Cover: Stooshe – Xtra!
Stooshe – the full interview: Raw
These guys are set to make it big. Read all about them and our go karting antics, whilst we interviewed them in the latest, March issue of g3 magazine. They have won awards, got signed by Warners and set to release their new single Love Me ft. Travie McCoy, and all this in a year.
• Go Karting with Stooshe in pics
C = Courtney
A = Alex
K = Karis
Interview by Sarah G (SG)
K: It wasn't ever like, let's audition for this girl and... y'know. We were all doing different things.
C: We have a lot of mutual friends, it was like, how have we not seen each other before?"
C: We've got a great balance, it's like a family balance. Karis always thought she would be a singer, courtney was at theatre school and working in M&S, and Alex was at uni, but comes from a singing background.
C: It was weird that we were even spotted, I never go to Bluewater, I live in Penge! Everything happens for a reason.
A: I think, what good have I done in my life to deserve this.
C: We were signed by Warner Bros in August. It's been such a quick turnaround, the band have only been together for a year but we've been working a LOT.
K: And we're really lucky. We've been in the studio for a year and finished our album which is finished now and gonna be out in June.
A: It's like a little family. It's us three, Jo perry and future cut writing together.
C: Everything we do we like to be real. What we sing about is real life to us or someone in the team.
C: We've been really lucky with input actually, right down to our creative control. We don't have a brief to stick to, the record company don't say 'do this, do that', we just work C/K/A - as a team.
K: We are totally different characters, I think that's why it works. Alex is very ladylike with her style, she loves the whole 80s/90s era. Courtney we call ghetro - retro ghetto, fresh prince of bel air, and I love the 50s, girly, but with loads of tattoos.
SG: But it works! You compliment each other. It looks like your style comes naturally.
A: We're kind of rough round the edges. It's not perfect, but if we wanna do it we do it.
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Soo Gay...
SG: We've seen that you're doing student pride and a few LGBT things. Is the gay thing quite important to you?
C: Yeah! I mean, I come out in one of our songs. I think it's just being who you are and being able to express what you do through your music. I'm
not gonna lie, at first my family didn't know so I when the song went online I tried to delete my family from facebook... But now my mum knows, everyone else knows and they're all cool about it. The whole gay thing is who I am so... People accept us for who we are.
SG: The whole bisexual thing is in fashion right now. It's ok to come out, but you still get some people who hide it for years and it becomes an issue.
C: It's just about being comfortable. I mean, I think some people are doing it to follow fashion, but before people might have thought 'I can't be this because it's frowned upon' whereas now they can think 'I'm not gonna rule it out'. For me, there was no point in hiding it from the public, I mean, everyone around me except my family knew so...
A: It's better to be confident about it
K: You've got to be able to feel comfortable in your own skin.
C: If you make it normal, then everyone else will take it as normal and get on with it.
SG: People like Jessie j just make it normal really
K: Well it's not 'not normal'!
Grrl Power
SG: Now's the time for female singers, most of the massive international stars right now are women. Why do you think that is?
A: Women are seeing other women doing it and think 'cool, cos she's doing it, I can do it too. We're just three girls doing our thing, we respect the whole of the industry, not just women, but it's nice to see so many girls out there doing it.
C: I think women are becoming more open and stronger. I mean, back in the day it was looked upon for women to only do certain things with their lives, but now girls everywhere just like us are expressing themselves however they want to and I think it's been accepted, which is why there are so many female artists out there doing their thing.
SG: When you look at Lady Gaga recently she's gone a bit off the radar musically and more towards campaigning, and Beyoncé has gone women's power. Do you think that's something you're going to do on the back of it once you've launched your caterer properly?
A: I don't think it's about preaching about women power, we're just doing what we want to do. We're confident in our skin. We wear what we want, we say what we want, and that's enough just for girls to look up to.
K: Yeah, I mean, you could say all that and just mean nothing, we're actually showing it.
SG: So who would you say inspires you?
K: Well we love old school like Salt N Pepper, TLC, Spice Girls. We take inspiration from all of them. I think being a girl band today you can't say that you don't.
A: Yeah we take inspiration from everything! Old school, hip hop. Our producers Futurecut have that same sound about them so it's all across our album.
