Sophie Ellis-Bextor interview: 'I don't thrust myself in people's faces like Lady Gaga'

Sophie Ellis-Bextor is turning heads. It’s hardly surprising; after all, she cuts a singular figure. She’s just shy of 6ft tall, with her strikingly geometric bone structure (Robbie Williams once compared her face – favourably, if a little uncharitably – to a satellite dish), and a sense of style that could be summed up as eccentric-head-girl-raids-granny’s-attic. It’s exemplified today by a Victorian-style green dress with Peter Pan collar and ruffed sleeves, teamed with a raggedy-seamed but elegant patchwork wool coat. She’s also been a bona fide pop star for over a decade.

But today, as we head along a London high street in search of coffee, the level of attention has ratcheted up a notch. Old ladies cluck and coo; preschoolers’ jaws drop in recognition; van drivers roll down their windows to bark gruff approbations. Ellis-Bextor takes it all in her not-inconsiderable stride. “This,” she says, with a smile and a shrug, “is the Strictly effect.”

It seems that if you want to be bombarded with variously nuanced expressions of unalloyed goodwill, getting to the final of a dance contest-cum-light entertainment juggernaut is the way to do it. Ellis-Bextor’s success on Strictly Come Dancing (she ended up in fourth place) has elevated her to national-sweetheart status.

“I underestimated the impact it would have,” she says, as we sit down with coffees delivered by an appropriately awestruck waiter. “You know, I’ve done high-profile one-off performances on TV before, but Strictly is something people totally engage with, above and beyond the performance itself. It’s…” She grins as she shrugs off her coat. “I hesitate to use the ‘J’ word, but yes, it’s all about your journey, and the fact that it’s one of the few reality shows where it’s not about humiliation. People just respond warmly when they see you trying your hardest.”

The fact that Ellis-Bextor had to try harder than most surprised those who thought that, given her day job, she would have held some kind of stage-school-shimmy advantage over her rivals. In fact, she says, back when she played her first live gigs, she would cling to the microphone stand for dear life, “so that the chances of me looking ridiculous were reduced”.

And though she scored an early Strictly success with an impeccably perky Charleston, some of her subsequent outings brought the title of her biggest hit, Murder on the Dancefloor, to mind. During the Latin numbers, the very qualities that distinguish her as a pop star – a rather composed, contained persona – worked against her, with the judges demanding more character and fire. This, she says, is what kept her resisting the lure of the show until last year.

“I’d thought in the past, because I make dance music, that going on a show to see if I could dance wasn’t the smartest idea,” she laughs. “I mean, I had no idea if I could do it. But I felt the time had come to stretch myself a bit. Brendan [Cole, her intense and occasionally judge-baiting professional partner] was a brilliant teacher, so sweetly supportive.”

^{'I lost my inhibitions': Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Brendan Cole in Strictly Come Dancing (BBC)}

And Strictly’s old-school sequinned-showbiz vibe was another reason to succumb. “I love the innocence of it,” she exclaims, “the big showpieces, the hamminess, the larger-than-life elements. I love musicals, and I’ve been known to play the G-A-Y club, so it all resonates with me.”

Finally, she says, it was the first thing she’s done in her entire career that “totally united all the generations in my family behind me”, from her grandparents to her mother (Janet Ellis, the former Blue Peter presenter, a regular, beaming that’s-my-girl presence in the studio audience) to her husband, musician Richard Jones, and their three sons, Sonny, nine, Kit, four, and Ray, 19 months.

“As the weeks went on, and the momentum built, I really did lose my inhibitions a bit,” she says. “At the same time, I learnt a lot about discipline, control and drama. I loved that thrill in the ballroom when it all tessellated. Hopefully they’re qualities I’ll be able to take back to my other life.”

Apropos that other life, Ellis-Bextor might also be hoping that a starring role in a beloved franchise might help soften up her public for a 180-degree career turn. Her new – and fifth – album, Wanderlust, forsakes the four-to-the-floor dance-stompers of yore in favour of lush, string-laden songs with an Eastern European feel. Bulgarian choirs and the exotic strains of the balalaika flesh out dramatic songs such as Birth of an Empire and The Deer and the Wolf. Disco has been usurped by mazurkas and waltzes.

The album was co-written with and produced by the post-Goth singer-songwriter Ed Harcourt. “He’s a family friend,” says Ellis-Bextor. “I’ve known him for quite a while. And quite early on, we were going for this Eastern sound, quite theatrical, even folky in places. No suggestion, from Bulgarian choirs on up, was too bonkers to be considered.” (Harcourt will accompany her on her forthcoming tour.)

It turns out that Ellis-Bextor’s turn eastwards is not unrelated to a growing fan-base in Eastern Europe in general and Russia in particular; an affection that’s more than reciprocated, if her decision to help celebrate the Russian airline Aeroflot’s 90th birthday by doing a show inside the Kremlin, dressed in full Aeroflot uniform, is anything to go by.

At the same time, she acknowledges the harsh treatment meted out to the sector of the Russian population most likely to appreciate the camper aspects of that performance: “I’d rather play there, and give gay people a chance to congregate and enjoy themselves, and not abandon them, though I think all the energy put into hate and fear is really horrible.”

The “romantic, mysterious” atmosphere of the region fed into darkly fanciful lyrical themes; on the yearning Young Blood, any impending transfusion sounds like it might be achieved through Twilight-esque means, while Love is a Camera “is about a woman who takes your photo and traps your soul in the picture”. She grins. “This is what comes of reading Russian fairy tales as a kid and doing Emily Dickinson at school.” David Lynch’s surreal soap Twin Peaks was also a big influence: “It was so spooky, but with really goofy humour; the macabre was mixed with the oddball, so you never knew what was coming next.” She downs her coffee with a flourish. “At this point in my career, I think I’ve earned the right to spread my wings a bit.”

