOGUE