NEWS
EVENTS
Tara Mcdonald Exclusive Interview
House | Thursday 13th October 2011 | Osh
How are you doing?
I’m really good thank you! Very good.
Lovely to catch up with you. I’ve heard you’ve been very busy this year?
Yeah, this year’s been super hectic but it’s really exciting, I’ve got loads of new things to tell you about.
Now you’re working on some stuff with more collaborations?
Yes, that’s right yeah, I’ve got a few singles coming out this year, my next record I’ve got something with Roger Sanchez, a new track coming out with David Guetta and Afrojack, something with a french popstar called Quentin Mosimann which will be out on Universal and the number one South American Portugese dance guy called Diego Miranda and then after that it will be my solo record for 2012 so it’s very exciting.
So it sounds like as ever that you’re working with some of the biggest names in the world?
In my field of dance music yeah. I’ve been really lucky because people seem to always ask if I wanna do something or I can pick up the phone and ask someone to work with me so it’s nice.
This is not a new thing but some people might not know who you are but you’ve actually been the voice of some pretty big tracks, tell us some of the stuff that you’ve done?
First one that kind of did work well was with Axwell called ‘Feel The Vibe Til The Morning Comes’ and then I worked with Armand Vanhelden, we did ‘My My My’, then I was writing with David Guetta for a while and it was the album before ‘One Love’ which is the album in England that everybody knows but in Europe David Guetta was massive before that. We did a single for that called ‘Delirious’ and then different people; Afrojack, Laidback Luke.
So these are like clubbing number ones basically but I mean also in the pop charts they did well didn't they?
Yeah. It’s really fun when sometimes I sit and write something in my bedroom and send over the vocals and then you hear it on the radio it’s really, it’s really strange!
Look, I couldn't believe it when I was looking at some of the stuff you’ve done! You are like the original kind of house-y, kind of queen of pop, it’s amazing! I mean you’ve had quite an interesting life, tell me some of the things that have happened in your life going back to the beginning.
Yeah, I’ve had quite a long career really, I started working when I was nine but basically I didn’t have crazy parents that had this dream for me or anything, my dad’s like a van driver and my mum was a secretary, I just came up all singing and all dancing and I kind of got discovered from my local church and I went for an audition for Les Miserables and started working in London when I was nine. I then worked with Audrey Hepburn and became a child ambassador for a Unicef advert. I used to travel to sort of third world countries when I was 12 to talk about rights for the children. Also did some backing singing, I used to body pop for the Jungle Brothers.
You used to bodypop for the Jungle Brothers! Old School!
Old school! It was back in that time, ‘98. It was my first time on Top of The Pops.
How old were you?
About 15/16? What else... backing singing for some rock bands, Pink Floyd, Roger Daltrey, all sorts! All sorts!
So when you’re talking about your career, you’re being humble and really understating what you’ve done out there!
Yeah but in different areas like, it was amazing to tour with all these great bands but you’re on someone else’s ship, you’re not the captain of your own ship, so I’ve learnt a lot from working with all these amazing people that I idolised, and now I’m sort of doing my own thing and learning to be the captain of my own ship and it was a bit of a one man band for a while! My main strength is performing and singing, and I’ve tried to produce now and again but I’ve got a team to do all that! (laughs) They do things a lot better than I do!
Do you think all that was a good stepping stone for you? Now you’re prepared to run your own ship?
Yeah completely, I’m slightly a bit of a control freak, I’m insecure about some things so I do take a long time to make decisions and I like to feel like I’ve got experience and someone said to me “How much more experience do you need, just do your own thing!” So everything is leading towards that.
Nice, so when you were 12 you were a child ambassador for Unicef, you’ve continued to do more humanitarian work haven’t you?
Yeah, I used to work with a charity called CSE and that was ‘Combined Service Entertainment’, it’s always sort of been music based and in that I went to visit Sierra Lione, Kosova, Iraq and Afghanistan. Childline Rocks, I worked for them, but I just did backing singing for my friends in bands. I really love the human aspect of getting involved with the crowd, sharing the energy, that’s what I do it for but I find the rest of it shallow, too fluffy, and if you think that you’re doing a gig just to raise money for a children’s home and it has a different kind of feeling, it sounds really cliche but I do feel like I have to give back because it makes me feel good.
Now moving on to your own music. You make music with a lot of different artists, it’s very house based. Is there like a part of house that is really your thing?
