Shontelle Layne didn’t burst onto the music scene, rather she tiptoed in with her sweet vocals on her initial single T-Shirt in 2008. Since then, it’s been an uphill ride, taking Shontelle around the world and back again on tours with mega-stars including Akon, New Kids On The Block and the incomparable Beyonce. Signed to SRC/Motown, the beauty-from-the-Barbados is poised to follow-up her debut album Shontelligence with a more confident, more defining and more fulfilling sophomore project simply titled No Gravity. Her new single is riding up the airwaves (Impossible), and her story is a testament to the meaning of the song – that nothing is impossible. With so much to her credit, one might expect major ego and reservation – but to the contrary, Shontelle was very open, down-to-earth and very excited about her new project, as was I. She took questions from some special Twitter followers and even gave me the lowdown on her obsession with beating bloggers in Mario Kart! Check out our interview after the jump, full transcript and audio available AND listen to her new single after the interview…

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Sound-Savvy: So how’s life?
Shontelle: Life is definitely treating me well right now, I can’t complain at all. Pretty exciting at this point.

SS: Cool, so if I were to take your iPod and see who you’ve been listening to recently, who might I find?
Shontelle: You would find a lot of Jay-Z, a lot of Rihanna, a lot of Lady Gaga, some Sade, I’ve been checking out her album,it’s amazing. I’m so glad that she’s back. A lot of Beyonce, and just a lot of dance type stuff, David Guetta and such.

SS: Rihanna is from the Barbados as well, what’s your relationship like with her?
Shontelle: Honestly, I have not seen or spoken to Rih in so long but we definitely are cool. We knew each other from Barbados and we had a lot of fun experiences growing up together but I have not spoken to Rih in a minute because we’ve both been so busy and caught up doing our own separate things.

SS: Well speaking of doing your own thing, you’ve been working on your new album; the official title is No Gravity right?
Shontelle: You got it! New album, new time of my life, I’m so excited, No Gravity is the title and that’s gonna be coming out this spring so I’m really hyped!

SS: What’s the significance behind the title, No Gravity?
Shontelle: Actually, we’ve been trying to find a title for a long time. It’s like “The album’s almost finished, but what are we gonna call it?” So, we tried to look at different things like the direction of the album, the styling of the music or the types of tracks and No Gravity actually happens to be the title for one of the tracks on the album which I wrote. We’re going pretty bold with this album because if you listen to No Gravity (album) and compare it to Shontelligence, my first album, you’ll hear a lot of differences and a lot of new stuff going on. I figure the new album is telling the story of my growth and development and moving past that first point and there’s no boundaries, nothing holding you back, there’s no gravity. You can just float away and go higher and higher, wherever that leads you. That’s my mantra right now: There’s no gravity. I feel like in this industry especially right now in this climate, we have to fight so hard as new artists to break through because there’s so many artists at one time. I have to believe there’s no gravity so I can keep flying higher.

SS: That’s a great mantra to live by! Speaking on your previous album Shontelligence, when it comes to No Gravity, what specifically is the main difference in terms of sound between the first album and this one?
Shontelle: I would say No Gravity reflects a lot more of my newer experiences. The first album was really introductory. It’s like “Okay here’s this new artist Shontelle. Here’s what she’s capable of doing, here’s her different sounds.” So a lot of the comments on Shontelligence were “We really like your music but we don’t really get where you’re going. What’s your direction?” The first album was more reflective of the girl from Barbados; a lot of reggae influences, a lot of island-type sounds in there, which you’re still gonna get on No Gravity cause that’s me and that’s where I’m from but since Shontelligence I’ve toured with so many different artists and been all over the world. I’ve been able to see what different places are like and experience different cultures and I feel like this new album is reflective of that. There’s a lot of different elements of music. You’re gonna get a lot more euro-type sounds, pop and electro and stuff that kinda just expresses the places that I’ve been since Shontelligence. So that’s where all the new sounds come from. This whole new life that I have now, and I feel like No Gravity is just reflective of all that.

SS: Cool, that sounds good. The first single that you released from this was Licky (Under The Covers), right?
Shontelle: Yeah, Licky was an unofficial release because they wanna build it virally: online first and start it at the club level because it’s really meant to be a club record but we feel like a record like that is gonna do a lot better in the summer when people are in more of that party atmosphere, its warmer, there’s a lot more SKIN obviously… LICKY! (laughs) So we’re kinda working a double-headed single, we have Licky building really strong underground and in the clubs and hopefully we’ll push that as the second single after Impossible.

