20/20 BY CHERYLZHANG

Natasha Bedingfi eld leaves it unwritten Leaving it ‘Unwritten’ has defi nitely gotten her name written down in the Billboard charts for Natasha Bedingfi eld. Since the overwhelming success of the album, which sold over 2.3 million copies worldwide, Natasha Bedingfi eld has been hard at work, releasing a second album in April 2007 entitled ‘N.B.’ (no, it’s not some dialect vulgarity, it’s her initials you foul-minded people).

I’M A BOMB to be a bit more tough and I feel like I defi nitely have noticed a Bedingfi eld isn’t any prima donna who demands Perrier and red diff erence in myself when I’m in other countries and I feel more at carpets to be rolled out. In fact, she’s exactly like any other reader home when I’m here [in London].” of Choices! Currently dating someone whose identity she refuses “I love going to clubs and I love music that you can dance to. to reveal, Bedingfi eld had been incorrectly linked to several You know I put on the Justin Timberlake album at my birthday a celebrities such as Nick Lachey and Maroon 5 lead singer Adam few months ago and I hadn’t realised what a great album it was Levine. until it was actually like a party and I put it on and me and all my girlfriends were dancing in the kitchen (laughing). It was great, STARTING OUT it was actually… it just had a really good beat to dance to. And Despite being extremely proud of her British heritage, Bedingfi eld that’s the thing about music is that you’ve got to have something has spent most of the past 18 months in America, and lets us in for everything, and you need the music you can chill out to or on the reason why. “I was in America for about a year and a half have coff ee with and it’s, like, on in the background and you need and I was touring and releasing my record there, my fi rst one. I the stuff that really is on loud, you know, crank it up and you get was just going to give it a try, you know, take my music over there down to.” and see if they’ll like it or not and I… it just ended up playing everywhere.” UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL “And so what started as a six week trip - or even like three The star who turns 26 this year was born in Sussex, England but week trip - turned into six months of touring solidly, being in a grew up in Lewisham, London, England. “I do feel very proud of diff erent state every day, three diff erent cities and just singing my British heritage,” she says. “I’m also from New Zealand; my to radio stations. And then it started to be like TV stations and family is all there, my grandparents, and everything like that so then it was great, you know, ‘Unwritten’ went number one and I’m international myself but I was born and raised in England so yeah, I really enjoyed going to another country. Then eventually, there’s the London Girl in me.” Take note that family here includes I ended up staying on longer to make the next record ‘cos I felt pop singers Daniel Bedingfi eld and Nikola Rachelle and younger like it was quite cool to be away from my usual environment and brother Joshua. Her parents Molly and John Bedingfi eld are just like it’s a nice vacuum to try and write something without former Christian missionaries who encouraged their children being distracted.” Perhaps now we might just understand why the Natasha, Daniel and Nikola when they formed a Christian rock youngsters in Singapore like to study in any other place except group, The DNA Algorithm. home. The singer actively promotes humanitarian causes worldwide “It’s the fi rst time I’ve ever been away from home for that long and is particularly known for her work with global coalition “Stop and it was actually great ‘cos it was like going on a year out, like the Traffi k”, which works to end human traffi cking. She is also a gap year, you know - away from friends, away from family and an ambassador for her mother’s international children’s charity what’s familiar yeah. And just really being out on my own, made Global Angels. A feminist she isn’t, but “in London, you just have new mates and… it was cool. But I did miss home and I really

34 | MAY/JUN 2007

20/20

did miss everything that was British, you know, I started drinking tea whereas I never drank tea before and I was just craving for crumpets and… or whatever, London buses!”

