Angelic-voiced Charlotte Church has gone from singing for the Pope to being tabloid fodder, famed for knocking back vodkas and her celebrity boyfriend. She talks to Kevin Courtney about growing up and finding a pop voice
Rock'n'roll hellraisers are 10-a-penny these days, but opera stars behaving badly - now that's a rare thing. You don't see many opera singers splashed across the front pages of the tabloids, with lurid headlines such as "Wild Charlotte's binge-drinking shame", "Police called to Charlotte Church row" and - good one this - "Lottes to drink".
Welsh opera singer Charlotte Church has been all over the tabloids lately, and it's not for her beautiful renditions of light classical favourites. No, our Charl is more likely to be photographed falling out of a nightclub, fag in hand, propped up by her boyfriend, Welsh and Lions rugby star Gavin Henson. Since she came "of age", the 19-year-old star has been making up for unwasted youth, going out on the lash, spending her (copious) cash, and generally partying for Wales.
She recently admitted in Heat magazine to regularly downing 10 double vodkas a night, after first warming up with a couple of "Cheeky Vimtos" - double port and alcopop.
Women are warned not to exceed 21 units of alcohol a week - seems like the bold Charlotte could down twice that in one night.
Her private life, too, has become tabloid fodder, thanks to two kiss-and-tell stories from ex-boyfriends. Only recently, police were called to her house after one of her exes came round looking for a reconciliation - although why he would want to get back with this good-looking, talented, extremely rich girl is anyone's guess.
Church has chosen to live in her home town of Cardiff to be near her friends and family, but it seems like her life has increasingly begun to resemble a Welsh version of EastEnders.
When she was "the voice of an angel", Charlotte Church was just another precocious poppet; but now, at 19, Chavtastic Charl has a bit of divilment in her, and suddenly the opera house seems a very interesting place to be.
Except that Charlotte Church is silencing her opera voice for now. Her new album, Tissues and Issues, is about as far from opera as Motown is from Glyndebourne. The sweet soprano voice has been replaced by a raucous pop-soul shout, and she's traded in the evening gowns for the leather'n'lace look of a full-blown pop diva. Yes, the voice of Wales has decided to try her hand at pop music - but if you think that means singing a Tina Turner song in the style of Lesley Garrett, then you've got another thing coming. When you hear her new single, Crazy Chick, you won't recognise the big, brash voice that booms out such lines as "I think I'm gonna need some therapy/ Oh babe I hope you got a PhD". Pie Jesu this sure ain't.
"It's completely different from anything I've ever done before," says Church, in case we couldn't believe our own ears. "Loads of people have come up to me to say they can't believe how good it is, that they thought it was gonna be crap. I dunno why they thought it was gonna be crap, y'know, cos everyone knows I can sing. It's not like I'm winging it. I'm not a recording artist just because I've got the right body and the right look. I think because they were so used to hearing my classical voice they thought I wouldn't be able to hack it as a pop singer."
Happily for pop fans, Church does have the right voice, along with the body and the looks, although she admits that her 15-a-day cigarette habit might cause her problems in the future. It's as if Joss Stone and Britney Spears were somehow fused together to create just the right mix of vocals and voluptuousness. We may not have been particularly interested in Church when she was a simpering child star, but we could certainly get used to this grown-up soul sista.
It transpires, though that Church always had other voices inside her, and used to belt out soul tunes at family gatherings from the age of eight.
"When I first started singing like that when I was younger, as soon as I started to go to singing lessons, my singing teacher was like, 'oh, no, you can't sing like that, you're going to completely ruin your voice if you keep singing like that'. But she taught me so many techniques for classical singing, I just took them across to the pop singing. So I've got a much better technique than a lot of belter singers because of all the training that I've had."
So far, Charlotte's voice training has paid off - like a dozen wins on the pools. She is the world's most successful classical female artist, and had sold more than 10 million albums worldwide by her 18th birthday. Her personal fortune is estimated at around £6.5 million (€9.75 million) and if Tissues and Issues does well, it could double her riches and bring her from a more specialised audience to a mainstream pop fanbase. Of course, it could also completely bomb, but her record company must be hoping the combination of the Charlotte Church brand name and a bunch of poptastic tunes could give her the edge in an overcrowded sector of the pop market.
For Church, though, the move to pop is just a natural part of the growing up process for your average adolescent megastar. "It's just a bit of a reinvention," she says. "All the cleverest women in the pop industry, like Kylie and Madonna, have all done that. Kylie did some crazy stuff - she did that folk song with that fella from Australia. (Where the Wild Roses Grow, with Nick Cave - Charl would have been around nine at the time)
"Ok, mine may be a bit more extreme, but I haven't really had a game plan for any of it, I'm just going with the flow. I started writing and working with different songwriters and producers and trying out different sounds and musical styles, so I wouldn't say that now is the right time, it was just, when it was ready, I thought, yeah, let's give it a whirl."
Tissues and Issues may disappoint the millions of fans who bought such classical crossover albums as Voice of an Angel and Enchantment, heard her soaring voice on the soundtrack of A Beautiful Mind and the Ford car advert, and watched her peform in front of Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and the Pope.
It's certainly disappointed Church's gran, who can't understand why her granddaughter would want to give up her unique position as the world's No 1 classical child star, and trade it for a genre in which voluptuous vamps are as common as hellraising rock stars. Pop fans, however, might welcome an experienced newcomer who can project her voice further than her cleavage, and who is not willing to stoop to the kind of desperate celebrity self-publicising that has turned television into a celebrity cattle-market.
Classical fans of a nervous disposition can rest assured that Church won't be showing off the g-string and shaking her ample booty for the camera.
"I'm really proud of this album, and I want it to do well, but I'm not gonna kill myself in order to get to No 1. I wouldn't do Celebrity Big Brother or anything like that, no matter how much money they offered me. But I never feel pressured into situations I'm not comfortable with. I'm a pretty strong girl - if there's anything I don't want to wear or if a photoshoot is getting too raunchy I'm like, whoa, fellas, I'm not a Page 3 girl. But unfortunately, sex sells. I think it's fine to be sexy, but there's a thin line between sexy and sexual. I really respect artists like Joss Stone and Natasha Bedingfield - when you think of those two girls, you think of their voices and how good their music is."
Church still hangs out at her local pub with her family and friends. She admits to having a shocking lack of ambition, and doesn't see herself moving to London, New York or Hollywood anytime soon. "I love Cardiff, I love home, and I love being with my family and friends, so I can't see it happening. I'd hate to move away."
She hasn't ruled out a return to classical music sometime in the future; if folk don't like her new pop direction, she might well go back tothe day job - if she can give up the fags.
"I don't really look after my voice too well," she admits, "which is a bit stupid really, because if it ever went, I'd be devastated. If I keep smoking, probably in about the next three years it will start to show."
Tissues and Issues is released next Friday on Sony/BMG