SS: Now let’s talk about Impossible because I. Love. That. Record!! I’m so serious; I play it all the time because I just love it. Did you write it and what inspired that song?
Shontelle: It wasn’t written by me, it was written by a group of writers and producers called the Aristotracks and they’re Swedish. Everyone has heard of Red One and Bloodshy and Max Martin, Stargate all these Swedish producers. So Aristotracks, they all come from the same generation as these producers. They sent me this really incredible track, it had no lyrics or anything yet and I just loved the intro. Just that piano and the music – it did something to me and I asked “what are you guys gonna do with this because this feels really big to me…” This young girl, her name is Ina (Wroldsen), she wrote the lyrics and they sent the demo back to me and when I heard the demo, I lost my mind! I literally was just in tears just listening to the song. Then I was like “I have to do this, I have to record this”. That was the first song I recorded, fresh off the Beyonce tour and I was just feeling at that point I felt like really big because I was like “Wow, I just got off the Beyonce tour, I got to watch her deliver this epic-ness every single night for two months.” I just felt like I had to find something within me to get myself closer to that kind of level. That’s where I wanna see myself one of these days. So when I recorded that song, I just remember thinking about all those experiences and it just felt really big to me. That experience in the studio was just huge for me.

SS: And it shows, because you can hear the emotion in your voice and in the record; it’s a soulful record, you can really feel it and that’s what I love about it.
Shontelle: Yeah, I felt like the lyrics really touch my heart and the reason I connected with the song is because I’ve been there in my life and I feel like a lot of people have been there where there’s something in your life that’s happening

"That’s my mantra right now: There’s no gravity."

and it’s not really working and you have to really own the moment and let it go and move on and step up to life and that’s really what the song is about. I really felt that struggle and that pain and I really felt like so many people know this feeling. And that is really what I try to deliver in the studio.

SS: Now with that in mind, what do you have in mind for the video, is it in the works?
Shontelle: Oh my gosh, yeah! First of all, the video: so far we have (as far as I know) it’s gonna be directed by Taj and he’s one of Anthony Mandler’s understudies. Taj is really incredible. We want the impossible video to be almost like a mini-movie. I want it to really tell a story because I find recently, not really any fault of ours, there have been so many cutbacks in the industry due to lack of sales and a lot of videos have become these low-budget productions unless it’s a major artist. And their videos are always incredible. We’re trying to find a way to be really creative and still tell a story and really draw the listener and the audience in to the song. So far, the treatment that I saw is pretty great and hopefully I would actually get to exhibit some of my acting skills for the people!

SS: Awww shucks!
Shontelle: So you guys can see more sides of me.

SS: Is that something you’d like to do eventually, go into acting?
Shontelle: Oh yeah, I just love performing in general. I love the arts, I love telling stories so whether that’s through music or dance or writing, whatever the case may be. I love being able to express that so for me, even when I was in school juggling philosophy and law, I was also doing courses in film and theater arts and drama and I actually got a scholarship to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York so it just meant that I had to do this. Performance is my life, it’s a passion that I always had as a child. I just knew I had to make steps in various directions, I never knew which one was gonna work out but that’s also something that I would definitely grasp the opportunity fast. If it drops in my lap, it’s mine.

SS: In terms of No Gravity the album, are you working with a tentative release date?
Shontelle: So far, it looks like we’re gonna try to get it out sometime in April but we don’t have an exact date yet.

SS: Okay cool. So beyond your music, one thing I really do admire about you is how connected you are with your fans through Twitter.
Shontelle: Oh yeah.

SS: You’re very responsive and you’re always on Twitter so what we decided to do was take some questions from a few of your Twitter follower. @Sammy_Lpool says: You seem to live by the mantra “Go hard, or go home”. What inspires that way of thinking for you?
Shontelle: Oh yeah, I know Sammy! Sammy definitely hits me up a lot. Yeah, “go hard or go home”. All my life I’ve grown up just being told… by my parents especially. It doesn’t make sense doing something if you’re just gonna half-ass it. You have to go all the way otherwise it’s just wasted time and energy. If you’re not gonna do something and give it your best shot, it’s a waste of everybody’s time. I just feel like if you’ve decided that you’re really gonna do something – whatever that is in your life – you really have to give it everything you have and you have to leave no stone unturned. You’ve gotta be prepared for all the obstacles and believe that you can get past it all. That’s just really how I feel it’s kinda like the mantra of an underdog, but also a winner. A person that has a winner’s mentality, so that’s really what it is for me.

