Coco Sumner

Many will try to argue but the truth is that it's not where you're from but where you're at. Bearing that in mind it makes no difference that the diminutive, pensive beauty sitting in front of me is the daughter of one of the more famous musicians from the late 70's and 80's, because she is here on her own merits rather than any sort of fame by association. Coco Sumner has been notching up increasing amounts of attention lately, but after chatting to the affable young lady barely out of her teens I begin to wonder if much of the press coverage is for the wrong reasons. For the truth is that the majority of what I have read about her needles at the fact that her father is Sting, he of the long winded sexual rattle and former singer with the Police. While this is undeniably true, these same articles have sought to denounce the budding musician for her parentage. A good deal of similar sounding vitriol may be more accurately levelled at the offspring of other ageing stars, but there are two things that save Coco from the same unfair categorisation.

One is her attitude towards what she is doing. Throughout our brief but focussed interview her passion for her music became more and more evident, while her insights into how she feels about what she does displayed that her music career was anything but a dalliance.

Born Eliot Paulina Sumner in Pisa, Italy, in 1990 to Gordon Sumner and Trudie Styler, much of her early life was spent in the idyllic surrounds of the Wiltshire countryside in South West England. She first started writing songs around the age of fifteen, though had starting playing around with a guitar as early as ten years before that. It is small wonder then that having just reached twenty years of age she is releasing her début album, having already collaborated with a handful of incredibly talented individuals.

Her first recorded efforts began to surface several years ago and, somewhat telling of her heritage were heavily influenced by a mixture of reggae and pop punk. What shone through those early recordings more than anything was her strong, husky voice and a huge amount of unpolished talent. Her first release was a 1997 white label 7” of “I Blame Coco”, a track she wrote with Mr. Hudson that year. It was from this record that she took her stage name.

“It started off with being called Coco the Clown,” explains the striking singer behind an unkempt tangle of hair. “I don't really know why. My mum started calling me that as a kid and then a few people started calling me that and then it started to stick. But when I printed up “I Blame Coco” I found myself writing the name of the song over and over again on to the sleeves and when I got to the shop they asked me what the name of the artist was and I used that. It seemed like I had written this name out about 500 times so I should use it.”

By her own admission many of her first songs she wrote were typical of a teenager's mind; angsty and melancholic for no good reason. Though with the benefit of some years of experience they started to materialise into something deeper and more cryptic. Enquiring about the change of musical direction and whether that process is forever open to changing views and the gathering of experience netted a considered response. “I think the musical brain is just like any other brain and it needs to go through processes of learning things and processing them. I think I'm learning every day and I'm hearing about new music every day so that's very inspiring.”

Sumner can found on guest vocal duties on several tracks in the last few years, notably Miike Snow's “Animal” from 2009 and Sub Focus' drum and bass crossover hit “Splash” from earlier this year. The Sub Focus collaboration was in trade for a remix of her first single “Self Machine” which also got re-rubs from La Roux, Pangea and super fixer Chew Fu. Whilst RackNRuin and Arthur Baker have had their way with “In Spirit Golden”. This eclecticism is not just a nod to management choices either, as Sumner tells me she's asked Matthew Dear to remix her next single, “Turn Your Back On Love.” She says she enjoys the crossover creative appeal of trading remixes for vocal spots, though is hesitant about becoming known for being a guest artist.

“I think there is a point where you can do that too much and you end up losing a sense of your own direction,” she states emphatically.

From the early skank of her reggae tinged material through to her current work, the big leap in Sumner's sound can be attributed to her work with Swedish producer Klas Åhlund, previously of Teddybears fame and sometime producer for Robyn, Eagle Eye Cherry and Jordin Sparks. Sumner was in the midst of a love/hate period with London and needed some breathing space, so decided to take some time out.

“London can often be my oppressor,” states Sumner quietly, “and it was becoming too much so I spun around a globe and my finger landed on Sweden. So I just went there without knowing anyone or where I was going to stay or anything. I worked all that out when I got there, and ended up staying for about six months.”

It was during this time and in attendance at a Gnarls Barkley concert that a friend pointed out Klas Åhlund, knowing that Sumner was a fan of both Teddybears and Robyn. After introducing herself the two started talking about music and it wasn't long before she was visiting the producer at his studio, eventually leading to the two making music together and working on her first album. There is an understated quality to Sumner that belies her age, as she omits certain facts from our conversation that any other young person would be only too happy to boast about. She leaves out the sessions she had in Los Angeles or earlier ones in Jamaica. In fact she doesn't mention anything about what must be a very interesting life full of travel and access to places and faces that the majority of people don't even have on their radar. It is this sort of discretion that further shines a favourable light on the musician. That, and her attitude towards some of her seemingly more glamorous jobs that she has undertaken too. Seeing the look of abject disdain at even bringing up her brief stint modelling for Burberry or the bit part she had in the 2007 feature film Stardust is enough to lead me to believe that being a model or an actor is not high on her list of professions.

