You won’t find a pop star more down-to-earth than Dido. Even though she remains one of the biggest-selling artists of all time, she has a remarkable talent for staying under the radar.
Taking some time out to have her son Stanley, now two, helped with that, but Dido reckons she’s always led a low-key life. “It’s really cool,” smiles the 41-year-old singer. “Because my face wasn’t on the first or third albums, I’ve managed to keep it hidden. For a long time people thought I was a Swedish band.” And when she does get recognised, the fans, she says, are always lovely.
“It’s amazing being somewhere in the world you’ve never gone to before when someone comes up and sings your song at you. I think the most random incident was when I was in Ethiopia with Oxfam and the guys driving us started singing Thank You. It was insane. I also remember being in a teeny place in Thailand and walking past this woman singing one of my songs in a hotel bar. In those moments you get this rush, where you can’t quite comprehend how far it’s spread. You feel welcome anywhere and all because of music, which is amazing.”
Dido began to get noticed back in 1998 when her first single Here With Me was used as the theme music for the US science fiction programme Roswell. Then her second single, Thank You, featured in the Gwyneth Paltrow film Sliding Doors later that year. Dido’s debut album No Angel was released in 1999 but it was the following year that her career skyrocketed when Thank You was sampled by Eminem in the rapper’s hit single Stan. Suddenly her music was reaching a whole new audience. No Angel was re-released in 2001 and remains – along with her second album Life for Rent – one of the UK’s biggest sellers.
So how much does she owe to Eminem?
“Oh loads,” she concedes. “Stan was just so out of the blue. I remember first hearing it, sitting in a hotel room in New York and I thought, ‘Wow, this is just brilliant’ – I was so blown away by the rap on
it. I was doing pretty well in America anyway, so I thought things would be solid, but it just went stratospheric at that point. My life was changed 100 per cent.”
But Dido herself stayed remarkably the same. How does she do it?
“I’ve never really struggled with fame, maybe because I’ve never gone out seeking it,” she reasons, pointing out that she’s kept all her old friends over the years, but “made lots of new ones, too.”
Some of those friends are in pretty high places. As well as collaborating with Eminem – they shared a stage again at this year’s Reading and Leeds Festival – Dido has teamed up with the likes of Annie Lennox, Brian Eno and Sting (“I was so starstruck – I was such a big Police fan and he was really cool”). But one of her biggest career highlights, she says, has been working with her elder brother Rollo.
A music producer and founder-member of the band Faithless, he has also contributed heavily to his sister’s back catalogue over the years, co-writing and producing tracks on all her albums.
“Working with my brother has just been brilliant,” she beams. “We’ve had our fights but always about music, never about anything else. Our values are really similar and we like the same music. We’ve just got closer and closer.”
Born Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong on Christmas Day 1971, the girl who would be Dido was blessed with a creative environment from the start. Her father William ran the literary publishing house Sidgwick & Jackson, while her mother Clare is a poet. And the Armstrong artistic tradition looks set to continue. Dido’s husband of three years, Rohan Gavin, is a screenwriter and novelist, while little Stanley is already muscling in on Mum’s band rehearsals.
“He’s obsessed with drumming and his keyboard. He walks around carrying it wherever we go and just starts playing,” she laughs. “He loves it when the guys come round to rehearse and he truly believes
he’s in the band now. He gets his serious face on and he bangs the drums and cymbals while we play. I don’t know where he learnt to do that, but he won’t let anyone else on his drum kit – it’s his most precious possession.”
Dido admits that having a baby affected her song-writing, and that as a parent she now looks for different inspirations.
“I’m in the middle of writing an album of original material and it took me a while to get back in to it after Stanley was born just because I was so focused on him and my husband,” she reveals.
“You get so involved in the minutiae of daily life and being a family, which is so important to me. Plus for a while you have a head full of nursery rhymes and they’re not the things you want to write songs about.”
The singer has also been busy assembling a greatest hits album, an 18-track compilation covering her multi-platinum career.
“I’ve never really looked back before because I’m always writing new songs and moving forward,”
she says. “So it was quite emotional putting the album together. The memories came flooding back – I remember everything around every song I’ve written, even what I was wearing at the time. The album is chronological too, so it’s like this crazy 15-year diary of my life compressed into an hour and 10 minutes.”
She concedes that the music industry has moved on a lot in that time and, for the most part, she’s glad that she’s not starting out in it today.
“It’s changed massively – in good and bad ways,” she reckons.
“I had so much support from my record company and really got to build up my confidence. There’s not the same patience now – people need to be doing well quicker – but then it’s amazing that you can write
a song, put it up on the internet and the next day people hear it. That’s utterly liberating.”
So what does she think of the current glut of TV talent shows?
“You can find a great singer anywhere,” she says. “You might walk past someone busking, or see someone on The X Factor or an advert and think they’re amazing.
The simple fact is, if someone gives you chills and moves you, then their voice is worth listening to.”
Dido did some mentoring on The Voice earlier this year – a role that she’s happy to return to – but you’ll never catch her on a judging panel.
“Music, for me, isn’t a competition so I find the whole concept of judging really funny,” she admits.
“I really enjoyed mentoring on The Voice – the contestants were amazing and it’s quite a challenge. I was like, ‘God, I wouldn’t do this!’
I don’t think I would have had the confidence to perform on live TV in front of so many people – and I’m in total awe of some of the amazing artists I’ve met who are so young but totally poised.”
We’re likely to see more of Dido’s backstage talents – she has already penned songs for numerous artists, including Britney Spears, and says she’d like to do more of the sameas she gets older.
“I love working with other people’s voices,” she says, “and I’m always wanting to write a better song. When I wake up that will always be in the back of my mind. But Stanley comes first, it’s that simple.”
To that end, she is now focused on planning a festive family get-together. “Everyone will be here for Christmas – cousins included – and it’s the first year Stanley will know what’s happening. He’s already getting excited, although I don’t think he realises it’s mummy’s birthday too – that might take a few years. But I’m really looking forward to it. Everything just seems so much more exciting and fun with a baby around.”
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