[Jordan.]

Originally Posted by MeMyselfAndI

First live performance of One More Sleep live at Reagent Street

Youtube video

I love the butlins dancing she does though, so cute

lmao the dancing ********tan.gif

the song keeps growing on me even more

[MeMyselfAndI]

The dancing
She has Q&A tomorrow
The video should be out soon also

[Samm]

Love it

[Jordan.]

Youtube video

[Jordan.]

The opera vocals on Ave Maria

[MeMyselfAndI]

Youtube video

Ave Maria is so perfect
O Holy Night is so haunting its just perfect
I Wish It Could Be Christmas suprised me, It's so cheery and perfect
all amazing

[MeMyselfAndI]

Christmas, With Love is #3 on walmart pre-orders, ahead of 1D & Britney, people in US clearly still know she exists then

[MeMyselfAndI]

Leona recording a video to announce the release of the calendar

Youtube video

[MeMyselfAndI]

http://countdowncalendar.leonalewismusic.com/
It's day 1 of the calendar, and today's gift is 'Winter Wonderland' in full

#Leonascountdowncalendar


Here's Winter Wonderland in full

https://soundcloud.com/leonalewis/ex...m-track-winter

[MeMyselfAndI]

Sneak Peak of Leona with Sam Bailey tomorrow

[Jordan.]

Sam is gonna fail singing Bleeding Love like everyone else who tried it on XF

[MeMyselfAndI]

Lloyd Daniels version
He was like whispering the chorus

[MeMyselfAndI]

Your Hallelujah in full, so perfect
https://soundcloud.com/leonalewis/ex...k-your/s-gN8VU

[MeMyselfAndI]

Also full version of Ave Maria, amazing
https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url...oken%3Ds-hmVON

[MeMyselfAndI]

Also full version of Ave Maria, amazing
https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url...oken%3Ds-hmVON

[Benjamin]

Your Hallelujah

[MeMyselfAndI]

She wrote it herself

[reece(:]

Was bopping to Glassheart earlier today (my first listen)

[Jordan.]

Quite a long interview with DS talking about the christmas album and her next album oh and how Glassheart performed lmao

First of all congratulations on 'One More Sleep'. It sounds like a future Christmas classic.
"Oh, I hope so! That would be awesome. I think people weren't really expecting something like that, maybe they were expecting something a bit slower. It's been really good and I've liked hearing what people think of it."

We remember being slightly confused when you described Christmas, With Love as a Motown Christmas album, but as soon as we heard it we completely got it.
"You got it! Yeah, that was the intention. Every year in my house a play a lot of Motown music, especially at Christmas and especially stuff like the Phil Spector records, so that's where the influence kind of came from."

You're the lead songwriter on the three original tracks, but did you find it easier to write a Christmas song because there's already a strong idea there, or did you find it harder?
"'Mr Right' and 'One More Sleep' were very much together already - the ideas were already formulated - but with 'Your Hallelujah', that was not really coming from a Christmas place at first. We kind of were just sitting down to write and then it kind of came. I think it's the least Christmassy, but it still has that feel in the track."

You've previously said that Simon suggested you do a Christmas album, so did you sign up straight away or did he have to convince you?
"Well, I had been thinking for a while to do one and he kind of read my mind. At the time I'd just finished my third album, I went on tour and I wanted to get into a completely different headspace. So the idea of the Christmas album came up again and I was just, 'Yeah, yeah - let's just do it, go for it'."

One track that stands out on the album is 'Ave Maria' because it's more classical than we've heard you do before. Do you think the public will be shocked to hear you sing like that?
"Probably, yeah. I think a lot of people don't know that I was classically trained. That's the first thing that I ever did and I really thought that's the market that I was going to head towards, because I didn't sing contemporary music or train contemporary until I was in my teens. So that's the foundation of my singing. It was cool to be able to actually perform that because on any of my other records I haven't been able to do that before."

Was it easy to pick up again?
"Well I haven't trained in it for a little while because I was doing my tour. I just wanted to focus on my vocals for that, which is obviously coming from a contemporary place. So I had to have intense training with my opera coach to just get back into it and to make sure it was all good. Also, it's in Latin, so I had to make sure all the pronunciations were correct and stuff."

