Direct from the UK, singer/songwriter/musician, Carmen Reece, has teamed up with mega-producer/songwriter Mark Feist to bring listeners an incredible album called, Love in Stereo. Reece’s hit single, “Right Here,” has been blazing up the Billboard charts and shows no signs of slowing down.
Groovevolt.com Contributing Writer Jonathan Hikade recently spoke with the multi-talented and focused Carmen Reece in New York City.
Groovevolt: I understand you were heavily influenced by music at an early age. Can you tell me a little about that?
Carmen Reece: My parents said that I was always singing around the house when I was little and I started playing the flute and the piano at the age of seven. I was actually in the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain playing the flute, so bit of a classical background which really kind of steadied me for where I am today and gave me the foundations that I needed. I then went to the Brit School, a performing arts school, for two years which was an amazing experience because I’d be doing music all day, everyday. [I was] learning, recording, performing, composing; so that really was like the best two years of my life.
GV: Your parents were and still are very supportive of your music. Are your parents musically inclined or play any instruments themselves?
CR: Everyone in my family has played an instrument. They all have great musical ears. My brother played the trumpet. My sister has had a go at all of them [instruments] because she gets kind of bored with them after three weeks. My granddad, who I actually never knew because he passed before I was born, was apparently an amazing pianist. It’s a shame I never got to know him because we could’ve had so much fun playing [together]. I’m very, very lucky to have a supportive family. They’ve really stuck by me through this. My dad especially has been a big driving force to keep me focused.
GV: How did your relationship with Mark Feist come about and were you intimidated by the artists that he’s worked with in the past (i.e. Beyonce and Celine Dion)?
CR: Of course. The people that he’s (Feist) worked with are some of my idols and I’ve looked up to them growing up so it was extremely exciting for me, but I just embrace the moment of us working together and how it came around. He called me, actually, because I worked with him a few years before. He flew me out for two weeks and wrote with Mark for a couple of days. It was great, but obviously I went back to England. Then he MySpace stalked me a couple of years ago and I was quite happy that he was stalking me (laughing). And I really wanted to get out to L.A. to do some writing and just broaden my whole knowledge of music and writing with people. I turned up on his doorstep with my computer and my tracks. He wanted me to do some demo songs, but I had another agenda.
GV: How is it like working with Mark Feist? Do you complete each others sentences when you write together?
CR: I’ve never worked with someone that I’ve been so compatible with musically. When we are in the studio we don’t have to say anything. It’s almost too good to be true. (Carmen knocks on the table so not to jinx her good fortune.) I’m just so grateful I’ve found him. It’s not often you come across someone you just bond with and connect with musically.
GV: In many interviews you’ve mentioned the role of “The Divas.” What particular “diva” or person has influenced you?
CR: I remember one of the first cassettes that I ever got my hands on was Beverly Craven and she had this really big hit called “Promise Me.” She played the keys and it’s funny because I listen back now and her style of playing is kind of like my style. I really was inspired by the early Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Toni Braxton, and Boyz II Men. I just really latched on to anything soulful.
GV: Your hit single, “Right Here,” is out and currently at No. 65 on the Billboard singles charts. What do you personally think of the dance remix version done by Dave Aude?
CR: I do like it. It’s always amazing to hear a song that you’ve written in its original form and then hear it flipped to how someone else heard it. It’s really been going down very well in the clubs and on radio. Dave Aude is a great remixer. He really kind of gets music. He’s not just throwing a beat on there to get people jumping in the club.
GV: Which version of your single, “Right Here,” do you prefer? Is it the remix, the original, or the stripped-down, acoustic version?
CR: How it’s originally written is normally the preferred because that’s what naturally came from you and how you’ve been inspired, but I love them all really. I started off at seven [years old] playing the piano and writing songs so me just sitting at the piano is something very close to me and it feels extremely natural.
GV: You recently opened for Pitbull in New Jersey. What was that experience like for you and how did the audience respond to your performance?
CR: There were a lot of people there. They were really hyped up. It was actually pouring outside so they’ve all been curing in the rain, bless them, but they came in and they were revved up and it was just electric. I really had a great time. The crowd was great.
GV: Speaking of New Jersey.The Dave Aude remix of “Right Here” sounds like it would be playing in the background on MTV’s Jersey Shore. Would you mindif your song was on such a controversial show?
CR: I wouldn’t mind at all.
GV: When is your album, Love in Stereo, going to drop?
CR: The album is done. Mark’s just putting the finishing touches on production and mixing, but I would say near the end of the first quarter, like March/April. We just want to get it exactly right.
GV: What’s next for Carmen Reece? Acting possibly?
CR: There are so many things I want to do, but music is my focus and I’ve wanted to do this for such a long time and worked towards it, so I’m really just focused. I wouldn’t say that I wouldn’t want to act in the future. We’ll see what comes my way.
- Jonathan Hikade, Contributing Writer
According to filmmaker Tyler Perry, Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson are set to star in his next film, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. Perry will direct and write the upcoming movie, which will also star Whoopi Goldberg, Phylicia Rashad, Jurnee Smollett, Kimberly Elise, Kerry Washington, Loretta Devine and Macy Gray.
