Talk That Talk: Idolator 2015 Q1 Interview Quotes Roundup — Carly Rae Jepsen, Marina Diamandis, Years & Years And More

Robbie Daw | April 7, 2015 5:30 am

While we here at Idolator serve up our take on all the new music and videos and albums that come down the pop pipeline each and every week, we also love chatting to artists about the music that they make. And now that springtime is upon us, we thought it might be a good time to remind you of all the talented acts we’ve chatted with since January.

Below is a roundup of a quotes from interviews we’ve conducted with everyone from “I Really Like You” singer Carly Rae Jepsen to Grammy winners Clean Bandit over the past three months. Check them out and click the links to see even more of our chats with all your favorite pop movers and shakers!

:: Carly Rae Jepsen gave us the lowdown on recording new single “All That” with Ariel Rechtshaid: “We had a couple coffee dates, just talking in between all the stuff that he’s got going with Brandon Flowers, and we were like, ‘How are we sneaking in a day to get this done?’ We just made it come together. I remember when I got both [Dev Hynes and Ariel] in the room together to work on this track, it was probably one of the most magical days ever. It’s nice to really be in a moment like that and feel like, okay, this is why I’m in this business.”

:: Ella Henderson clued us in on working with Ryan Tedder on her hit single “Ghost”: “I was so nervous, because I know the roster of people who he’s worked with, from Adele to Beyonce. For little old me to then walk into the studio, I was quite nervous. But when I met him, it was like we were old friends catching up. We grabbed a drink, we had some food, and the next thing you know we were sat around a piano writing this chorus called ‘Ghost’. Instantly I knew this was going to be my first single. I felt something huge about it.”

:: Katy Tiz got sassy while talking about who she’d like to, um, collaborate with: “I’d love to do a song with Justin Timberlake. In fact, I’d like to do a lot of things with Justin Timberlake!”

:: Olly Murs explained what his first meeting with “Up” duet partner Demi Lovato was like: “She came into this room and we had to do an acoustic performance. She came in and I think I probably chewed her ear off for like the first two hours. Because I was just like, ‘So how are you? What are you up to? What have you been doing? How have you been? How’s things? You okay? What’s going on? What’d you eat for lunch? What’d you do for dinner? What socks are you wearing?’

:: Mariana Diamandis discussed going from working with multiple producers on Electra Heart to scaling things back for Froot: “…after a while, I was like ‘Hmm, so I’m writing these types of songs and I’m writing more freely, so what’s different from how I write alone?’ And the fact was that I was just writing to an instrumental. Whereas at home, I used to be writing lyrics, melody and chords simultaneously, so it was quite limiting. So on the third album, I just started making really crap beats — just putting any old drum beat down and then putting chords that I thought were really beautiful and sounded good — and then I would do the lyrics and melody, and that completely changed everything. I started writing, kind of like, band or rock songs. It just felt really exciting to me.”

:: Clean Bandit’s Grace Chatto gave us the tip on all the cool Grammy parties: “We went to the Warner after-party, and we were DJ’ing there. That was at the Chateau Marmont, which was fun. There were lots of off-shoots at that party, like Mark Ronson had a smaller party in his room that got shut down by the fire brigade in the end because there were so many people in there. Then we went to Charli XCX’s room, and that got shut down as well. After we went to Sam Smith’s party up in the hills, which was a massive party. Diplo and Disclosure were DJ’ing there all night.”

:: Iconic horror director John Carpenter talked about his humble musical beginnings: “My father decided when I was about 8 or 9 years old that it was a good time for me to learn the violin. The only problem with that was that I had no talent. So I suffered through many, many, many years of this. Oh, god — it was awful. But, you know, I played a little bit. I played in college orchestra. It made me the mark for bullies in high school, because I carried my violin to school every day. So I associate the violin with a lot of pain.”

:: “Somebody” singer Natalie La Rose spilled how she got signed by Flo Rida: “I was living in LA. I was on a mission that day and I heard Flo Rida was in town. I had to meet him. When I met him, I said, ‘Flo, my name is Natalie and we should work together.’ I think he admired my guts, my balls. He gave me a shot.”

:: Years & Years frontman Olly Alexander gave the lowdown on the effects their fame has been having: “…when we recently went to Paris, there were fans outside our hotel. That was nuts. Some of them weren’t really there for us! They just saw other people there and they all waited a long time for someone actually famous to come out.”

:: Jess Glynne spoke about the unintentional country vibe in her single “Hold My Hand”: “I actually wrote it with Jack [Patterson] from Clean Bandit and this girl called Janee [Bennett] who I pretty much write all my songs with. When we started it, me and Janee had this idea before we even got to the studio of the line ‘Darling, hold my hand’. It wasn’t originally like, ‘Oh we’re thinking country’. But when we put the chords down and started singing, it kind of sounds a little bit like Dolly Parton’s ‘9 To 5’.”

Click the links above to see more of the interviews we’ve done with your favorite artists over the last three months!