Rosie Oddie – Destined To Be A Goodie

In a posh Soho hangout in London - where drinks are priced at a cost that would suggest they’re as treasured by the venues owner as a dissipating fossil fuel – Rosie Oddie stands out. Dressed in a baggy grey tracksuit and a bright pink vest, a succinct combination that’s topped off with her typically frivolous hairstyle, it’s not just the former cabaret bar's interior decorator that she’s challenging, it’s the whole environment itself. As the audience watch her and her ‘Odd Squad’ perform a showcase of tracks in what would be considered as far more ‘fitting’ attire for the surroundings, Oddie and her band carry on regardless, powered solely by her jagged voice and their jamboree jamming. After a short twenty-five minutes on stage, those in attendance who may have mused over what a performance by Rosie Oddie and The Odd Squad would sound like have been converted – first appearances it seems, really can be deceiving.

A few days on from the show in a Camden cafe, and now with just that jagged voice for company - which is still as distinct as she orders a ‘Berry Tastic’ smoothie and apologies for her lack of punctuality, “I originally had 11.30 down in my diary,” she says, looking confused – Oddie suddenly looks more at home. She’s certainly dressed in the kind of body hugging attire that you expect to see on Camden High Street, albeit topped off with a reflective mass of silver glitter which is glued to her chest. Twitching at her nose as she sits down, it’s proving a problem. “I’ve got loads of shit on me sorry,” she says, continuing a string of apologies. “I was doing this photo shoot yesterday and I haven’t had a shower yet, so...sorry, it’s really manic.”

Twenty-one year old Oddie has just reason to feel so befuddled. Six months ago she was just like any other twenty something in Camden - living in the moment, getting drunk in the moment and, well, waking up the next day to do it all over again. It’s only since her father – the well known ornithologist and TV personality Bill Oddie – convinced her to enter a talent contest at the start of the year, which she promptly won – beating the singer who’d told her dad that his daughter should enter into second place - that thing’s have suddenly started to become more “manic.” She adds, breathlessly: “I’m very lucky, it’s amazing. My boyfriend has been performing in his band for a year and he’s like, ‘you’re at the same stage as us and you’ve only just started.’  I’m really lucky and there are probably lots of different factors, maybe who I am or whatever, has meant that it’s moved quicker than it should be but hopefully I have the substance to prove to people that I’m meant to be doing it.”

Oddie is more than aware that people might have a “negative” perception of her because of her famous father; she admits, honestly, that she “probably would as well,” but, as she explains, her musical ambition is no 2007 thing. “I started playing guitar when I was like nine and I got guitar lessons but before then I was playing drums in a jazz band.” In fact, if she has her dad to thank for anything, it’s simply for her admiration of music. “Because my dad’s so musical then there was just so much music around, like I was always listening to music and he would make me tapes, you know, and show me bits and show me loads of funk records,” she adds, sipping on her smoothie. “It wasn’t like your usual kids stuff, he’d show me lots of different stuff. So, I think that always made me want to do it.”

Oddie pinpoints her father’s old Randy Newman and Bootsy Collins records for her sound – which dodges from the conversational retrospection of her debut single ‘Genni’s Song’ (which is out this week) to the much deeper, jazz tones of tracks like ‘Cola Coka’ and ‘Uncle Fred.’ “With Randy Newman, who’s like a total hero of mine, song writing wise, he was just so amazing,” she says with a smile. “He’s just such a great story teller and that’s what kind of started me off wanting to write songs because I was into English and stuff and I loved that when it worked it could be so great – some people are just so lazy and don’t bother.” Indeed, lyrically, the aforementioned ‘Cola Coka,’ is as good an example as any of what she means. It sees Oddie juxtapose the divine English, “My mouth twas dry and my nose tis white,” with the not so, “Feeling fucked but I’m feeling alright.” It’s an obvious tip of the trilby to her poetic inspirations.

With a lifetime of interest in music at the age of twenty-one, it’s no surprise that the recent buzz isn’t the first time that Oddie’s music has courted industry attention. She turned down a number of talent spotters as a teenager, including, curiosity from former head of Creation Records and the man behind Oasis, Alan McGee. “He heard the records and was interested but it was never taken any further,” she reveals, blithely. Unlike many talented youngsters, however, Oddie didn’t want to miss out on her childhood. “I found that much more important than doing music because no one else did it (music). It wasn’t relevant to their lives, it wasn’t like they wanted to go out and get a life, they’d rather dance about and have a house party.” Twitching her nose because of the glitter again, she adds: “Suddenly doing something totally different from all your mates, I wasn’t into that at all.”