And Ellis-Bextor really has fashioned a career. It’s worth recalling that, after her late-Nineties indie roots with the band Theaudience, her first solo effort, the Ibiza anthem Groovejet (If this Ain’t Love), ushered in the new millennium by beating Victoria Beckham to number one. Her mum unhelpfully waded into the faux-rivalry by pronouncing Ellis-Bextor “the real Posh” – a product of her solid upper-middle-class west London upbringing (she went to the independent Godolphin & Latymer girls’ school, whose alumni also include Davina McCall and Nigella Lawson).

While the pop landscape around her has changed unutterably – the idea of Beckham pursuing a recording career seems very, well, last century – Ellis-Bextor’s persona has remained the same. A genuine pop/dance fan (she DJs with her husband, sometimes deserting the DJ booth for the dance floor), Ellis-Bextor comes across as smart, sure and media-savvy. Her father is the television producer/director Robin Bextor; her parents divorced when she was three, and she has a quintet of half-siblings.

“I’m not very good at playing the kinds of games to keep myself in the public eye,” she shrugs. “I wouldn’t want to thrust myself in people’s faces like Lady Gaga. I loved her theatricality initially, but four years on, it looks exhausting and she looks exhausted. You know, she’s clomping around in heelless shoes and a meat dress, then Adele comes along and sells billions of records without doing any of that stuff. I just think the only thing you can do is find your own niche and do what works for you. It’s hard enough just keeping your sense of self and remaining on the level. I just want to be able to get up in the morning and know that I’m happy with what I’m doing and be able to face myself in the mirror.”

^{Sophie Ellis-Bextor with her mother, former Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis, in 1989}

At 34, does Ellis-Bextor feel like an elder stateswoman of pop? In the age of the up-crotch pap-shot, the sex tape, and teatime twerking, is she ever tempted to write her own cautionary open letter to the likes of Miley Cyrus, or indeed Sinead O’Connor, or anyone else exposing themselves to full public glare? She considers. “For me, the reason things get debated is because the context or intention is not owned in the right way by whoever’s doing it. That’s when people feel uncomfortable, or it provokes comment.” She pauses. “I’m being really careful because I don’t feel like I should comment on what anyone else is up to. I wouldn’t like it if they did it about me.”

On the other hand, she adds, the sexualisation of culture makes her quite glad that her kids are all boys: “Girls are encouraged to put their sexuality out there as an empowering thing, but that can also put you on the back foot. It would be a really sensitive issue if you have a girl that’s anywhere from about eight to 18.”

But isn’t it often sexier to withhold, to retain an air of mystique?

“Sure, but it’s hard to get that across when you’re a teenager,” she laughs. “When I was 15, we had the ladette culture and Wonderbras and things like More! magazine with its Position of the Fortnight feature. And there were as many debates about Madonna then as there are about Miley Cyrus now. But Madonna always seemed to be in control of what she was doing – that’s what I always liked about her when I was growing up. She had her own agenda, and was like, screw you if you don’t get it, and I thought that was pretty cool. That’s why I think you should always try and gauge the look in someone’s eyes, see if they comprehend what they’re doing and the images they’re playing with.”

Has she never been talked into ostensibly “sexy” photo shoots or anything else she regrets? “You’ve got to know what you’re able to carry off and what you can’t,” she cackles. “Some options are really not options at all. That’s been very useful to me in avoiding a lot of pitfalls.”

The desire to not embarrass her family is also factored in. She’s described herself, Jones and the children as “a unit that feels invincible” – so much so that she had the F-word tattooed inside a red heart on her right bicep and campaigned for the very un-rock ’n’ roll aim of bringing back family mealtimes. Perhaps it’s also in recognition of the hurdles they’ve overcome – when Jones and Ellis-Bextor first met, they were both dating other people; a situation that changed when, as he’s said, “something kind of smacked us in the face”. (Winningly, he still insists that, when it comes to his wife, “I’m punching way above my weight”.)

^{Sophie Ellis-Bextor performing on Top of the Pops in 2000}

Later, she suffered pre-eclampsia, and her first two boys were born prematurely, Sonny by emergency caesarean. Now, they live a stone’s throw from where she grew up, with her mother within easy babysitting distance. She shows off a selection of the 1,400 pictures of her sons on her phone. Sonny and Kit, though both flame-haired, are “completely different – Sonny’s into technology and computers, while Kit’s very eccentric and theatrical, and into full-on face and body paint and wearing the lederhosen I bought him in Salzburg – as a Sound of Music fanatic, I couldn’t be prouder.”

A few years ago, she said she’d love to work her career out so that it was album-baby-album, and that’s pretty much how it’s gone. “I suppose that, when I re-enter the fray, it’s a bit like starting from scratch all over again,” she says. “But that doesn’t bother me. I’ve never had to worry about being ‘hot’, but I do love music and pop culture, so sometimes you hit a nerve or current groove despite yourself.

'The way I look at it is, if I can keep releasing stuff, and retain enough people who are interested, what more can I hope for? The aim was always to make a real go of this, and not just have a moment. And I think I’ve been plugging away for long enough now to say that I’ve got there.”

And if “the Strictly effect” helps people take a fresh look at the enduring but somewhat underrated pop princess in their midst – something that the renewed wave of backslaps and bonhomie, as we make our way back down the street, would indicate – so much the better.

Wanderlust is released on January 20. Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s UK tour begins on April 7. See sophieellisbextor.net/