Eliza Doolittle's second album is a tad sadder than her platinum-selling debut, but it's all part of growing up. She tells Andy Welch why her mood has changed.

 

Depending how you look at it, three years can sound like a very long time - or it could be no time at all.

Either way, for Eliza Doolittle the last three years have certainly been important, as they mark the gap between her hugely-successful debut album, released in July 2010, and her newly-released follow-up, In Your Hands.

"Between the ages of, say, 21 and 25, there's so much learning and discovery to do, and the [new] album is about that. Any person my age is going to feel different between those years, let alone if you've been doing what I have," she says.

"I've learned so much about myself and how I feel about love and life in general - and there's a huge battle between the pessimistic side of my character and the optimistic side.

"As a result, I've shown a lot more of myself on this record, plus I've learned so much about the technicalities of actually recording. I've learned as a person as well as an artist."

Doolittle was 22 when her self-titled debut shot straight to No 3 in the charts, and went on to sell more than 700,000 copies around the world.

She quickly won favourable comparisons to Lily Allen and, for that summer at least, her singles Pack Up and Skinny Genes were inescapable, while the rest of the album soundtracked a proportion of the country's barbecues. She also travelled the world, several times.

As the granddaughter of Sylvia Young, it was already a career far beyond the wildest dreams of most of the graduates of the world-famous stage school.

But that doesn't mean all was well in Doolittle's world, who began working on the second album after finishing the South American leg of her tour in Colombia in September 2011.

"I went straight from there to Los Angeles to get working," she says, munching on handfuls of almonds.

"I didn't want to go home, I just wanted it to carry on going. I'd had my heart broken a little bit too, so I didn't want to face that. I went to LA to do some writing."

Where her first album was largely about being a teenager (though she was 22 when it came out, she wrote most of the songs in her teens) and falling in love for the first time, In Your Hands strikes a sourer tone, informed by doomed romance.

"One of the worst things about being so upset and heartbroken is that, straight away, I think I'll be able to use it to write a song," she explains.

"It's such a horrible feeling, thinking that. And after I'd gotten over that break-up, I had my heart broken again, and went through it all over again. The one thing that gave me strength and made me realise it was going to be OK was being able to write about it."

She says the album's title track is the most vulnerable song she's written, while Walking On Water is the most joyous.

"When I'm happy, I can't imagine being sad and when I'm sad, I can't imagine being happy again. I'm annoying like that," she says. "Although I wouldn't say this is a break-up album. There are songs where I am fully in the throes of love and joy and then there are other songs that were triggered by a break-up, but to me they're more than that."

She didn't rush the writing process, which was just as well as things didn't happen very quickly.

"I wrote so many songs that didn't get onto the album," she says, admitting she penned as many as 100, but only 13 ended up being featured. "It took me quite a while to warm up, because I didn't write at all when I was touring the first album.

"I have written every day since then, though, which was the end of 2011, whether it's new things or concentrating on fine-tuning what I've got. And now I'm going to start writing for my third album," she says.

In Your Hands was finished back in March, but due to difficulties at her record label, Parlophone (since sold by EMI to Warner Brothers), its release was delayed.

"We ended up sitting on the record for quite a while, but that was fine because we could at least fine-tune everything and make sure it was exactly as we wanted.

"I had hoped to release [it] within two years of my debut, but I couldn't, so I had to wait. It's that simple, really, although it was a blessing because I wrote some of my favourite songs in the final six months."

There was also the small matter of appearing on Disclosure's debut, Settle, in that time. Doolittle sings on You & Me on the chart-topping album, and is very grateful for the added exposure, not to mention that she loves the track.

Big When I Was Little, the first single from the new album, reintroduced Doolittle after her time away, a song she says is a natural bridge between her two records. The current single is Let It Rain, which is about "taking on everything and everyone, heading toward the storm rather than walking away from it and keeping safe".

She says the idea of touring the world for the next two years, as she did first time round, is exciting although, once again, she doesn't have any expectations about what the future might hold.

"You always aim high, but who knows?" she says. "I remember the week when my first album came out and it went to No 3 and I had no idea how that happened. I didn't even think anyone knew my music.

"Not long after, I was in a restaurant in Los Angeles with my mum and brother and one of my songs came on. It was the strangest experience, really unexpected, and sums up the past few years perfectly."


Extra time - Eliza Doolittle

:: Eliza Doolittle was born Eliza Caird in London on April 17, 1988.

:: Her mother is West End star Frances Ruffelle, who played Eponine in the original production of Les Miserables. She won a Tony award for the role.

:: Eliza's father is John Caird, a stage director and playwright, while her grandmother is Sylvia Young, founder of the famous stage school.

:: Eliza appeared in a number of West End productions as a child, including Les Miserables and The Secret Garden.

:: She chose the stage name Eliza Doolittle after the character in Pygmalion, and subsequently My Fair Lady, because it was her nickname as a child.

 

:: Eliza Doolittle's second album In Your Hands is out now