I’m quite commercial. A lot of the really really cool clubs don’t play vocal records, especially when the fashion was really minimal and stuff, I love melody in all genres of music, that’s what I want to make is classic songs in a way, for some of the tracks having said that are just purely dance, it’s just makes you want to move and that’s what I want to so. It’s all positive, I wanna give a good vibe to people.
Who’s your favourite DJ to party to?
I love David Guetta, not just because we worked together for a while but when you go to see one of his gigs you will just get caught up in the energy because people love him so much and as soon as he hits the decks everyone goes completely mental and he gives a lot back when he performs. He really loves what he does, he’s genuinely there because it’s his passion and you feel it.
Now tell me. You did the front cover of Playboy right?
Yeah, I did like ten pages!
It was all of you?!
Yeah (laughs) I have to say Playboy France is more of a fashion magazine. It’s more like you get the creme de la creme of photographers that do it and they sold it to me on the phone in a french accent “You know, it’s not just about sex, it’s a fantasy, we’re selling a fantasy, do you want to be a fantasy?” I said “Yes I do!” So yeah I did that and I was really proud of it in the end, in 20 years time when everything is heading further south I’ll be quite proud of that.
Tell me are there any other highlights?
Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day, I think the dangers of this business is that everything moves so quickly and you feel like you’ve never got somewhere quick enough, you know there’s always something more but when you look back on your journey, actually I’ve come quite far because I remember when in my teens when I was doing dancing, backing dancing, backing singing blah blah blah, and I used to work in Aquarium which is a club near here and I used to dance in my furry pants and bra you know, that club chick! But now I’m ready for the next stage. It took me so long to find a great team of people that I could trust and I think that’s the main thing in this business is to have a really great team around you that can protect you. You get loads of artists that have had one hit and you don’t hear from them again, so it’s about having an amazing team so when you get your lucky break, you keep the ball rolling.
So it’s getting later into the year now, have you got anything big planned for the rest of the year?
You can check out my website which is http://www.taramcdonald.tv/ and all my tour dates are on there. I’m only doing one or two gigs a week because I am working on my record. At the beginning of this year I was only home three nights a month, but it’s impossible to tour and write well when you’re that tired! So I’m going back to South America, for a while, I’m going to be going to Asia, I will do an Australian/New Zealand tour, bits and bobs in Europe, I’ll be in Paris a bit, and Romania at the weekend!
Even when it’s quiet, it’s pretty hectic!
Yeah! (laughs) There’s a lot of airport runs!
Well it’s been lovely to see you!
You too!
Lovely to catch up with you. I’ve heard you’ve been very busy this year?
Yeah, this year’s been super hectic but it’s really exciting, I’ve got loads of new things to tell you about.
Now you’re working on some stuff with more collaborations?
Yes, that’s right yeah, I’ve got a few singles coming out this year, my next record I’ve got something with Roger Sanchez, a new track coming out with David Guetta and Afrojack, something with a french popstar called Quentin Mosimann which will be out on Universal and the number one South American Portugese dance guy called Diego Miranda and then after that it will be my solo record for 2012 so it’s very exciting.
So it sounds like as ever that you’re working with some of the biggest names in the world?
In my field of dance music yeah. I’ve been really lucky because people seem to always ask if I wanna do something or I can pick up the phone and ask someone to work with me so it’s nice.
This is not a new thing but some people might not know who you are but you’ve actually been the voice of some pretty big tracks, tell us some of the stuff that you’ve done?
First one that kind of did work well was with Axwell called ‘Feel The Vibe Til The Morning Comes’ and then I worked with Armand Vanhelden, we did ‘My My My’, then I was writing with David Guetta for a while and it was the album before ‘One Love’ which is the album in England that everybody knows but in Europe David Guetta was massive before that. We did a single for that called ‘Delirious’ and then different people; Afrojack, Laidback Luke.
So these are like clubbing number ones basically but I mean also in the pop charts they did well didn't they?
Yeah. It’s really fun when sometimes I sit and write something in my bedroom and send over the vocals and then you hear it on the radio it’s really, it’s really strange!
Look, I couldn't believe it when I was looking at some of the stuff you’ve done! You are like the original kind of house-y, kind of queen of pop, it’s amazing! I mean you’ve had quite an interesting life, tell me some of the things that have happened in your life going back to the beginning.
Yeah, I’ve had quite a long career really, I started working when I was nine but basically I didn’t have crazy parents that had this dream for me or anything, my dad’s like a van driver and my mum was a secretary, I just came up all singing and all dancing and I kind of got discovered from my local church and I went for an audition for Les Miserables and started working in London when I was nine. I then worked with Audrey Hepburn and became a child ambassador for a Unicef advert. I used to travel to sort of third world countries when I was 12 to talk about rights for the children. Also did some backing singing, I used to body pop for the Jungle Brothers.
