The Brit singer talks about making her fifth album, her first in five years, with her brother Rollo and son Stanley
DIDO is back with her first record in five years – and she is suitably excited.
The singer tells me: “I’m enjoying it all and very proud of the album. I feel like I’m releasing my first all over again.
“It feels like starting again but with a completely different attitude because I’ve been doing this for 25 years.”
She has sold 40million records and became a huge star after featuring on Eminem’s monster single Stan in 2000.
Her debut album No Angel is still the most successful debut by a British woman, ahead even of Adele’s 19.
At the height of her fame, Dido — whose real name in full is Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O’Malley Armstrong — took time out to care for her sick father.
She also had a son — Stanley, now seven — with husband since 2010, author Rohan Gavin.
“There are no regrets at all of missing out,” she says. “I make music when the time is right and I’m ready. I keep waking up thinking, ‘I am so lucky’.”
There is no putting on airs and graces in Dido’s world, no swanning in with an entourage.
She arrives on her own, dressed casually in jeans, and when we sit down to chat she produces a Thermos flask with homemade spinach and watercress soup.
“Leftovers from the fridge,” she tells me.
The new album, Still On My Mind, happened almost by accident. Dido worked closely with her brother Rollo Armstrong, best known for his work with dance giants Faithless.
“Not a lot of thought went into the whole thing,” she says.
“It was a joyous experience. On this record I just felt a need to be with my brother and people I am close to. I wanted it to be a really small, simple, quite emotional family-and-friends thing.”
The album was recorded in Dido’s home and Rollo’s studio . . . a shed in his garden.
Taking the reins for two songs, including the single Hurricanes, was US producer Rick Nowels, who has worked with Lana Del Rey, Stevie Nicks and Madonna.
London singer-songwriter Dee Adam and producer Ryan Louder also get writing credits.
Dido says: “I’ve written a lot of songs with Ryan, who is a friend I met a few years ago. He was so enthusiastic and brought me out of my writing shell.”
Even though I’m a solo artist, I’ve never felt like it . . . I feel like I’m in a band
Dido enjoys life as a mum but continued songwriting “without any aim for the songs”.
Then, one day, a long walk around London inspired her to assemble this fifth solo album.
She says: “I’ve lived in London my whole life but this one day I’d gone for a walk and was seeing it like I’d never seen it before.
“I was thinking about being a mum and my family. Suddenly it became completely clear that I wanted to hang out with my brother — and the way to do that is to make a record.
“It felt like the only way I wanted to do it. I felt a need to be with my brother and people that I am close to. It was very clear to me.”
There is a lot of reflection and retrospection to go with the laid-back electronic sound.
Dido says that comes with being contented, “looking at different roads you took and all of the different choices you made”.
“That is what the song Walking By is about,” she says. “It’s a song about the choices you’ve made and being happy.”
Dido says making 2013’s Girl Who Got Away and 2008’s Safe Trip Home was difficult, as they coincided with hectic times in her personal life.
That included looking after her dad, publisher William O’Malley Armstrong, who had the degenerative autoimmune disease lupus and died in 2006.
She says: “I’d been so immersed with my sick dad for that whole period of making Safe Trip Home. My days involved going to the hospital, to the studio and back to the hospital.
“Girl Who Got Away was made sporadically. I made the most of it while I was pregnant and then there was a long break while I was sitting on the sofa in feeding mode.”
Dido says Have To Stay, a song inspired by her unconditional love for her son, “opened the floodgates” to further tell-all songwriting.
She says: “I was so resolute that I wasn’t writing a song about a child. It’s not a conflicted situation, so why would I write a song about it?
“But the idea came to me and I had to write.
“That song is so honest and about something so personal, it opened up everything.
“Hurricanes is also about unconditional love and when I first played it to a few people, everybody who had a kid would burst into tears.”
She adds: “I’ve had an amazing career and I’ve got a family — that makes me happiest of all. Now I’m going to see if I can do a bit of both.”
Dido says her career has always been unpredictable. That includes working with Eminem, who heard her song Thank You on the soundtrack of the 1998 film Sliding Doors and wanted to sample it for his track Stan.
In the infamous video for that record, Dido is kidnapped, gagged and bundled into the boot of a car. “I never get bored of talking about Eminem, as it’s such a big part of my career and such a great story,” she says. “I’m so proud of working with him.”
In 2013, Dido emerged from her live-show hiatus when the rapper got in touch and asked her to perform Stan with him during his headline slot at Reading and Leeds Festival.
“Again, that was so random,” she laughs. “It had been about ten years since I’d performed it but I got the call and they just called and were like, ‘Do you want to come to Reading and Leeds and perform it?’
“So I made dinner at home, got into a cab, drove to the festival, walked on stage and off again. It was amazing and there was a fantastic reaction from the crowd. I wasn’t announced, so I literally just walked on, off then home.
“I’d been to see him before the show and we had a lovely chat. It was the same. I have fond memories of him back then and making the video, so it was great to play there. It’s another for the memory bank.”
I ask if she has ever faced any problems as a solo performer.
Dido says: “I’ve never felt like a solo artist. I feel like I’m in a band whenever I travel.
“In the past, I have been really lucky because of Rollo. I don’t think there was ever a situation where I was made to feel uncomfortable, as I had my big brother with me.
“Having said that, I’ve always been very clear about doing things I feel comfortable with or not. But having a partner in that has been really good.”
Dido says the hardest part of making Still On My Mind was selecting the final 12. After a productive spell of writing, many more could have featured.
She says: “I had so many songs and I had grown really fond of them all. In the end, I picked the 12 that worked well together.
“(Her son) Stanley was part of the album-making process too.
“He loves music and he really enjoyed it because it was made at home.
“He helped me with everything from the order of the songs to which photos he liked best.”
In May, when Dido goes on the road for the first time in 15 years — starting with Europe, before moving on to the US — she will take Stanley with her for some dates.
She says: “It will be a bit of ‘in and out’ of school, see how it goes. I’m really excited about the tour. At first I was nervous, as I haven’t done it for so long. But now I can’t wait. The band is made up of mates of mine who I have been hanging out and playing music with for the last few years.
“I will be nervous — I’ve never NOT been nervous before I go on stage — but I think that means you care.
“I also think as a songwriter, you can only go so far before you really want to connect with the people who listen to your music by playing live.
“I’ve spent too long sitting in my room writing songs.
“Now I need to make it more real again and go back on the road.”
