Eliza Doolittle has the pedigree – her gran is Sylvia Young. She has the songs – sunny pop tunes, with all the right words. She has the attitude – and the laddered tights. London's latest pop star talks fame, fortune and lazy Lily Allen comparisons with LAUREN MURPHY
DON’T MENTION stage school. Don’t mention Sylvia Young. And for the love of all that is mighty, whatever you do, don’t mention Lily Allen. Eliza Doolittle will get angry, and you wouldn’t like Eliza Doolittle when she’s angry.
Oh, who are we kidding? The young lady born Eliza Caird may look like a typically attitudal twentysomething with a chip on her shoulder and a point to prove. But despite the deliberately ripped tights, the mane of wild curly hair and the chipped black nail polish, she couldn’t be less intimidating if she tried.
Doolittle is the newest pop star to be spewed from the bowels of the UK's music scene, and despite the connotations with My Fair Ladyand Pygmalion, she's as far-removed from urban dishevelment as N-Dubz are from Eton College. In that respect, perhaps she has a point to prove, although you couldn't tell by the friendly grin that spreads across her face as she sits in EMI's Dublin office, her manager discreetly ensconced in the corner monitoring proceedings.
"I've been writing since I was about 12," the 22-year-old says. "I've always been writing towards an album in my head, and it just so happens that I've got one together now. I wrote this one song called Rollerblades, and it was so original that I felt like I'd found this sound that I hadn't heard before – so I just decided to keep going with that."
What about the connection with Sylvia Young? Caird is the stage-school supremo’s granddaughter. Although she’s not a product of a showbiz school herself, it was perhaps inevitable that a career on a stage of some sort beckoned, considering the family tradition: Eliza’s parents are theatre director John Caird and actress and singer Frances Ruffelle.
“My gran didn’t even know I could sing until a few years ago, so I don’t really know what people would mean by ‘favouritism’,” she says with a thin-lipped smile. “Lots of people didn’t know that I was her granddaughter, so it’s never really been a factor.”
So, the young Eliza didn’t grow up in a houseful of thespian luvvies, and placed on the kitchen table at the age of four to entertain the guests, then?
“My mum would feel so bad if anyone ever thought that,” she guffaws. “She was always the one saying, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? This is a really hard business.’ She’s always making sure that this is definitely what I want – in fact, I hear her saying it to me in my head every single day.”
Surely, though, like most aspiring pop stars who sing into their bedroom mirrors with a hairbrush microphone, being asked for autographs and being papped when going to the corner shop must be at least a little bit thrilling. Is being famous important to her?
“When I was little, I liked the idea of it, but I didn’t really know what it was. I think I just thought it’d be cool to turn up somewhere and get into any club you wanted, or whatever,” she giggles. “But the more I think about it, it’s actually not that nice a thing – everyone knowing about you, or thinking they know about you. That side of things is something I’m not asking for, but if it comes I’m just gonna deal with it”
Aside from ties to family and fame, there is, of course, the music. Doolittle's self-titled debut album is a collection of sunny pop tunes, with easy-going melodies that glisten like the first lick of an ice lolly on a scorching day. Skinny Genes is an undoubted Caribbean-flavoured hit, Missinga lilting, upbeat chug that samples Andy Williams, and A Smokey Roombrings a hint of vaudeville to proceedings.
Yet try as she might, there’s no escaping the comparisons with one Lily Rose Allen.Doolittle is going for the same teen girl/adult crossover market, but her songs are arguably stronger, her influences probably more flavoured, and her surprisingly soulful voice burlier than Allen’s.
“It’s a bit frustrating,” she sighs. “It’s definitely because of the accent. But I’m not gonna start singing in an American accent, or Irish accent, or whatever. That’s not who I am. I think the most frustrating thing is that it’s just probably because we’re girls. Like with Blur – he sings in a really English accent, but no one’s ever said ‘Oh, Lily Allen’s just like Damon Albarn’. It’s just because we’re female, and it’s just lazy journalism.
“There’s so many men out there in bands, and boys, and guys on guitars, and none of them get compared to each other. Literally none. Hopefully they’ll get over it; the more girls there are, the more people will start to hear the difference.”
These days you have to have an angle to be noticed amid the growing population of young female artists. La Roux has been tagged as the electro revivalist, Florence the epic balladeer, Paloma Faith the burlesque vamp. Where does Eliza Doolittle fit in to an already saturated market?
“I don’t know how people perceive me, or whether I’m working from a particular angle. But I’d like to be ‘that one that just has really good songs’. I think it must help to have some kind of charm about you, to have something different. But I’m just gonna be who I am, and hopefully there’s something different that people will pick up in my music without me even trying.”
Doolittle may not be a stage-school graduate, but she’s passed her charm school exams with flying colours: measured answers to all questions, a refusal to rise to any attempts at light-hearted prodding, and most of all, a dazzling smile that seems genuine. Could it be that Eliza Doolittle isn’t just another product off the pop factory conveyer belt? She’s certainly determined not to become another failed sales statistic.
“If I wasn’t signed I’d still be doing what I’m doing – writing and singing. But I’d just be broke, make no money. I’ve watched other artists who I admired, and I’ve always wanted to do what they’re doing, whether it’s on TV, or live, or just listening to their music.”
She nods, picking an even larger hole in her shredded tights. “People asked me stuff like ‘Are you uncomfortable with doing photo shoots?’, and I wasn’t. I mean, I didn’t really like seeing myself in the photos at first, but it’s something I always knew would come with the territory, because of watching all of the artists I was influenced by. So I was never surprised by any of it.
“There’s still so much to come, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to just take it in my stride.”
Skinny Jeansis out now. Pack Up is out on July 2nd. Eliza Doolittle is out July 9th
