Remi Nicole is part of the latest wave of singer-songwriters who look to the ordinary for inspiration, writes Tony Clayton-Lea.
If you're a woman from London, have an acoustic guitar, a MySpace page, write chipper, rudimentary true-life lyrics, and sing in an accent that's as broad as the Thames, it is now a given that you're the next Lily Allen or Kate Nash.
Ask 24-year-old Remi Nicole if this is true and she gives you a look that could crack all the nuts in Brazil. Nicole is fresh from her stage appearance at the recent muckfest that was Oxegen. Sitting in the shaded confines of a marquee close to the artists' enclosure, Nicole is as chilled as a bottle of Bolly. She's a lucky little thing, too, as she explains.
"I started off as an actress, appearing in the likes of Holby City, The Bill and a sci-fi series called Hyperdrive, but last summer, after I watched a friend of mine record and produce a song in a few hours, I picked up a guitar, taught myself some chords, and wrote a few songs."
A friend of a friend heard the songs, put one of them (Rock'n'Roll) on his MySpace page, after which the phone just didn't stop ringing.
"Then I signed a record deal. For me, it was that simple." She looks almost embarrassed. "I feel bad for the people who are reading this, who have been trying to get a record deal for years, but," and here she regains her composure, "I maintain that everything happens for a reason. Was I shocked at being signed up so quickly? It happened fast, I agree, but it has seemed so natural, so it doesn't feel weird."
Nicole admits that she isn't a great musician.
"I've only been playing for a little while, but I have an ability to write about my experiences in song format. I didn't think I had that, to be honest, never even thought about it."
What about influences? "I can't answer that because I don't have any. And I'm not a good enough musician to emulate anyone else."
Not being a good enough musician is at the heart of the current crop of the laptop'n'guitar, indie-driven pop star scene. The best known of the bunch - Lily Allen, Jamie T, Jack Peñate, Kate Nash - are hardly going to win prizes for technical proficiency. Instinct is the driving force, passion the fuel.
"All my music is," says Nicole, "is me sitting in my bedroom, with a guitar, playing chords and singing about me, friends, likes, dislikes. Everything I sing about is an opinion or observation or commentary of some kind or another. Different songs are based on different things.
"I find it easy writing songs - it's as easy as speaking or answering questions. I know how I feel so I can write it down. I don't want to sound cocksure, because it can be so hard for some people to do it. I also feel a bit concerned at how quickly things have gone so right for me, so to alleviate that I'm trying to stay focused, keep my feet on the ground, and show my gratitude for being in this position by writing good songs for a good album."
SHE REALISES THAT the Art Brut indie-pop scene is partly media driven. "Me, Kate Nash and Jack Peñate are all different in style, yet we have certain similar characteristics. We're all quite young, in our early 20s, and we're going back to classic songwriting with real lyrics. We're not writing about rubbish - it's all our own lives.
"And I don't think it's a scene, either. What's terrific about it is that it isn't derived from the Pop Idol thing, which was once the only way for someone in their mid to late teens to be a musician. When you're a singer-songwriter and you have a MySpace page, you can write, record, buy a sound card and laptop and someone is going to hear it. Simple as that!"
It's clear that Nicole is going to join the likes of Nash and Peñate in the music charts - her mixture of naive guitar folk-pop with old-school hip-hop is finished off with a dash of Amy Winehouse-like soul stylings.
With Nash and Peñate already selling bucketloads (as well as Lily Allen having genuinely crossed over into the mainstream and Jamie T having recently picked up a Mercury Music Prize nomination), we can safely predict that Nicole will shortly be gracing magazine covers, and perhaps even designing her own clothes range or lending her name to a new perfume.
"The recognition factor is worrying," she says. "I want to be able to walk down the street, go for a pint with my mates and not get hassled. You can make it work for you, I think. I'm not interested in gossip, and if I can stay out of that I will.
"It can be dangerous sometimes, though. I have an inbuilt bullshit detector, but on occasion it doesn't work very well. Sometimes people can seem genuine when they're not. The good thing is that I have mates from years back, so I don't have to make any insincere new ones."
Remi Nicole's new single, Go Mr Sunshine, is released on Island Records as a download on Aug 13;
CD and vinyl: Aug 20. www.reminicole.com