It's common knowledge that musicians often utilise eccentric methods when recording tracks. In the past, Julian Cope has been known to record clad in only a giant turtle shell; The Only Ones recorded their classic eponymous debut in an old Oast House in Kent and The Triffids laid down their 'lost' classic "In The Pines" in a sheep shearing shed in the wilderness of Western Australia. However, even these kaleidoscopic characters didn't think of recording an album in their own garden shed, unlike POLLY PAULUSMA, rising One Little Indian folk-pop star, whose cool debut "Scissors In My Pocket" was mostly recorded amongst the hoes, rakes and Garden Gnomes. Reason enough to have a chat? Rhetorical question, surely.....
Polly, we'll come back to your exploits in the back garden presently, but let's talk about what you've just been doing first. By this, I mean your recent UK tour with Jamie Cullum: one of the more unlikely crossover stars of recent times, to these ears at least. What was he like?
"Oh, we got on extremely well," enthuses Polly.
"He's so bouncy and happy all the time. He's really into what he's doing. Professionally, too, it was a great learning curve as he's such a great showman and he can truly take his audience wherever he likes."
So what did his audience make of you?
"It bowled me over how well they took to me," replies Polly, still plainly hardly able to take this in.
"His audiences were fantastic. I expected the usual lot of the support act, you know...basically to be the sacrificial lamb, but the hall was always packed when I went onstage and they were so responsive! I sold loads of CDS on tour, I still can't believe it!"
Polly's being far too modest, here, as even a quick earful of her debut album "Scissors In My Pocket" proves. Nonetheless, Jamie Cullum's endorsement of her was won on merit, so she's every reason to feel proud.
"Yeah, well Jamie's very hands-on in picking his support acts," reveals Polly. "His record company apparently gave him two huge boxes of CDs by potential support acts and he actually took the time to sift through them."
"Funnily enough, though, mine wasn't in there. He chose me because my CD somehow wangled its' way into an office where he got to both hear it and also hear about how it was made. He really liked that, so he gave me a chance."
OK, well we can't not go into this. Polly's album was mostly recorded in a garden shed in Clapham, and the end results suggest everyone should think about setting up a board and running it from the mains in their house. Was it a fulfilling experience, then?
"Well, it grew out of doing a series of demos," says Polly.
"It's still a very fertile pub circuit in London and I'd been gigging around for some time, which allowed me to write about 40 songs over a couple of years. I got to the stage where I really wanted and needed to make a record and I'd been making demos at home and learning about the process as I went along."
"At this stage, no-one was showing any interest in me, so I started pottering along at my own pace and set up in the shed. Good atmosphere and I really learnt a load. Anyway, just as I was finishing on working on the songs in the shed, One Little Indian stepped in. Their timing was absolutely spot-on from my point of view."
Polly says this slightly incredulously, as though the bubble could still burst. By the sounds of it, she's deservedly fallen on her feet here, though. Certainly she's signed to a label renowned for their eclecticism, having previously brought the world the likes of Bjork/ The Sugarcubes, Kitchens Of Distinction, The Shamen, They Might Be Giants and - in more recent times - Jesse Malin, Black Box Recorder and Jeff Klein.
"In all honesty, One Little Indian were the only label showing any interest and belief in me," says Polly disarmingly.
"I really love their ethos. (Label boss) Derek Birkett has absolutely no say in the music, he lets you entirely get on with your own thing. He just says: "Right, do your thing and let me have it when it's done and I'll take it from there." It's amazing - there's no interference at all!"
Sounds unheard of these days...
"Absolutely," Polly agrees readily. "That sort of approach in just about non-existent anywhere in the world nowadays. I'm very lucky to be in that kind of position."
Again, Polly's being far too modest. She's lots of fun to talk to, with an infectious laugh, but her joviality belies an older head on her shoulders. She's nobody's fool and she's definitely in this business for the long run. "Scissors In My Pocket" may be her debut album, but's she's been involved in music pretty much from the word go.