UNWRITTEN SUCCESS Signing her fi rst record deal in 2003, Bedingfi eld began working on her debut album. “It was very important to me to create something organic, diff erence and real,” she said. “I don’t want to be the next anyone. I just want to be me.” The “anthemic, quirky mixture of pop and soul” album ‘Unwritten’ has spawned four top ten singles to date, including the number one song ‘These Words’. The album has also achieved triple platinum status in the UK, gone double platinum in Ireland and gold in Singapore and South Africa. Bedingfi eld has also received a Grammy Award nomination in 2006 for “Best Female Pop Vocal Performance” for the album. And been nominated for four coveted BRIT awards this year in the categories of British Female Solo Artist, British Breakthrough Artist, Best Single and Best Pop Act. The international success of ‘Unwritten’ was amazing that she had this to say: “It was wonderful that ‘Unwritten’ did so well in America. It’s funny because it wasn’t the biggest song in England but ‘Unwritten’ seemed to be a bigger song in other countries. And it just started off as a song I wrote for my younger brother for his birthday and so it had a very personal meaning to me and now the fact that other people took the song and made it their own was very defi nitely a good feeling.” The song initially started out as a poem about how “your life is a blank page and you hold the pen. No one else is going to write it for you. Get out there and get on with it! That’s a theme to a lot of my songs – taking life, owning it, living it to the max.” ‘These Words’ was another hit from her fi rst album, debuting at number one on the sales, airplay and download charts. With this, Bedingfi eld entered the Guinness Book of Records with her brother Daniel Bedingfi eld as the fi rst siblings to have number one singles in UK Chart history. When the album ‘Unwritten’ debuted at number one on the UK album sales chart and reached platinum status by its second on the album was actually “a song that I didn’t fi nish from the fi rst week of release, Bedingfi eld reached another milestone. She is record. And when we were just playing around and listening to one of only three female solo singers to debut at number one old tracks we came upon this song ‘Smell the Roses’ and, like, me with her fi rst album, along with Bonnie Tyler and Annie Lennox. and the guys who wrote it we just looked at each other and we were, like, “Wow, that song needs to be fi nished”.” N.B. Bedingfi eld began recording her second album ‘N.B.’ in Los Another one of the songs ‘Say It Again’ was co-written by Angeles California and features collaborations with artists such as Bedingfi eld and Adam Levine from Maroon 5. “ I always loved his Rich Harrison, Mike Elizondo, Steve Kipner, Nate “Danja” hills and voice and so I was very excited when I got a chance to work with Andrew Frampton. The fi rst single from the new album ‘I Wanna him and write a song with him. And he actually does a little [of] Have Your Babies’ was released on April 16 and the follow-up bit of singing on the track which is really…nice, cos I feel like single ‘Soulmate’ has been confi rmed to be released on July 2. - well I like his voice and I feel like I enjoyed kind of blending with Speaking on her new album which features spunky visuals of him. And he’s just a really good guy, proper musician, proper… her face, she candidly reveals that the fi rst song ‘Smell the Roses’ music lover.”

36 | APRIL 2007 Before we start thinking that every other song is related to Bedingfi eld’s personal life, rethink again. “It is very interesting how sometimes I’ll write a song and I won’t actually think about it relating to me and then I’ll just realise later how very autobiographical it was.” “For example, ‘I Bruise Easily’, I just felt like it’s such a cool title - ‘I Bruise Easily’ - and it really just talks about being vulnerable in relationships and that’s what relationships are all about. It’s just kind of letting down your walls or knowing if you can, and kind of experimenting with that but at the time I just thought it was a cool idea. And after all the touring and after really working so hard and being really exhausted sometimes and feeling like life is, well, as a human being you’ve really got limitations to how hard you can push yourself and after being in some relationships and realising how hard it is to become vulnerable I just realised how true that song is for me. Like how I do guard myself and protect myself sometimes by just wanting to… you know, just being afraid to take risks and stuff . Anyway it’s similar with the song ‘Smell the Roses’ where I wrote it and I just feel like it matches more with this album than if it was with the fi rst but it’s kind of just waiting around to be used.” “I know it is hard for British artists to break through in the States. [This is] understandably so – the standard here is very high. But I can assure you, I am very much looking forward to the challenge. I feel there’s a place for me here.” These words will defi nitely not be unwritten, and we can look forward to seeing more of Bedingfi eld, someone whom we think will not bruise easily.

“It was very important to me to create something organic, difference and real,” she said. “I don’t want to be the next anyone. I just want to be me.”