C: We love the whole old school thing but today you got people like Jessie J, Emilie Sandé, Wretch, Adele, the UK is doing it big at the moment. Women, the UK, everything is going up.
SG: How important do you think it is to do something different right now considering that even Jessie J has gone down the ultimate pop route with her latest single?
K: I don't think it's necessarily about going out of your way to do something different, I think it's more about being confident with you're doing. If you see people phasing in and out of different styles it just gives the impression that you're not confident with what you're doing. We've come hard with what we're doing, it's not that we're trying to be different, we're just doing us. Album out in June, single out now!
A: We're doing the Isle of Wight festival, and Wireless again, we've got lots of festivals ahead.
C: Just being Stooshe!
After the music
SG: So what do you girls do in your spare time apart from music?
A: Eat and sleep!
K: Yeah! We get up at 6am then get home at like 12am or 1am!
*all laugh*
C: I like drawing
K: I like getting tattoos.
C: I like tattoos.
K: I have 25 tattoos. My mum would rather I got tattoos than did anything else!
(Alex is the only one without tattoos.)
SG: Your label is ok with you getting new tattoos and stuff?
C: We have a really good relationship with everyone at our label, they're totally fine with it. Our product manager comes everywhere. We're so lucky to get on with them so well, we'll like, go out raving with our label. It's fun, good fun.
SG: The music industry has changed so much, with people more dependent on YouTube to get noticed now. You seem to have had a pretty easy ride with that.
K: We worked so hard on getting our package right. The music was there, the look, the sound, the album. We weren't prepared to change any of that.
A: I think the label saw we weren't going to change and thought 'we'll go with this'
K: Usually people go to a label looking for or expecting development, but we went to the label saying 'we wanna be out in the next six months, can you do it or not? That was it!'
SG: Is it quite scary having to do live gigs?
C: We do gigs every week so.
A: We've got a great band, the same band as Jessie J actually!
K: I think we always get the same sick feeling at the beginning but then feel completely free afterwards. That feeling never goes!
C: Our first ever gig together was in Brighton.
K: Oh my god yes! I completely forget that feeling. I nearly shat myself. It was in this little tiny room.
A: That was the scariest thing ever.
C: Everyone's just looking at you like this: *pulls long face*
SG: Courtney and Karis you'd both been on stage singing before, so what was it like for you Alex?
A: Well actually, I'd been on stage before. I used to mine for my mum who was a Diana Ross impersonator. I'd be dancing around in the background with my little sister!
SG: So your life is going to take off on a whirlwind now, is there anything you're going to miss?
C: I'm going to miss raving without thinking about having to get up in the morning and being seen.
K: Yeah we like to do normal things like go shopping and go raving, get in the middle, be crazy and get drunk! We just can't do that anymore.
C: Well, we can to an extent but we just have to be careful and think about what we're doing.
SG: So I'm guessing none of you are looking for relationships right now?
*silence*
K: Well... we're all in relationships. But music is the real love of our life.
SG: So if you had another ambition that you wanted to achieve in life except music, what would it be?
A: I want to have a family and children. That's like, my other ultimate goal.
K: Before the band I was looking into being a counsellor for women suffering from domestic abuse. I'd like to fulfil that somehow with my own family justice centre or something.
C: I think I would love to pursue the drawing thing, maybe even learn how to tat (turns to Karis) then we could tattoo each other!
The fans
SG: Who do you think your fanbase will ultimately be?
K: Well we notice a lot of heartbeat Jessie J fans and Rihanna navy tweeting us.
C: It really ranges from like, six-year-old girls to old men! But mostly women.
One last thing, the name Stooshe...?
A: Ok, basically, stoosh is a word used in London for a girl who thinks she's too good.
[Then all in unison:] Girl thinks she's so nice!
A: Then we looked it up in the urban dictionary and it means hidden away or a mystery so we liked that different contrast of meanings. Then we added the 'she' for girl power. But we actually found out that in Glasgow Stooshe is a real slang word, it means to be in a predicament! Like, I'm in a real Stooshe.
SG: Blah blah you're soooo good, I lurrrrve you and I only say that to you guys cos you're so great and I never tell anyone else that. Let's go racing!
For more information, visit: www.stooshe.com
Go Karting: Swooshe
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