“I did a little bit of modelling when I was younger but it was nothing I was proud of or anything I thought much of,” she confirms. “And I have never really acted before, I was just an extra as a way to make a quick little bit of cash. But music has always been my focus, I just did those things to fund my way.”

Despite the natural tendency to think that someone from such a privileged background doesn't need to think about funding her own way, it would be churlish to think that just because of her background, Sumner doesn't have her own sense of pride in wanting to do things for herself. The signs are there, from running off to Sweden for some time out from everything she knows, to self releasing her first recordings to forging her own path through music by releasing her album with relatively little fanfare. The album itself, The Constant, may not be destined for immediate classic status but it shows immense promise, something the folk at Island Records obviously picked up on, having signed the singer for a multi-album deal. I wonder if this is in any way daunting, having a pledge to complete so much work ahead of her at such an early stage of her career. Though the thought may have crossed her mind, careful words flow from her and find footing in a positive outlook on the task in front of her.

“Hmmm, I'm really looking forward to... I've already started to write the second album. This first one hasn't really felt like a first album, it's felt like a learning process, like this is the first bit of work I'm handing in to the teacher, or the world I guess. So I'm sure I'll learn from this one and then future albums will feel like more of a journey to make.”

The polished, electronic pop sheen of The Constant may not always hit the mark, but within the chrome-plated production and catchy riffs lies something more enduring, something that is more obvious when hearing Sumner play the songs with an acoustic backing. While Klas Åhlund can rightly be accredited for that pop overdrive with some help from Eliot's friends Dan Foat and Nathan Boddy from the DJ/production team Wild Geese (who gave the tracks a “bit more punch and compression”), you only need to search for Sumner's acoustic sets on Youtube to see that her songs come with a solid base to begin with.

“I think it's very important when you're writing song that they're songs first and then you can put any production on them whether it's electronic, dubstep or whatever,” she says to explain the two sides to her work. “As long as you have the structures there and they're written by an organic and natural basis then you can do whatever you want with them. And I like playing acoustic shows because it's more about the song side of it rather than the pop side of it, whatever that means,” she adds with a rare smile. Perhaps the best way to exemplify this is to look at the two versions she has recorded of Neil Young's timeless paean “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”. The first appeared on the Luv Luv Luv label as a 7” single and was a faithful rendition of Young's version sung as a duet with Fyfe Dangerfield from the Guillemots. It was sweet and tender; a worthy cover, not the sort of drab effort you'd utter a 'if it ain't broke' maxim at before blanking it from your mind forever. The other version can be found on The Constant, and is a cover of the marvellous Saint Etienne version from 1990. Again it is very true to that version and succeeds for staying true to that course.

“I heard the Neil Young version when I was very young and really loved that, then when I was a bit older I heard this song from this other band (St. Etienne) who were massive, and there was this video for them of this huge party and this exciting new sound. House music has also been very inspiring to me and my musical... likings,” smiles Sumner as she fails to find the words to express herself properly. “So I didn't want to change either of those two songs very much because they were both really tributes to those songs and those artists, which is why they're so similar to the originals.”

This sort of respect towards music is most likely something she has learnt by being so close to it her whole life. Picking up that guitar before she had reached half a decade on the planet, having not just an incredibly famous musician for a father but also having an older brother who had follwoed those footsteps before her. It was an upbringing that had her hold both Ian Drury and ABBA near to her heart. When I voiced a similar predilection to the Swedish pop stars at an early age she wondered why people hold them in such disdain, almost embarrassed to like a band who had such incredible melodies.

“I also went through stages of liking some quite angry music,” she says, delving deeper into her early influences. “Things like the Prodigy and Rage Against the Machine. When you're the smallest in the family and the smallest at school you want to listen to music with swear words and you want to throw pieces of paper at the teacher and that sort of thing. I didn't actually throw paper at the teacher but I liked that musical attitude, it's much more expressive.”

Whilst that angry side of Sumner may not have shown itself obviously on The Constant, you only have to listen to the lyrics throughout the thirteen tracks to see that nonetheless there is a mind trying to probe a bit deeper into life than many of her peers. Alienation and observation both play parts along with the standard tropes of love and idealism. The imagery laden lyrics have been fuelled by more than listening sessions of Ian Drury and Abba though, there's also some heavy reading on the night-stand.

“I take a lot of imagery from some of the books and films I've enjoyed and use that in my songs. I was reading Brave New World before I made the album and not so much the sci-fi part of it but more just the slightly dark and sinister tone it was written in, that stayed with me. Same with the Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. It's about a man who lives as a recluse and thinks he's a wolf. It's all very dark and that helped me create a lot of imagery for the album too.”

Sumner sums things up best herself when I ask her about how her experiences have been so far in the fairly treacherous waters of pop music. Mentioning the strong unit of her management and label, saying they help each other make careful choices, she adds to close, “I think trial and error is not always the best thing to do but it certainly is a way.”