"DO I trust men? No," says Dina Carroll, flicking a piece of fluff off her jacket sleeve, as forcefully and effectively as one imagines she would deal with an unwanted come on in a dance club.
The speed with she delivers her reply to that question, plus its irrefutable sincerity, also immediately brings into focus the emotional power which surely has helped make her one of the most popular soul singers in Ireland over the past few years. And one of the best selling, with her debut album So Close achieving double platinum sales in this country and producing no less than a phenomenal seven hit singles.
Dina also seems to genuinely love Ireland "mostly because I don't get hassled" and will be here this weekend to appear on Kenny Live and launch her follow up album, Only Human. But let's kick off with those claims that she is the kind of post modern female who neither has, nor wants, a man in her life. And the perhaps predictable, question of how or why - she sings, with such a strong sense of longing, love songs like You'll Never Know, which virtually define the feelings that fire her finest work.
"It's not that I'm anti men and I'm not gay. But my career really is more important right now, because I've worked so hard for so long to get where I am," she says. "And as for how I manage to sing those songs that way, I really don't know. Because I've never really been in love. I thought I was from about 14 to 17, which was pretty traumatic, as he wasn't a particularly nice guy. So maybe I call back those feelings or, more often than not, think of someone else's heartbreak, express something for my sister, friends, whoever. And I am very meticulous writing my story lines for songs. I make sure they are realistic. So maybe that's what people tune into.
What about Dina's lack of trust in men? Does it stem from that first relationship, or go further back, to the fact that her family was minus a father? Why is it that although she constantly refers to her mother, during interviews, she never talks about her dad?
"Because I don't know him. He left when I was a baby, so maybe that does add to my lack of trust in men," she reflects. "But then men have never given me any great reason to trust them. There are very few men I respect. Though having said that, I do prefer, when I go out of an evening, to sit with the boys rather than the girls. Yet when it comes to relationships there is that lack of trust there, absolutely. But I'd rather be this protective of myself, than be naive and date so many men, like my friends do, than have it end up in disaster. And don't ask me about musicians! They're the least trustworthy men of all!"
Dina's healthy scepticism, when it comes to men in the music business, is hardly surprising, when one considers some of her earliest experiences in the record industry, at "roughly 16". These experiences certainly added to what she describes as her "introverted" nature and a lack of self confidence", both tendencies which, Dina claims, have only begun to loosen their stranglehold on her as a result of her success as a singer, since 1993.
"Growing up. I never saw not having a father as a problem, because that was just the norm, our home life," she says. "But when I did go into the music business I did meet so many men who just wanted to put me in a mini skirt and send me out there to perform. And for six months I worked with one man who'd say, `my God! You're so bloody spotty, so enormous. Didn't I tell you to go to the gym today?' And this was at a conference meeting, with people sitting around. So my confidence, which had never been strong anyway, Just fell apart.
"Basically because, even though my mom gave us all the love we needed, I always felt like a bit of an alien, that something was lacking inside me. I was one of these children who just didn't converse with anyone, kept to myself. So much so that my schoolmates called me `Harpo' after that guy in the Marx Brothers who never spoke. That's why it has been a hard struggle to rise above all that. And even now, I find that many men would rather criticise, or be aggressive with me, than charming, for whatever reason."
Mightn't part of the reason have something to do with Dina herself, in terms of maybe being a mite over defensive when men do approach her? "Perhaps!" she says, laughing. "Maybe they do see that `don't even think about messing with me, boy' look in my eyes, which is really helpful in the music business where there is, as say, so much crap!"
Delving back into her adolescence, where did music come into the equation for Dina Carroll? She once wrote a gorgeous article in praise of one of her favourite songs, that Motown classic Wish It Would Rain. So did she, at one point, listen to the great David Ruffin's vocal an such Temptations songs and think, "he knows what I'm going through"?
"Well, there is that, of course, because soul music is supposed to come from the soul. And David Ruffin had that," she asserts. "I also knew that his life was immensely screwed up because drugs, basically, ruined the Temptations. But it wasn't that I was moping, as a teenager, when I heard that song at home; it was just that the music touched me like no other. Not just the voice but the whole sound, including the string lines, and violins, which were amazing.
Dina Carroll's music undoubtedly hooks fans at the same level, particularly on glorious, gospel based tracks such as Heaven Sent, which was arranged by Whitney's mom, Cissy Houston and features the Hope Baptist Choir and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Motown and/or Philadelphia soul string figures also dominate Dina's work on both So Close and Only Human.
"A lot of that comes from Nigel Lewis, my musical partner, who is a `Philly' freak. In fact between me and him I'm amazed that the albums aren't just oozing retro!" she jokes.
SO what, specifically, does Dina mean? As in that Stevie Wonder harmonica lick that makes World Come Between Us, from the new album, seem like it's going to segue into Stevie's For Once In My Life?
"That's Nige, I'll blame him for that, because he's a total Stevie Wonder freak!" says Dina, admitting that Nigel's "experimentations" with legendary New York DJ David Morales also led to the "high energy dance tracks" on the new album - Mind, Body And Soul and Living For The Weekend. However, as with So Close, ballads shape the soul of Only Human, with Dina describing Give Me The Right, in particular, as the "real root of the album". Why?
"Because it's as close as got to style than anything else I know," she explains. "And that song also is the closest I've come to being totally happy with a vocal of mine, because I'm highly self critical. Yet I'm so proud of Give Me The Right that if anyone came to me and said `what do you do for a living?' I'd play them that song. I've never felt that good about anything I've ever done before. Though I also love the title song, Only Human, by Vicki Wells, because it's all about that three o'clock in the morning feeling when you've been up all night arguing with someone, you re eyes are swollen and it's one of the most traumatic things you can experience, right?"
Give Me The Right, in terms of its theme, is like an update of Help Me Make It Through The Night. So, despite her own publicly professed reservations in relation to romance, does Dina hope that such songs will be used as make out music, as it seems was the case in relation to So Close?
"Definitely," she says, smiling. "And it was one of my backing singers who got pregnant and told me, `Dina, the baby was conceived to the song So Close and, during the birth, we played the album'. And I really was touched by that, to think my music has become as much a part of someone's else's life, as, say, David Ruffin or Teddy Pendergrass was to me. That's the kind of thing that keeps me going. Same thing when I meet someone who says they were, maybe, feeling suicidal and one of my songs helped them through that. What an effect to have on a life, right? If I can achieve that, even once every so often, it really does make everything else worthwhile."
