Sandi Thom may have sailed into the collective consciousness on a wave of publicity surrounding her ‘how did they do that’ internet broadcasts, but there’s no arguing with a number one album (her debut, Smile It Confuses People) and sales of more than 600, 000 units in 2006.
Following a year or so of constant touring across the UK, Europe and as far afield as Japan and Australia, Sandi is preparing to release Smile’s follow-up – another album created and crafted in her basement studio in Tooting, South London. Despite the globetrotting and high chart placements it appears that little has changed in the life of Sandi Thom. The songs, she says, are still raw and honest, born out of experiences on the road. And she still goes to the shops in her pyjamas…

With the touring commitments of the last couple of years, was it hard to find time to get material written?
Not really. I know some people say they have trouble writing when they’re out on the road, but I’ve always felt it was a great place to be coming up with new stuff. You’re away from family and friends, there’s always an emotional and physical struggle associated with touring, so there’s lots of material to be found in there! There’s a song on the new record called The Shape I’m In and that’s all about being on the road. So I’m always writing, even when we’re doing tours. If I could get a big truck with a complete studio in, like Aerosmith or whoever has one, I’d love it.

Much of your material is guitar-driven, but you also write on piano…
Yeah, I rarely to get to play piano, but it was my first instrument, and I played it all the time while I was growing up. I write on guitar and piano – and I think you can tell which songs start off on which. The piano songs always have more chords in! There’s a new track – Pink And The Lily – which is a piano song. Starting a song on piano makes me write in a different way than on guitar, and it’s good to have that variety as a songwriter.

And you rely on the legendary Roland RD-700SX stage piano for sounds on tour and in the studio…
Absolutely. We have two of them that we use on the road and to write with. I really like them; they feel great because the weighted keyboards are so good, and they’re obviously fantastic to take on tour. They never go wrong, they sound great and obviously they’re easy to use compared to real pianos. And the RD-700SX feels very close to the real thing, which is great for people who have grown up playing piano.

It’s a cliché, but did you feel any of the ‘had my whole life to come up with my first album, and two months to write the second’ pressure that some artists seem to struggle with?
No, not at all. I started writing when I was 12, but whenever I hear anything I recorded years ago, it’s pretty dreadful. So although in theory you have your whole life to write the first record, you don’t actually keep anything you write when you’re 14. I think first albums tend to be written in a relatively short period of time. For me, I wrote pretty much everything on Smile, It Confuses People in the two years before it came out. And I started on new material for this one right after it was released, so I’ve actually had about the same amount of time to come up with each.

And, perhaps surprisingly, when it came to recording, you decided to do it all in your own studio at home, rather than rent a swanky South of France residential place for six months. Why was that?
We still record as much as we can in my little basement studio and I don’t really want to move too far away from that. It just feels really good, it’s my own space and there’s no limit on the time I can spend down there. We can go in at any time of the day or night and time stands still. You have no perception of what’s going on outside, no distractions, and I just find it an inspiring and comfortable place to make my music. I find some of the big studios in London very soulless and uninspiring places to be. And I don’t think we’d come up with anything better for recording an album somewhere like that. We’ve done stuff like strings and real piano in other studios this time, but other than that it’s all still in my place.

With the success of Smile…. did you rush out and buy tons of new gear though, or are things still as they were down there?
At first we had a really rubbish PC and Cubase and now we’ve got nice flatscreen monitors and Pro Tools, but the vibe is still the same. There’s still writing scribbled all over the walls and it still feels the same. We like it that way!

It doesn’t sound like you’re interested in the kind of rock’n’roll career that interferes with making music. But what’s it been like to have the massive success and attention since Smile… came out in 2006?
I’ve never been under any illusions about the glamour or otherwise of the music industry and a career in it. I don’t think I’ve changed really. I still pop to the shops in my pyjamas. I’m still me, and I hope I always will be.
I’m a musician, and I’m not really interested in being a pop star. I did a gig with Eddie Reader (ex-Fairground Attraction) recently, and I was blown away by the stuff she’s still doing. She’s an amazing talent and writes beautiful music. That’s the kind of longevity and career I’m after.