Singer Victoria Hart shot to fame over night when she was invited to Cannes to sing for none other that George Clooney and Brad Pitt.
Off the back of her performance, which took her away from her life as a singing waitress, she released her debut album Whatever Happened to Romance as well as being a hit at Glastonbury, despite the poor weather.
I caught up with her to discuss her whirlwind career, the new record and the future.
Did you always want to sing? And how did you get started?
I've always wanted to sing, for as long as I can remember. I was in classical singing training when I was tiny - eight or nine. I got entered into all these competitions and I came last in every single one. I kind of stopped then but all I wanted to do was sing.
Then I was singing throughout school, in all of the plays and concerts, and a piano teacher asked me to come and sing at this jazz concert when I was fifteen and there was a producer there and he was like 'you have really got something, I want you to come into my studio'.
He thought I was twenty or twenty two and I was this fifteen year old girl but that is where it all started. We started recording and getting everything together.
And you sang in Cannes
I did I guess you could say that was my big break.
How did all that come about?
I moved to London when I was sixteen, to go to a music college and start following my career seriously, and I began working in a restaurant as a singing waitress. I needed to earn a bit or extra money so I thought I might as well do it using my talents.
I was there for about a year and then I finished the course then this guy came in and he was like 'I really want you to sing for a party' and I was like ok, thinking it was a wedding or something. The next thing I know I got a phone call saying ok in two weeks you are going to sing for George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Cannes and I was like “you’re kidding me”.
And what was the experience like?
It was incredible. But when I found out I didn't want to get my hopes up. I thought it would be a cool experience but I kind of thought “they won't even be there”. I grew up in Cannes and I have been crashing Paris Hilton's since I was fourteen and they come in for five minutes, the celebrities, and then they go to do their own thing.
But they were all at this party and it was incredible it was so weird, because at the beginning you were kind of watching then and they didn't look real - they looked like moving Madame Tussauds models.
It was such a whirlwind and afterwards I can't believe it exploded like it did, we had to change our flights for the next because we had to do all the TV stuff out there. I had no experience with any of this stuff and I was just so overwhelmed, this giggly little girl. It was so funny.
Tell me about your mini album “Mood Swings”
The first album that was out, What Happened to Romance, was all original stuff, we had it recorded since I was sixteen. The lead song on the mini album is 'Some Day', which is my favourite song from the last album. We just changed the backing track and funked it up a bit. The rest of the material is favourite songs from all the gigs I have been doing. We went to just get them recorded because we thought that they would just be nice to have and we were listening to them back and we were like 'oh they are pretty good, might as well release it'.
And how do you go about choosing these songs, I presume that you have got quite a few favourites?
Oh god yeah. It was kind of what we got from feedback, what people said they liked the most. I go through phases with songs, I pick one and it's my favourite for a month and then I'm like “no, I can't listen to it any more”. That's what's so funny about doing your original stuff on gigs. When you are listening to it it's like “oh I've heard this song fifty million times, you can turn it off now” but with gigs I never get bored of it. I love being on stage so much.
How would you describe your sound?
I would say it's kind of swing, I wouldn't call it jazz so much now, swing pop, that's what I call it, with lots of influences from everywhere. I'm just mucking around with it, which is quite fun.
You have shot to fame quite quickly - how are you finding all the attention?
I love it! (laughs) I have always been like that. I'm the biggest attention seeker you'll ever know. It's so much fun. I haven't had any problems yet - you get some weird people but I don't mind it's quite funny.
It's really surreal, I had been back a week from Cannes and I already had three fan sites on the Internet it was like “hang on, this isn't real”. I had to keep pinching myself.
Your debut album “Whatever Happened to Romance?” did really well - how did you find the recording process?
It was really fun we did it all kind of live so we just went in the studio for four months one summer. It was really fun! Being in the studio is such a creative thing, and we go up to the studio in Gloucestershire amongst the horses and cows, and it's really chilled out and you get the creative juices flowing. I really enjoy it.
We are already writing the fourth album, how scary is that? My third album “The Lost Gershwin” is coming out first – we haven’t written the music for that so it's really nice to be creating something new.
I was just about to ask about the Gershwin record - can you tell me a bit about that and why Gershwin?
I love him! My first jazz ballad that I ever learnt was Summertime I think when I was six I heard the person before me singing it and that is when I first started knowing that I loved that jazz old school music. There is a little story behind the Gershwin thing because I'm doing it with my string quartet, Pavao, but that's a secret so I'm not allowed to tell you about that – other than to say it's all very exciting.
Apart from these new albums what is next for you say for the next twelve months?
We are really busy with the music side of things, which I'm really happy about, because in the beginning after I got back from Cannes we almost forgot about the music because I was doing so many photo shoots. So we have the Gershwin record coming out and we are doing lots of cool gigs for that because it's just voice and strings, so it's really quirky. Hopefully we will get lots of posh places to play at for when the Queen has her tea.
I'm doing loads of festivals this year, mainly jazz festivals, they are my favourite gigs to do because it's people who really want to watch music and so hey listen to everything you say and do and you really pick up great fans at festivals. So I'm excited for the summer.
How did you find playing at Glastonbury?
It was incredible, I was a bit nervous because I thought this isn’t my type of music, but I had the best time ever and played to the best crowd, I still reply to people on MySpace. It was really muddy which was so funny - there was like a metre of mud and I had these Marc Jacobs heels and this new dress all planned out and when I got there I went “no way!” and I performed in my pyjamas with a jumper over the top. No way am I getting my Marc Jacobs shoes muddy!
What have you found to be the benefits of MySpace?
I have made actual proper fans that I feel really connected to. You look at other people's Myspace, other bands, and it's just people saying 'I really love the music' and that's it. Whereas I want to make a relationship with them, that is the way that you get a fan for life. Sometimes if you talk to them it does get a bit weird you get some people giving me their numbers and saying “come out with me” and it's like “no, why would I do that?”
September 24, 2008
Christie asked Victoria to sing a duet with him for the album. They were an unlikely pairing but he suggested Mr Blue because he felt the jazzy feel of the song would suit Victoria Sadly Christie died in December not long after he had finished recording the album. As Victoria says “In the short time I knew Christie I found him to be not just a highly talented singer songwriter but also a lovely man. 
Victoria was interviewed by one of the most distinctive voices in music at Woburn Live.
