Биография
Часть 2
"I hadn't even taken my coat off in the studio and I was writing songs with them, even though I was quite nervous to begin with. Until I was with Kosheen, I didn't think of myself as a songwriter. I knew I could sing but I didn't have a lot of faith in my writing. I just thought it was something I did for me. I was told once when I was working with my first band in Cardiff when I was 15 that I was just a singer and I should stand in the background and wiggle my arse. That scarred me for long time actually. With Kosheen, I'd sing stuff to Markee and he'd say it was beautiful."
As a trio, the band learned they could combine their respective loves of rock, hip-hop, jazz, drum n' bass and folk and still create songs with a heart.
"I love songs!" Sian states simply. "Songs that start, have middle, and end. People were expecting little loops and quirky vocals and they got full songs. You can put too much in a track. You can have a busy vocal, or you can have a busy track, but if you put two together it's just noise to me."
The world agreed they were something special. Kosheen's compelling, anthemic track 'Hide U' reached number 6 in the UK, while 'Catch' hit number 15 and 'Hungry' reached number 13. The accompanying album, 'Resist', went on to reach number 8 in the UK and made the top 30 in Australia, The Netherlands, Belgium and Greece. It has since sold half a million copies worldwide.
"I remember being in Vienna waiting to hear how our album had done," begins Sian . "We really wanted it to go well. The boys came into the dressing room and told me to guess the position. I said 15. They said no, lower. And I went oh no.. 20? And they were going, no! Lower the other way! It went in at number 9 and I think I burst into tears! I couldn't believe it."
"I nearly fell over," Darren adds. "It was so weird."
Fame brought further peculiarities. Their tracks kept popping up in the background on Eastenders ("it was on the other night actually," Sian laughs, "in the garage while Ricky was under a car") and Ronan Keating declared himself an avid fan. 'Hide U' also won 'Best Remix' at the Muzik Dance Awards and Record of The Year at the Dancestar USA Awards in Miami .
"It wasn't an overnight thing," Markee explains. "Word of mouth played a massive part and I have this theory that people actually do appreciate quality things. We've always said that, at the end of the day, if you put your heart into your music, if you're feeling it, then you've got a chance that someone else will feel it too."
Ignoring the accepted protocol that dictates 'dance' acts don't play live, Kosheen then set off on tour. With their debut album 'Resist' this equated to an impressive 141 shows in 33 countries to an audience of over _ million.
"I cut my teeth on pub gigs in Wales ," Sian says, "so I really wanted to get the music of Kosheen represented live. The songs really translated because they're very melodic. A lot of them were written on the guitar and we can actually do most of them unplugged too. When you strip a song down like that and it still works, you know it's a good song. A lot of people are surprised when they go into the gig and see a full band set up with a drum kit and everything. But no one's been disappointed."