You used to bodypop for the Jungle Brothers! Old School!
Old school! It was back in that time, ‘98. It was my first time on Top of The Pops.
How old were you?
About 15/16? What else... backing singing for some rock bands, Pink Floyd, Roger Daltrey, all sorts! All sorts!
So when you’re talking about your career, you’re being humble and really understating what you’ve done out there!
Yeah but in different areas like, it was amazing to tour with all these great bands but you’re on someone else’s ship, you’re not the captain of your own ship, so I’ve learnt a lot from working with all these amazing people that I idolised, and now I’m sort of doing my own thing and learning to be the captain of my own ship and it was a bit of a one man band for a while! My main strength is performing and singing, and I’ve tried to produce now and again but I’ve got a team to do all that! (laughs) They do things a lot better than I do!
Do you think all that was a good stepping stone for you? Now you’re prepared to run your own ship?
Yeah completely, I’m slightly a bit of a control freak, I’m insecure about some things so I do take a long time to make decisions and I like to feel like I’ve got experience and someone said to me “How much more experience do you need, just do your own thing!” So everything is leading towards that.
Nice, so when you were 12 you were a child ambassador for Unicef, you’ve continued to do more humanitarian work haven’t you?
Yeah, I used to work with a charity called CSE and that was ‘Combined Service Entertainment’, it’s always sort of been music based and in that I went to visit Sierra Lione, Kosova, Iraq and Afghanistan. Childline Rocks, I worked for them, but I just did backing singing for my friends in bands. I really love the human aspect of getting involved with the crowd, sharing the energy, that’s what I do it for but I find the rest of it shallow, too fluffy, and if you think that you’re doing a gig just to raise money for a children’s home and it has a different kind of feeling, it sounds really cliche but I do feel like I have to give back because it makes me feel good.
Now moving on to your own music. You make music with a lot of different artists, it’s very house based. Is there like a part of house that is really your thing?
I’m quite commercial. A lot of the really really cool clubs don’t play vocal records, especially when the fashion was really minimal and stuff, I love melody in all genres of music, that’s what I want to make is classic songs in a way, for some of the tracks having said that are just purely dance, it’s just makes you want to move and that’s what I want to so. It’s all positive, I wanna give a good vibe to people.
Who’s your favourite DJ to party to?
I love David Guetta, not just because we worked together for a while but when you go to see one of his gigs you will just get caught up in the energy because people love him so much and as soon as he hits the decks everyone goes completely mental and he gives a lot back when he performs. He really loves what he does, he’s genuinely there because it’s his passion and you feel it.
Now tell me. You did the front cover of Playboy right?
Yeah, I did like ten pages!
It was all of you?!
Yeah (laughs) I have to say Playboy France is more of a fashion magazine. It’s more like you get the creme de la creme of photographers that do it and they sold it to me on the phone in a french accent “You know, it’s not just about sex, it’s a fantasy, we’re selling a fantasy, do you want to be a fantasy?” I said “Yes I do!” So yeah I did that and I was really proud of it in the end, in 20 years time when everything is heading further south I’ll be quite proud of that.
Tell me are there any other highlights?
Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day, I think the dangers of this business is that everything moves so quickly and you feel like you’ve never got somewhere quick enough, you know there’s always something more but when you look back on your journey, actually I’ve come quite far because I remember when in my teens when I was doing dancing, backing dancing, backing singing blah blah blah, and I used to work in Aquarium which is a club near here and I used to dance in my furry pants and bra you know, that club chick! But now I’m ready for the next stage. It took me so long to find a great team of people that I could trust and I think that’s the main thing in this business is to have a really great team around you that can protect you. You get loads of artists that have had one hit and you don’t hear from them again, so it’s about having an amazing team so when you get your lucky break, you keep the ball rolling.
So it’s getting later into the year now, have you got anything big planned for the rest of the year?
You can check out my website which is http://www.taramcdonald.tv/ and all my tour dates are on there. I’m only doing one or two gigs a week because I am working on my record. At the beginning of this year I was only home three nights a month, but it’s impossible to tour and write well when you’re that tired! So I’m going back to South America, for a while, I’m going to be going to Asia, I will do an Australian/New Zealand tour, bits and bobs in Europe, I’ll be in Paris a bit, and Romania at the weekend!
Even when it’s quiet, it’s pretty hectic!
Yeah! (laughs) There’s a lot of airport runs!
Well it’s been lovely to see you!
You too!
