Colbie ‘Coco' Calliat
A great song, says Colbie Caillat, should lift your heart, warm the soul and make you feel good. Taking her own sound advice, "Coco", the debut album by the 22 year-old Californian singer-songwriter is simply crammed full of them.
"If you listen to an album like Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, every song has its place," she says. "If you took one away you'd spoil the balance of the entire record. That's the kind of album I wanted to make. It wouldn't feel right to have my name on a record that was just a few good tracks and then lots of filler."
The reference to Fleetwood Mac is revealing. Caillat grew up in the idyllic clime of Malibu, California with music all around her. Her father, Ken Caillat, co-produced Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" and "Tusk" albums and later ran his own record label. As a child she recalls the likes of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie being around. "Of course I've learned a lot from them. You'd be a fool not to," she says. Yet she is totally her own woman.
She began singing with serious intent at the age of 11 after hearing Lauryn Hill's version of Killing Me Softly. "I think her voice is absolutely beautiful and it made me want to start singing so I entered a talent show and of course I sang a Lauryn Hill song." As she grew older, however, her father offered one crucial piece of advice. It was all very well having a great voice, he pointed out, the people who command real respect in the music business are the songwriters. "I thought about that for a long time", she says.
It took some time coming - but when it did, the floodgates opened. "I needed to play an instrument to write songs and although I had piano lessons as a kid, it never went anywhere because I was never in the right state of mind to practice," she recalls. Surprisingly, it wasn't until she was 19 - little more than two years ago -that she eventually took up the acoustic guitar. "I wrote my fist song after my very first guitar lesson and then it just all flowed out," she recalls. "If something's biting me I hold it in because that's the kind of person I am. Then it comes out in songs. Things builds up inside of me and I'll write three songs in a weekend. It's a release. I don't choose what to write about. It's just there."
Along the way, she found two key collaborators in Mikal Blue, who hired her when she was 15 to sing some songs he'd written for a fashion show, and singer/songwriter Jason Reeves. Together, they helped to craft the songs on "Coco," which Blue also produced.
"The songs always start put with me," she explains of the collaborative process. "I'll be sitting around at home getting bored and something will come out. Then if I get stuck, I can take it to Mikal or Jason. Having people you trust to bounce ideas around keeps the creativity flowing."
Once she had a bunch of songs, she put a few of them on MySpace, more in hope than expectation. "Nothing much happened for a few months," she remembers. "Then I wrote this song called Bubbly and put it up there and it got this huge reaction. I mean thousands and thousands of hits every day."
In the end, she became the number one unsigned artist on
MySpace for four successive months, garnering an almost unbelievable 10 million
plays. Record labels started courting her and she signed with Universal Republic
because, she says, they offered her total creative freedom. "The great
thing about MySpace is that you can build up an army of fans and then when you
go to a record company, there's no point in them trying to change what you do
because it's already been tried and tested," she points out.
Lyrics for the single "Realize" by Colbie
Calliat...
Take time to realize
That your warmth is crashing down on in
Take time to realize that I am on your side
Didn't I, didn't I tell you
But I can't spell it out for you
No, it's never gonna be that simple
No, I can't spell it out for you
If you just realize what I just realized
Than we'd be perfect for each other and we'll never find another
Just realize what I just realized
We'd never have to wonder if we missed out on each other now
Take time to realize, oh, oh, I'm on your side
Didn't I, didn't I tell you
Take time to realize, this all can pass you by
Didn't I tell you
But I can't spell it out for you
No, it's never gonna be that simple
No, I can't spell it out for you
If you just realize what I just realized
Than we'd be perfect for each other and we'll never find another
Just realize what I just realized
We'd never have to wonder if we missed out on each other
But, it's not all the same, no, it's never the same
If you don't feel it to, if you meet me half way
If you would meet me half way
It could be the same for you
If you just realize what I just realized
Than we'd be perfect for each other and we'll never find another
Just realize what I just realized
We'd never have to wonder
Just realize what I just realized
If you just realized what I just realized
Ooh, ooh
Missed out on each other now
Missed out on each other now, yeah
Realize, realize, realize, realize, oh
Check out some recent pictures of Colbie
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