Lana sets the record straight (From Halesowen News)

Lana sets the record straight

7:00am Saturday 28th January 2012 in Music

One of the most talked about singers on the planet, Lana Del Rey, tells Andy Welch about her rise to fame and hopes for the future, ahead of the release of her debut album Born To Die on January 30.

Before Simon Cowell first donned a white V-neck, there were just two types of music, as defined by Jimi Hendrix: good and bad.

Then The X Factor revealed two more - real and manufactured - and the race to identify the difference was on.

Lana Del Rey came face to face with this ugly truth last year, almost as soon the video for her debut single Video Games went around the world. Was she real or fake?

"If I'd known so many people were going to watch that video, I would have put some more effort into my hair and make-up," begins Del Rey, relaxing after a photo shoot.

The video notched up a million or so YouTube plays in a week, with the reaction going from positive to suspicious, then vitriolic in a similar length of time.

The main reason for the outburst stemmed from an article written by a particularly snooty American website, which unearthed images of Del Rey taken in 2010 when she was plain old Lizzy Grant, about to release an album of ballads, very different in style from the Fifties-drenched melodrama of her forthcoming album Born To Die.

The crucial details in the photos were Del Rey's lips.

Today, she has a seductive bee-stung pout, but back then they were much thinner. The website took umbrage at the supposed cosmetic enhancement, and decided Del Rey was a phoney.

"Had I been aware of what was ahead of me, I'd have tried not to pout so much in the Video Games video," she continues. "I mean, everyone just wants to talk about my face. And I get very personal messages coming to me, like hate mail, so there is a flipside to the attention my music has been getting."

There was also the issue of her name, which she said in early interviews was chosen by her manager to better reflect her style of music; Lana Del Rey conjuring up similar images of innocent Fifties/early Sixties Americana as Hollywood icon Lana Turner, classic car the Ford Del Rey, white picket fences and futuristic kitchen gadgets.

Originally from Lake Placid, New York ("a tourist town that no tourists go to anymore"), Del Rey went off to boarding school when she was 14 and never really returned. For the past three years, at least, she's called New York home, and fell in love with the place as soon as she arrived.

"Even at 14 I knew I was going to be in the city. New York is the best place on earth for someone who's a different sort of character, you know?

"I don't think I ever really fitted in anywhere before, and when I got to New York it was like I'd found all the things I'd been looking for."

For her first few years on the East Coast, Del Rey performed in the city's bars, just her and a guitar, to little avail.

She recorded and sent out some demos, and a day after receiving one, David Kahne, an established producer who has worked with the likes of Paul McCartney, Stevie Nicks, The Bangles and Linkin Park, contacted her saying he'd like to produce her album.

They got to work, but it was taken off sale just a few months after release, although you can still find some of the songs online, she says.

Lana doesn't give much away as to why this happened, although she does say she's still proud of the album, just that it wasn't quite "right".

Her new songs, such as the aforementioned Video Games, Blue Jeans and current single Born To Die, feature Del Rey's unique croon. Deeper than your average male pop star, let alone her female contemporaries, it immediately draws you in, and whether you end up falling for the 25-year-old as so many have, her voice demands an opinion either way.

"I actually used to sing much higher, but I felt people weren't taking me very seriously," she explains.

"I think the way I dressed and look..." she trails off, realising how moaning about how hard life is when you're stunningly beautiful might come across.

"I was uncomfortable getting a certain type of attention," she continues, diplomatically. "That came from a combination of my personality, the way I look and the way sounded. It was all too much, too much in a certain direction."

In a nutshell, had Del Rey stuck to her former image, she was worried she might come over like an airhead prom queen.

Now, while her new image is built upon sexuality, it's all implied. There's nothing overt or explicit in the way she dresses or moves around the stage.

"I needed something to ground the entire project," she adds. "I think it would've been hard to take me seriously as a singer. Actually, I know that's the case.

"I sang one way, and now sing another and I see what people are drawn to. I see the difference."

While her management team has had an influence over certain aspects of her career so far, Del Rey, daughter of a wealthy internet entrepreneur, is keen to assert that she's not been pushed or manipulated in the way her critics suggest.

"It's been very gradual," she says. "No one really cared before, I was on my own trying to make it. Now there are more people interested and each member of the team that's joined has come on board to add what I couldn't, so the idea is to leave me doing what I do, while taking care of the rest. There's been no pushing at all."

Extra time - Lana Del Rey :: Lana Del Rey was born Elizabeth Grant on June 21, 1986, in New York.

:: She says the first time she saw Kurt Cobain on MTV, she fell in love, and cites the Nirvana frontman, along with Elvis and Jeff Buckley, as her major influences.

:: When she was around 20, Del Rey gave up on the idea of ever being noticed as a singer and focused her time on community projects in her neighbourhood.

:: She appeared on iconic US series Saturday Night Live on January 14 this year, the first artist to do so without having already released an album.

:: She has been nominated for Best International Breakthrough at the Brits.

:: Lana Del Rey releases her debut album Born To Die on January 30.