We'd quite like to see you perform it live at some point.
"I might be. There's a show that wants me to perform it so I think that I will. It's weird, because I don't really think anyone's mixed classical in amongst doing contemporary, so it all depends on how I feel and how my voice is feeling."

The obvious question now is whether you have plans to record a full classical album in the future?
"I'd love to do a classical record at some point. If the opportunity came up I definitely would."



Talking of future albums, how is work coming along on your next record?
"I was working on it for a while in the summer time. I was going in, getting ideas together and working with some different producers, but now I'm focusing just on this record for the next little while. I'll be back in the studio in January doing an album."

Do you have any idea where you want to go next with your music?
"Well really this year I took the time to become re-inspired, and after my tour I thought that it was gonna be a chilled kind of year, kind of, you know, going in the studio. But then I did a film and recorded a bunch of '80s songs for it, so I was in the '80s headspace for a while.

"Then I went straight into recording all these Christmas classic Motown kind of songs, so it really gave me a chance to just get out of my head and go into something completely different. I feel like for the next record I'm re-inspired to do something a bit different, maybe even go into that kind of retro throwback sound for the next record. I definitely want to work with the Smeezingtons. I'd love to do something with Bruno Mars, so I'm reaching out to a few different people and also some Motown people, maybe doing something with them. So I'm still thinking about it, but maybe I'll try something like that on the next album."



Bruno Mars really mastered that retro sound with his last album Unorthodox Jukebox.
"Even though it was a huge album, I still feel like it's not as rated as it should be. And he's not rated as highly as he should be because he is phenomenal. I think he could be one of the greats."

We love your last album Glassheart, but it didn't perform as well as people expected. How are you feeling about it one year on?
"After bringing out the album, I think a lot of people were like, 'Are you releasing everywhere?', 'Where are you releasing?', 'What's happening?' But when I recorded Glassheart, I recorded it all in the UK and it was our intention to just release it here - and that's what we did. Then I released it in Europe as well, and after that I got to tour in Europe, which I've never done before so, even though it would have been amazing to have a global release, it allowed me to actually concentrate on Europe where I've never toured before. At the end of the day, as an artist, I want to tour. I want to go and do as many live shows as possible and, in a way, it was a good thing because it allowed me to do that. But yeah, for me, I want to better everything. Everything has to be better, so that's kind of my intention."



Do you think that because of the huge international success you had at the beginning of your career with Spirit, you'll always have that pressure to perform well?
"Well that's the thing. The first album just blew up everywhere, so then people are always anticipating and it's like, 'What's she gonna do next?' To me, Glassheart did amazingly well. It didn't do as well as my first album, but it still did amazingly, and that's what matters to me. As long as it's getting to the people. It's about being able to do what I love and do my live show and go to Europe and go to places I've never been before, and that kind of is what counts to me. And I'm hoping that I'm going to be an artist that can have a long career. Not just a quick one and then gone, so you have to build on that."

You're going to make your movie debut next year in a new musical called Holiday!. How did you find it going from the recording studio to a film set?
"It was mental! Again, it was something that just came along really, really quickly and this year my intention was to get refocused and re-inspired and it was perfect timing. I have done a lot of theatre work before, but it was quite a few years ago so getting back into that was kind of scary. It gave me a chance to learn a lot from the people on set and for a lot of people it was their first movie as well, so we kind of felt the nerves together. It was so fun and hopefully people like it."

Leona Lewis's new album Christmas, With Love will be released in the UK on December 2 and a day later in the US.

[Smithy]

It's available somewhere today, so the whole album is out in i+

[MeMyselfAndI]

Cute dancing on her daybreak performance of Winter Wonderland today
That was a good interview also & the album is amazing, Your hallehluyah, Ave Maria, Holy Night & I wish it could be christmas everyday are my faves
And It's released in Ireland and other places today, despite her only having one televised performance of not even her single that is out in Ireland today D

[MeMyselfAndI]

Her TV advert for Christmas, With Love

Youtube video

[MeMyselfAndI]

Interview + Daybreak performance of Winter Wonderland

Youtube video

[Samm]

[MeMyselfAndI]

Tesco's aren't even stocking the album, neither are some other places