Edition: 1GWSUN 02 OCT 2005 Page: Ecosse 6 Title: Hippie chick strikes a perfect punk chord Content: Culture Journalist: Rachel Devine Features

The overwhelming response of Radio 2 listeners to Sandi Thom's debut single has catapulted the Banff singer into the limelight, writes Rachel Devine In her young career, Sandi Thom can trace two defining moments back to Sir Paul McCartney. The first occurred several years ago when Thom was studying at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA). She spotted McCartney, the college patron, hanging out with students in the bar, and decided to approach the Beatles' legend hoping for advice on how to get her own music career off the ground. "I remember it very clearly to this day," she says. "I told him about the band I was in and where I thought it was all going and I asked him what advice he would give to a young musician starting out. "He said 'keep it simple', and from that day on I did. That is when I decided to branch out on my own as a solo artist, because at the time I was living a complicated life: I was in a complicated band and I was writing very complicated songs. These days I keep it as simple as possible." The second encounter was equally fortuitous and significant. In July of this year McCartney was being interviewed by Johnnie Walker on his Radio 2 show. In between questions Walker played Thom's first single, I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker. The song, which is released tomorrow, elicited an overwhelming response from Radio 2 listeners and hundreds e-mailed in to demand that it be played again and requesting information about the 24-year-old singer from MacDuff in Banffshire. "The Johnnie Walker show has put everything on fast forward," says Thom. "Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful for everything that's come from it, but I don't think it has sunk in yet. I was preparing myself for the big push, the big slog, and suddenly something random happens and you get a break." Thom's record company, the small Orkney-based independent Legacy records, immediately rushed through the release of the single and her debut album, Rockabyeberry, a tribute to her childhood home of Whistleberry, near Kinneff. The album has the weight of Scottish songwriter John McLaughlin and producer Calum Malcolm, who has worked with Simple Minds and Deacon Blue, behind it. The Proclaimers have asked Thom to open their forthcoming UK tour. For Thom, who moved to London after she graduated from LIPA, it is the reward for years of hard graft and a musical education to make the eyes water. Growing up in Banffshire, Thom was obsessed with music from an early age. Her aunt, a concert pianist, taught her to play the piano from the age of three, she wrote her first song when she was 12 years old, and when she turned 14 -and was still a student at Robert Gordon's College in Aberdeen -she joined a covers band called the Residents with a group of musicians twice her age. "I guess that's where I cut my teeth, so to speak," she laughs. "When other kids were listening to the latest pop band I was playing covers of songs by Fleetwood Mac and the Bee Gees." With her parents' support and blessing, she left home to busk around Europe. On her return to Scotland she was accepted to study music at LIPA at the age of 18. "I couldn't wait to get to Liverpool and immerse myself in music, to play in bands, to go and see bands and hang out with other musicians. "It was an incredible time and I really love Liverpool -I've still got a flat there." Thom spent five years in the city, where she sang with a gospel choir called Love and Joy (the high point was a performance at Anfield, the home of Liverpool football club, and joined a seven-piece band that made it to the semi-finals of the BBC Radio 1 urban music awards. Thom wrote I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker, a gorgeously simple song about what it would be like to live in a less "complicated" era, after losing her mobile phone, and the stripped-back arrangement of her voice over a sporadic drum beat reflects her back-to-basics approach. "My whole world fell apart over a phone, so I sat down and wrote Punk Rocker as a reaction to that," she says. In the song Thom praises the values of the hippie era while yearning for a punk lifestyle. "A lot of people have said to me, 'Don't you realise that the punks and the hippies fought with each other?', but it's not really supposed to be taken so literally." Historical revisionism aside, Punk Rocker has been hailed as a clever and mature piece of songwriting that has invited comparisons to the Janis Joplin song Mercedes Benz. Another comparison that Thom has no problem with is to fellow Scottish singer KT Tunstall. "There had been a lack of Scottish singers for quite a while until KT came along and really raised the profile, following in the footsteps of a long line of greats such as Annie Lennox and Sharleen Spiteri," says Thom. "If I can fit on the end of that line I'd be absolutely delighted." It is, she says, an exciting time for music and for young female singers trying to do something a little more quirky than the average pop song. "We've come to the end of a long period of major label domination when smaller acts were marginalised and female singer-songwriters found it hard to catch a break without being completely under the control of record company," she says. "Now the big labels are paying attention to the independents because they recognise that's where the real talent is. They are searching for acts who are not just a flash in the pan." However, Thom is taking nothing for granted just yet. She will be leaving her flat in Tooting, which she shares with the guitarist Nick Green, to go gigging in support of the single and the album when it is released later this month. If, as expected, Punk Rocker breaks into the top 40 next Sunday, she will crack open the bottle of champagne that has been chilling in her fridge for months. "I'm not much of a drinker, I come over all queasy after two," she laughs. "I guess I'm not as rock'n'roll as I thought." Sandi Thom's debut single, I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker, is released tomorrow. Her debut album, Rockabyeberry, is released at the end of October � Times Newspapers Limited 2002. All rights reserved. You may read articles downloaded from The Times archive on-screen or print them once for your own personal use. You may not make further copies, forward them by email, post them on an internet or intranet site or make any other use of them without written permission from The Times Newspapers Limited. 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