"Yes, I remember music always being totally important," Polly confirms.
"I started messing with the piano at 3 and started writing songs at 10. Then I got seriously into playing guitar around the age of 14 and never stopped really. It never occurred to me that I shouldn't be doing this."
Before the London pub circuit Polly mentioned, however, she also obtained a first in English at Cambridge. How did college days influence your musical tastes, then?
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"Being at Cambridge was a great experience," she says.
"Actually, my course fed into what I was doing. How couldn't it really? Let's face it: three years spent reading the greats - I'd recommend it to anyone. Music at that time was good fun, too, though not serious. I was in a soul-funk covers band in Cambridge - playing a tambourine in the shortest skirt you could imagine."
"Just like "The Commitments"!" she howls with laughter.
Post Cambridge, though, Polly was involved in another musical project which was instrumental in the course she has taken in her career.
"Yeah, for a while I did try to get along in real work, grown-up jobs in the real world," she says, almost apologetically.
"But that didn't really work. Anyway, I'd been doing some small acoustic gigs at a pub in London when Ben from Ben & Jason sidled up and asked me to do some vocals with them. He'd seen me play and loved it."
"Strangely," Polly continues, "I'd kind of thought as their gig as a last hurrah musically for me because at the time that happened I was still thinking of regular work and not doing music full-time. Turning up at their studio was a revelation though - I realised when I went in there how horrendously wrong I'd have been to want to stop doing this. It's inside of me and I can't deny it."
For one, I'm glad you came to that conclusion, because there are some excellent tracks on "Scissors In My Pocket." Musically the album's subtle, with broadly acoustic frameworks fleshed out by discerning strings and horns. Pigeonholes are usually odious, but Polly will probably be described broadly as "jazz/folk" or "folk/pop" and certainly I can hear echoes of the likes of Nick Drake and Sandy Denny in there. Is the British folk tradition important to you, Polly?
"Oh yeah, Nick Drake's my complete hero," gushes Polly.
"Just think about his song "Man In A Shed", hur-hur! But it's funny...I guess my musical make-up's been influenced by my parents in that my Mum's a real '60s kid and I got into The Byrds and - inevitably - The Beatles through her, while I got jazz from my Dad who was always playing Count Basie, but the folkier elements were all my own discovery."
A teenage musical journey?
"Yes, that's right," Polly replies.
"Joan Baez, Nick Drake and their contemporaries...that was very much my thing. A great period of self-discovery. Having said that, it's not exclusive: I love lots of contemporary writers and singers. I'm a huge fan of Neil Finn and a lot of the Americana people like Wilco. I love Jeff Tweedy's songs."
I had hoped to question Polly in more detail about the excellent lyrical content of most of the album's tunes, not least the ultra-personal closing pair of "Perfect 4/4" and "Something To Remember Me By," the latter which at least aspires to discuss the idea of an artist's immortality. Although entirely polite, Polly remains reticent in this area, however.
"Mmm, well I've set a golden rule that I never tell anyone directly what my songs refer too as I don't think it's fair to explain away too much," she says.
"I'd love to talk about them some more, But I mustn't break the rule," she continues. "I will say about "Something To Remember Me By" that it's intended to be tongue-in-cheek, though."
OK, Polly. We have to go shortly, but before we sign off, perhaps you can reveal more about the way you write your songs. Although songs like "Dark Side" or "She Moves In Secret Ways" are hardly standard pop arrangements, they feature very catchy melodies and choruses. Do you deliberately try to always be accessible or does it just come out that way?
"It just comes out naturally," says Polly.
"It comes in a big blob, really," she says, laughing.
"The lyrics are probably a but spiky and wordy because of my background and my English degree. It's important to remember that everything I write does come straight from the heart, though. It's a heart-shaped box rather than a brain-shaped box that brings you my songs."
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