Imelda May is about to bake some gingerbread but she can't find her molasses. "It's always nice to have some home cooking," she says, referring to the strange confines of a tour bus. "I'm always bringing jams, cakes, things like that to have with a mug of tea. There's no better way to do it."
The last time she toured America, she made it her number one priority to have home comforts on the road. When she and her band, which includes her husband Darrel Higham, were presented with paper plates and plastic cutlery for meals in the bus, she went out and bought some real plates, as well as a teapot from an antique shop. In Imelda May's tour bus, the kettle is always on, tea at the ready. Right now, the gingerbread is for the European tour, a jaunt that will see her crisscross Spain, Germany, Holland and France before heading back to the UK to support Meat Loaf for four concerts. This will be followed by four dates at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin and five gigs around Ireland. After Christmas she's scheduled in for a 10-date tour around England and Scotland. That's a lot of gingerbread.
May's new album is called Mayhem. Apart from being a rather obvious pun, it's also a pretty apt title for her world right now. Having plugged away gigging for years, the last two-and-a-half years have been a series of remarkable breaks, performances, and eventual fame – an overnight success that took more than a decade. Now, May, the rockabilly chick from the Liberties, winks at us from the covers of magazines, takes to the stage at the Grammys, performs with her heroes, buddies up with Jools Holland (whose invitation to perform on his BBC Later... programme kickstarted this hectic part of her career) and gets playlisted on national radio both here and in the UK. Her records hit the top of the charts and she is tipped for the Christmas number one with a new recording of the self-penned 'Kentish Town Waltz', on which she duets with Lou Reed.
Now, her average day consists of "interviews with people like yourself, trying to catch up on emails and phone calls, soundchecks, grabbing a quick bite to eat, doing a gig, going to bed very late". And days off? "I normally have meetings and then try to catch up with people." One would imagine that it's quite a change from being a struggling musician around the shoebox venues of London? Even over the phone, a shrug is almost audible. "Nah. It's pretty similar, except I wouldn't be doing as many interviews. I'd still be doing the gig. That's the kind of life we've been living for a long time, always on the move. We're playing bigger venues now with a bigger crowd, instead of hoping 20 people turn up."
The ease with which May has adapted to a mammoth schedule and endless promotion is rather remarkable. But this is what she was born to do. She oozes music. An old-school grafter, there was a sort of inevitability to her success – she had to get somewhere given the amount of hours she was putting into it. You also get the feeling that if the new fans and the newspapers and the radio play disappeared tomorrow, there would be another shrug from her leopard-print-clad shoulders. And she would keep going. "Yeah, well it's what I do. If it didn't take off, like any musician, I'd still be doing it. It's who I am, that's me, that's me life," she says emphatically.
"So I love doing it. I love touring. I love gigging. In a way it's good that I'm a little bit older. I've been doing this a while, I've got to meet great musicians, have good times, play tiny gigs in sticky venues and have good fun. That's where you learn your stage craft, with nobody watching you. When people are thrust into it quickly, they have to be really professional really quickly. I did gigs where everything went wrong. Plus, by me doing this the old-fashioned way, I've more experience and I can write about more. I've had the ups and downs, and travelling around and meeting different people gives me more inspiration."
May flits through memories of the past year or so, for the first time sounding slightly overwhelmed: "Opening for Chuck Berry. Singing with Wanda Jackson, an idol of mine. Singing with Jeff Beck, him asking me to sing with him on his album. Singing in the Royal Albert Hall with Jeff Beck and David Gilmour," she pauses as if to reflect on it herself. "You just think 'how did this happen?'" before lapsing into another memory, this time when Jeff Beck asked her to perform with him and Eric Clapton in front of 20,000 people. "I do be wound up after a gig. My adrenaline is flying, going back over what happened and thinking 'thank God I didn't fall over'."
She digs up some recent memories again, on a roll now: "Getting to be on Jools – twice now. Electric Picnic was fantastic. Glastonbury was brilliant. I've just come back from working with Lou Reed and Tony Visconti. Meeting David Bowie. Meat Loaf asking us to open for him..." she trails off.
A second album is always meant to create a certain amount of pressure, but for May, her main concern was doing things right for those around her. She has responsibilities other than herself now, another trapping of success – she employs a band, a tour manager, lighting and sound engineers. It's not just her anymore. That's where the pressure is, not in the creative realm. But the album has taken off, just like her debut, and now she's concentrating on even more fantasy achievements that may just become reality the way things are going, "There's loads of things I'd love to do. One thing I've always wanted to do – doubt it will ever happen – but I'd love to do a Bond song. You know when you go to the cinema for a Bond film and the music starts, and you think 'ooh God wouldn't it be brilliant to do that song!'" She's also a massive Quentin Tarantino fan, particularly of his music choices. "I'd love to do something with Quentin."
She lists some more desired collaborators. "There's loads of people: Chrissie Hynde, BB King, Blondie... but I'm not sitting here trying to find out a way how to do that [work with them]. I'm just taking it day by day and working hard."
So for now it's back to prepping the tour bus. "I'm stocking up on DVDs – Hammer House of Horrors, Frankenstein, I love all that, a few comedies, maybe a few B movies, murder mystery that kind of thing. We get out the popcorn and sit around have a laugh." One bunk she turns into a "junk bunk", where they dump all of their belongings before settling on a bunk bed of their own, which can in itself create different problems. "We all get on very well in the band, we know each other well, so if somebody wants to be on their own, we leave them read at the back of the bus. We have a lot of laughs, normally at someone's expense. We had great fun watching our production manager trying to get into the top bunk as the bus was moving one night. The bus was rocking from side to side, and he was totally drunk trying to get up to a bunk up on the ceiling," she lets out a hearty cackle before bidding farewell and getting back to her gingerbread. Here's hoping she finds that molasses.
'Kentish Town Waltz' with Imelda May and Lou Reed is on general release
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