00s icon would be ‘completely horrible’ if her label hadn’t ditched her 25 years ago-Danni Scott-Entertainment – Metro

Sophie Ellis-Bextor was in the charts before her breakthrough hit (Picture: Patrick Ford/Redferns)

Being dropped after signing a record deal is the worst outcome for most stars but Sophie Ellis-Bextor is thankful she was ditched at 20.

The Murder on the Dancefloor legend has had a stratospheric year thanks to her hit song’s resurgence in Saltburn.

Sophie’s 2001 charting song was the most streamed nostalgic track of the year — but it very nearly didn’t exist.

Before her solo fame, Sophie had secured a record deal, a charting album, and multiple top 40 songs with her rock band.

Almost 25 years on, the singer has revealed she believes she’d be a ‘completely horrible person’ if the band had been a success.

‘My band had split up and I was dropped by the label by the time I was 20,’ the 45-year-old singer told Big Issue. ‘It had gone very fast in one direction and then very fast in the other.

The band were dropped by their label but it allowed Sophie to go solo (Picture: Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

‘I credit that as being one of the things that probably stopped me from being a completely horrible person. I think if I’d had success after success, I’d be gross today.’

In the 90s, Sophie was the lead vocalist for theaudience — along with Billy Reeves, Patch Hannan, Nigel Butler, Dean Mollett, and Kerin Smith — who released one album in 1998.

The self-titled debut reached number 22 in the UK charts, with two singles charting in the top 40 — including I Know Enough (I Don’t Get Enough) which reached number 25.

Theaudience wrote and recorded at least 33 demo tracks for a follow-up album but Mercury Records rejected them.

After this, they disbanded for good and Sophie admitted she felt ‘low’ as music was her only plan and she thought she had ‘screwed up’, looking at all her friends at university.

‘It was quite a blow really. It felt quite humiliating,’ the chart-topper added.

She was then offered Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) with Spiller, which wasn’t her usual bag but she wanted to shake things up away from her indie music scene.

Sophie shot to number one with the track, spending four weeks in the top 10 and a total of 30 weeks in the top 100.

When Murder returned to in the charts earlier this year, Sophie told Metro she’s able to just sit back and enjoy what’s happening – unlike the first time.

She’s thankful for the reality check that stopped her being ‘completely horrible’ (Picture: Kieran Frost/Redferns)

She’s been enjoying a huge resurgence this year
(Picture: Ian West/PA Wire)

‘The stakes were so high, because I was just starting my solo career. With Murder, the first time was really significant because it meant, “Now I can maybe make my album, or get to tour or make another album” – this time it’s like having pudding, it’s just a really lovely, unexpected sweet treat.

‘So I’m just trying to enjoy it in the purity of what that is.’

‘A few stars have to align [for this to happen],’ she says, adding that in recent months she’s noticed more and more kids and younger people attending her gigs, ‘and not just to like, laugh at me!’

‘A few things just line up, with streaming and TikTok it’s like the record shop is open all the time and all the songs are in stock for everyone, everything is ripe for the picking. With Kate Bush’s song that year, I was right with it, like “this is just exactly what I feel like hearing right now. It feels exactly right.”’

As for theaudience, there is no word on whether a reunion could be on the cards but Sophie’s bandmates don’t appear to have stayed in the spotlight.

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