Interviews/Digital Spy/3

*Main article: Digital Spy*

It's been two years since Natalia Kills released her debut album *Perfectionist*, which still remains one of the most underrated pop collections in recent memory.

That said, the Bradford bad-ass is back with a new harder sound for its follow-up, and **Digital Spy** caught up with her to find out what's behind this slight shift in gear.

**Welcome back Natalia! How are you finding your return to music?**

"In my world, I've never been away. In country to country it might appear someone's taken a step back, but for me for example, I wrote a song for a DJ in Russia and it went number one for nine weeks, so I've actually been the busiest [in] my life ever!"

**After listening to new tracks 'Problem' and 'Saturday Night' it feels like you've gone a bit rockier - would you say that's the case?**

"Well if you say that's the case, I'll go with that! I definitely feel excited to be able to put really hard beats - like hip-hop beats - behind my music, more than I did before. It's more guitar-driven and eradicates the synth-pop sound that was subtly in my music. I guess because I feel harder and aggressive, it came across in the music - to be more bitchy, more punk, more hip-hop. It's like renegade. It's high-impact pop."

*(Attachment to "Saturday Night" music video)*

**'Saturday Night' in particular deals with growing up in a destructive household - how hard is it to confront those emotions when you're songwriting?**

"I wanted a song that is the story of my whole life. From what I've read, I'm always seen as the bad girl; the bitchy, sassy, cute bad girl. I've just assumed that everyone must know where it comes from. To act like that, you can't just come from a good place. I realised that not even people who know me most know what I've gone through. I always put on a brave face when I was the most terrified, the most trapped and out of control. That's what 'Saturday Night' is like. I wanted to make a confession of everything I am and all the stuff I've been through.

"I left home at 15 to escape all the bulls\*\*t, but I ran head first into much more trouble. I was taken away by the police for dangerous behaviour, being sedated, almost being committed and sectioned - it was trouble after trouble after trouble. 'Saturday Night' is the way I can present that important part of myself."

**Does the album have good memories as well as bad memories?**

"The entire album feels very happy. It's a defiant "f\*\*k you" to the problems. No matter how much bulls\*\*t follows me, I'm going to carry on. The funny thing is, everyone has always said to me all my life, 'Don't let those bad thing define you. Brush it off. Think positive'. I don't want to do that - I want to do the f\*\*king opposite. I am all of my worst memories in melodies. Every bad thing that's happened to me has defined me, has shaped, has moulded me. I'm sick of running away from things. I guess this whole album is me feeling glorified and vindicated by all the worst moments in my life."

**You've said that this album hears you "own up to all the wrong things you've done". Is there a particular confession on the album you think will shock your fans?**

"Yeah I do - most of it. I have a couple of ballads on the album that are suicide ballads. I remember when I was 19, I loved my boyfriend who didn't love me back so much - disturbingly much - that every time he hurt me I just desperately wanted to jump off the highest bridge I could find, or walk into the fastest truck. I was just completely out of control of my erratic feelings of love and passionate desperation."

**Would you say that confronting these emotions is a cathartic process?**

"It's definitely not a release and it's not therapeutic at all. In fact it's torture - sometimes it's reliving something I wish I never had to. But at least it makes it not obsolete - I'm in control of it. I choose to sing it over and over again, I choose to look back, I choose to remember. I don't have to wish I didn't f\*\*k up so hard... pretending I was fine and sophisticated all along - which I never was."

**Your knack for storytelling in songs can be very striking. We imagine that's something that has been influenced in part by your love for Eminem, who is a master of telling stories?**

"I've never ever thought about that, but I'm going to say yes because I can relate to that. Even though I haven't been through anything like him; I didn't live in a trailer in Detroit or take mushrooms, but the feelings I had - feeling sad and trapped - were what he was venting about and escaping from. I haven't made this album for anyone else except myself. I haven't made [it] so anyone else feels like that. I haven't made it for fans. But maybe Eminem has influenced me to talk about myself autobiographically in my songs, I don't know. You've made me think!"

***Perfectionist* was a great album, but how did you feel about its commercial performance?**

"I mean, I just can't believe it. I had nowhere to live. I was staying on the floor of a hostel in Earls Court for over a year and then I did a bunch of bad s\*\*t, got on a plane to LA and then two years later I had sold over 800,000 singles. I was flying business class and staying in suites and penthouses - I can't f\*\*king believe it. I wrote 14 songs and that's what happened? My life was changed forever. If you would have asked me, the person sleeping on the floor in Earls Court, 'You're 26 - where are you?' I would never have thought this. I would have probably thought I was dead by now. Or a stripper."

***Natalia Kills's new album* Trouble *is released on September 2.***

Watch the music video for Natalia Kills's 'Problem' below:

*(Attachment to "Problem" music video)*