SS: Definitely! @Hemma_X asks: Have you ever had a moment onstage where you were just overwhelmed with the support of your fans and all of it seemed surreal to you?
Shontelle: Ya know what? That moment literally comes every single time that I perform. Every time I do a show, I have that feeling. It happens most of the time when I do songs like T-Shirt, because that was the first single and everybody knows T-Shirt and that’s almost like a surreal experience everytime – before the first lyric of that song even starts. The music comes on and the entire audience is singing that song, word for word. You don’t even have to say anything and there’s literally been times when I’ve started to perform that song and I stop singing in the middle of the song and I’m just in tears. I just have that moment every time that I perform. Especially when I’m touring with a different artist – like when I was on the New Kids On The Block tour or the Akon tour, the Beyonce tour, and you know you’re really performing in front of an audience that’s really there for another artist but then THAT still happens, it really melts my heart. I just love it everytime it happens, I love it.

SS: That is so cool! Finally, @OScullion asks where do you get the inspiration when you’re writing songs? Where do you draw inspiration for your lyrics?
Shontelle: When I’m writing… it’s kind of interesting because inspiration can come from anything at any point, it’s really random for me. It might be something that I’ve experienced or – my friends, now they’re afraid to tell me their personal issues because they’re like “You’re so gonna write about me in a song and I’m gonna hate you” (laughs). Because I’ve written about things that happen in my family and I guess I just write about things that happen in my life and it might be something really spontaneous. I might be on a flight or in a club or at a party or just watching a movie and something might come to my head – whether it’s a melody or a lyric. It’s kinda random but I tend to tell a lot of real stories.

SS: In addition to Twitter, do you read any blogs, and do you have any favorite blogs you read?
Shontelle: Yeah, I read a lot of blogs actually, and of course I check out Sound-Savvy quite often, and I follow you guys on Twitter.

SS: (laughs) Believe it or not, that was not a plug!
Shontelle: (laughs) But I do! That was not a plug, that’s official. But yeah, I follow Neon Limelight. I like the blogs that keep it real. I follow other bloggers like Perez and Jared too because it’s pop culture and they’re gonna talk about everything that’s going on anyway. But I love like Sound-Savvy and Neon Limelight because those kind of blogs to me, I call them the “decent blogs”. It’s just straight to the point, facts. It’s not about trying to diss anybody or even tryin to kiss anyone’s butt or anything. It’s straight up, here’s the music, here’s our review, you take it and leave comments. It’s not anything biased; it’s not trying to twist anyone’s opinion in any direction. Those are the blogs that I tend to favor. I do check on things like Concrete Loop, like I said there’s certain ones that you check occasionally because it is what’s going on and everyone’s checking it anyways so…

SS: Just to switch gears for a sec, I know you recently teamed up with a lot of artists to record Rise Again, a charity single for the people of Haiti. What was that experience like for you and do you have any words for the people in Haiti?
Shontelle: Oh man, that experience for me… I was on promo tour when we recorded that. They called me and I actually cancelled a bunch of station visits just to schedule that session in the studio because I just had to. What’s been going on in Haiti has only come to light for a lot of people very recently since the earthquake. But for people like me growing up in Barbados, Haiti is our neighbors, our brothers and sisters. So we’ve been in touch with that, I’ve known of their plight as long as I’ve lived. I’ve always wished I could do something about it and I feel like now, moving on through my career, I feel like I’ll be in a place where I can do more stuff for the people of places like Haiti and other islands too. So that experience, I’ve definitely done some work with Sean Kingston before so that was kinda fun. A lot of the other artists from the islands too I’ve done some work with them, like Alison Hines, Edwin Yearwood so that was definitely a great experience. Feeling all that Caribbean unity and knowing that we were all coming together and doing something really special for people that we truly are connected to and something that affects us. Obviously as Caribbean people we have a lot of friends that are Haitian. My DJ, Shortman is Haitian, his family is Haitian so these things kinda affect me in a very direct way. So it was really something for me to be a part of that. I would do anything I could in a heartbeat to help Haiti.

