Imogen Heap cuts an imposing figure for a nineteen old year making her inaugural steps in the music business. Her first single, "Getting Scared," has just been released and has been selected as a XFM single of the week. Her press release talks of how her "forensic dissection of the day to day leaves you wondering how a women so young can be so perceptive." Freebase went to find out.

One of the themes I picked up on from your PR is the notion of music having a therapeutic role for you.
"Definitely, it's been the only thing I had since I was a kid to get away from everyday life. I don't get to take out my anger on people but do it on the piano. It's my spiritual base."

The "forensic dissection of the day to day" is quite a claim to make. What have you to say about that?
"That's what I do. The lyrics aren't particularly way out. There just about my life, city life, my ideas about things. I suppose they inform my philosophy on things. I like to keep things simple. Maybe that's just because I'm dumb but there's no point in trying to write lyrics that don't make sense to anyone. But they do have a twist to them."

Is music the best medium for you to express such ideas?
"I'm not artistic like in the sense of a painter or whatever but with music I can definitely get in touch with things."

There seems to be an emphasis on your physical presence. Is this an important part of how you intend to promote yourself?
"Well I've always been tall - I can't really do much about that. But for that reason its immediately picked up as a selling point, but I'm not too bothered about that if people use it as a way in."

Strong female figures such as Patti Smith, Kate Bush and Tori Amos have been cited in relation to you. Do you see such women as a reference point?
"I think that they are a reference point in that they are female singers who write their own material and play the piano, and they all have their own very strong points of view. But I'm still young and am still trying to form my point of view...... but I enjoy the comparison. Hopefully in a couple of years time when people know who Imogen Heap is they won't have to relate me to such people."

Your live performance seems to have a harder edge than your studio work. Why the distinction?
"Well, I'm always changing the way I write stuff and working with a band is quite a new experience for me. We've only had five or six gigs so far, so away from the pressure to do things a certain way in the studio we just mess around with the arrangement. It makes it more interesting."

You write all the material so how do the band fit into the scheme of things.
"I've been working on material for the last eighteen months. Then we decided to do some auditions a couple of months ago and we came up with some really good guys."

The single, "Getting Scared,"  is just about to come out. As its your first why did you choose this particular one to introduce yourself to the world?
"Because its probably the least single-y. I don't think its that radio-friendly. And I just wanted to get something out of my system as soon as possible. It's about something bad a close friend once did to me. But I'm not going to tell you what that was. Maybe another day."

You say that you like to experiment with the structure of your songs. How do you go about getting away from standard structure?
"Sleep was the first song that I tried to get away from a usual way of doing things. It will be on the LP which will be coming out early next year. It gets boring to do the same sort of stuff. My inspiration for the material comes from my day-to-day life. On top of that I'm going to be doing loads of gigs, trying to create a history for ourselves. Something already has started to happen. We're really buzzing off each other."

Finally, given the nature of Freebase, are you interested in the internet?
"Very. I've been looking into the possibilities of my own site. I've got plenty of cool ideas and want to come up with something innovative that doesn't cost much money."