Shaznay Lewis – Pages interview

Twenty years on from her solo debut, Shaznay Lewis is back with belated sophomore album Pages.  We spoke to her about going it alone and whether All Saints really are no more...

As the primary songwriter in All Saints, Shaznay Lewis was one of the defining artists of the late 90s. After the group split – for the first time – in 2001, the Islington-born singer-songwriter released her debut album, the No.22-charting Open, a kickstarter on a solo career that was soon to be paused when All Saints reunited in 2006.

Now, six years on from the seemingly final All Saints record, Shaznay’s back with Pages, a new 12-track album, boasting guest spots from, among others, Self-Esteem, Shola Ama and General Levy. “I do feel as though I’m starting again,” Lewis explains, “and making this record with some special people has been an exhilarating experience.”

It’s been 20 years since Open and six years since the last All Saints album, Testament. So why now?

I don’t really know. I never had any intention of doing my own project before. It literally all stemmed from one song I’d done. I’d done this session with Moyses Dos Santos and Charlie Stacey and by the end, I knew I loved the melody and really wanted to write something good to it. So I left it for a little while and then one day wrote a song over it, and that one track – Missiles – basically inspired me to go off and do my own project.

How would you describe the differences between Open and this latest solo album?

This record was definitely written without any sort of stress. If I think about how I felt when I wrote Open, I’d just come out of a band. Also, the label at the time had been taken over by EMI so I had no real point of contact in terms of A&R, as lots of people were leaving. I spent four years trying to put that record together.

I just wanted to keep going, but there were so many other factors which just made that situation be quite drawn out. So by the end of the four years, when I finally did release Open, I was quite frazzled. And by that point I felt a little bit… unsure. But with this, with Pages, you’re talking about 20 years later, so there’s a lot of growth there, there’s a lot of cemented understanding of what I do and how I do it.

How do you think you’ve matured as a songwriter in these past two decades?

It’s about not trying to conform and implement things that, as a songwriter, shouldn’t necessarily really matter. It was just about making sure I wrote a really good song, instead of thinking about anything else that sort of gets factored into being an artist.

You’ve worked with an impressive list of collaborators on the new album, some of whom started their careers, like you, in the 90s, and some who rose up more recently. Do you think that there’s a different work ethic for people of your generation?

I’d say so, definitely. I think working with people like Jez Ashurst, anybody that’s done production and writing from the 90s, we don’t do auto-tune, we will sing it again and again until we get it right. And we’re constantly looking for the better lyric or the better melody, as opposed to just kind of going, ‘OK, I’m clocking off at 6pm, so this will do’. It’s just an old-school way of working. When I go into a studio and I’m with people from my era, I feel instantly relaxed.

What kind of sounds did you want to bring to the new album and did you curate your listening to help inform the direction of the record?

From when I did Missiles, I knew how I wanted the whole record to sound. I knew I wanted it to be lush and for it to be smothered in strings and be quite soulful. If I came across certain tracks [on Spotify] that excited me, I made a playlist, which I called ‘Inspirational Songs’. They were all quite different, but there was something or another in each of them that I liked and wanted to use.

What’s the situation with All Saints now? Are you guys officially split up or simply on hiatus?

I’ve done the band thing for so long and a huge part of this journey has to do with writing. And when I say that, I mean I’ve been writing for 25 years for a band with that kind of hat on and being in that mindset. It’s a very specific thing. Some of that specific thing is quite limiting because when you’re writing for a girlband or boyband, it’s a certain formula and a certain way of doing things.

I just got to a point in my life and my career as a songwriter, where I just wanted to have different experiences – to write for film or a TV series, or a musical or whatever. Being within the confines of a band just wouldn’t allow my mind to go there.

I had to remove myself from the situation so that I could allow myself to have these other experiences and be daring enough to have them. So it’s not about hitting pause [on the band], it’s simply just about taking another road.

Early in your career with the band you said you felt happiest at home writing songs and that, because the others had all been to drama school, you felt least comfortable performing. Do you feel more confident now, going out there solo?

I do. My mind just feels a lot more clear, I don’t know why. I just feel more defined in my thinking. Before, I had a lot more, ‘I don’t knows’ and ‘can I do that?’ I felt like I needed to stay in the confines of being in a band, because I felt that that was all I was allowed to do, or it was okay for me to do.

It was 20 years between Open and Pages. Presumably we’re not going to have to wait until 2044 for album number three?

Who knows? [laughs]. At the moment I’m really in the middle of exploring different musical avenues. I’m just really excited about this album. I love it so much.

To order Shaznay Lewis’ Pages click here

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