SS: Well a lot of folks have voiced their opinions on the remake of We Are The World. Have you heard it and what are your thoughts?
Shontelle: Yeah, I’ve heard the remake and I saw the video. To be honest, I was like “Wow!” There’s a place in you that wishes you could be a part of it, not just because of all the greatness and all the people you look up to. That doesn’t happen very often in time, where they take a group of artists and make an epic song or a song for the world. That happens maybe every decade. So then, when something happens like that, you wonder if you missed the train to be apart of something so legendary. But, this is probably gonna be one of the greatest efforts in the world to contribute to Haiti. You wanna be a part of everything that’s going on with Haiti because I feel so close to it, it’s so dear to my heart. So everytime something happens, I wish I could be a part of it. But at the same time, I just felt like “Wow, you actually touched that song!”. There was a whole group of people daring and willing to actually touch We Are The World. I was stuck in the middle; I didn’t know how to feel. I was like “Wow, that song, I don’t know if you touch that song.” Like I don’t know if you touch Bob Marley records. There’s so many Bob Marley songs that I wanna cover so bad, but I’m not brave enough to do it yet. (laughs)

SS: I know how you feel because it could go either way! It’s a really touchy thing…
Shontelle: Yeah, there’s songs by Michael Jackson and Prince… I’m like “I can’t…” I was kinda in the middle with We Are The World, but of course any effort that’s gonna contribute in any way to aid and relief in Haiti, I certainly applaud. And I did get emotional watching the video because you could tell that every artist that was a part of it, they really did feel it in their hearts and it really was genuine. To me, it’s still an effort that’s worth celebrating and appreciating.

SS: One last thing before we close, and I’ve gotta ask this: I hear you’ve got a lead foot when it comes to Mario Kart! (laughs)
Shontelle: (laughs) Mario Kart! Oh my gosh, I am addicted to my Wii and Mario Kart. I love it because… ya know what really made me get into it? Because of Twitter. I had this brilliant idea once, I wished I could do more fun stuff with all my fans all over the world but I can’t just fly all over the world and  meet them so I said “Hey, since we’re all on Twitter and on the Wii you can play worldwide tournaments by linking with other players around the world, I started doing this fun thing where I gave my Mario Kart number to my followers and they added me and I added them back, so now it’s so much fun because you can have a race with a full room of like 12 people from all over the world and they’re all excited like “I just kicked Shontelle’s butt in Mario Kart!” (laughs)

SS: (laughs) I’ve got a Wii, but I’ll have to get Mario Kart
Shontelle: I have slayed quite a few bloggers myself *ahem*…

SS: Oh really?
Shontelle: Yes, they know who they are! I’ve slayed a few…  But definitely Mario Kart, I’m so addicted to that and DJ Hero. I love video games, I love fun!

SS: Cool, so let me ask you this: throughout this entire experience of your career thus far, what is one moment or experience that meant the most to you?
Shontelle: Actually getting signed is pretty big. When there’s someone that believes in you and is gonna take that gamble. But I really do feel like the experience that changed everything for me was doing the Beyonce tour and that moment where – and this is not to undermine any other amazing thing that’s happened to me because I’ve gotten so many awards – but for me the more important thing is having a feeling of being successful or growth – moving forward. One of my favorite quotes in the world is by Walt Disney: “keep moving forward”. I believe in that so much and having that moment when I was on the tour where she invited me to her room and the things that she said to me and how welcoming and warm and inviting and supportive she was, it changed a lot for me because I was like “You’re Beyonce and you’re – in my eyes – a living legend”, and I don’t even think she’s done yet. I’m standing there and she’s looking me in the eyes and saying these things to me and that really made me feel new hope. It was like a refreshing energy, a boost that I needed. I really needed that and having that moment just really did something to me. I told her “I just wanna let you know how much I appreciate not just you bringing me on the tour but you hanging out with me and spending time with me and talking to me because you just changed my life.” And she blushed and I’m like “Don’t blush, I really mean this when I tell you, you really just changed my life”. I feel like there’s so much that’s changed about my thinking and my drive and everything about the way that I approach whatever I do in my life. Just that experience alone has changed everything. It’s not really easy for me to explain to people what I mean by it, but that experience so far in my career changed a lot for me.

SS: Wow, that’s so cool! Well thank you so much for taking the time out to talk with the Sound-Savvy audience today, we are looking forward to the new album, No Gravity. Are you planning to tour with the album?
Shontelle: Absolutely, actually we’re in the process of planning a national tour so I should be able to give you information on that shortly.

SS: Cool, well once again thanks for the interview and we’ll be looking for No Gravity in stores this April!
Shontelle: Thank you so much!

Photo Credit: ShontelleOnline.com and SRP Records

I’d personally like to thank Shontelle for being so gracious during the interview and for giving me such great words of inspiration afterwards. Click here to purchase her new single Impossible on iTunes. Listen below…

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