Taio Cruz cuts a calm and confident presence when Sound Generator catches up with him. His new single, 'Moving On', hits the shelves next week and Matthew Sheret met him to find out more.

Hi there Taio, tell us a bit about yourself.
Well, I'm a songwriter and a producer and I've been doing both for a while before I decided I was going to put out my own single. So I set up own record company, Rokstarr Music, and got hold of the best plugger I could find! I didn't necessarily produce the best record that I had, I wanted things to build because I was seeing a lot of artists out there putting out a single that was OK before putting out a better one then an even better one. I put out a song that was good but wasn't the best trick in the bag if you know what I mean? But instead it just started going really well and getting everywhere, which was great!

'I Just Wanna Know' seemed to come out of nowhere, what did the interest there feel like?
Yeah it was crazy! I wasn't even in the country, I was in Atlanta doing some production for Mya and some stuff for Usher so I was in producer mode and chillin'. Then I'd get phonecalls from Jez and people like that at KISS and they'd just be saying "Wow, this song's really playing like crazy now, everyone loves it and the response is amazing". Then Universal in the States called me up to say "Your song's playing on Sirius, it's playing on Hot 97, Power 106 in LA, on Radio in New York." and I just said "Wow. This is really cool, I didn't expect it to be doing this at all." It was really crazy and I didn't expect it but I was very very pleased that it was going that well.

It's been a while between that song and your new one, 'Moving On', what have you been up to to fill the time?
I've just been working on the album, making sure it's a good... sorry, excellent piece of work, haha. I didn't to just put out anything straight after the single. I wanted to make sure that it was good material and that the fans wouldn't be disappointed. I wanted to make sure each song was quality, I didn't want to just put out rubbish.

Fair enough, haha! Your videos have got a very glossy, crisp look, very American, which is a real change from a lot of the current UK Urban acts who are looking very raw, very grimy, even if their music isn't like that. Is there a reason you chose to do that?
Well I wanted to separate myself. I feel that I am different from everybody else and I felt that I should look different. I try to do that with the music, with the production and sound, I try to make it as high quality as possible with the amount of money that I've got. We don't have the same amount of money for that as the American's do so I try and use the funds as efficiently as possible so that I can make the best product possible. With the videos I just try to find out how much we can spend then go "Okay, let's try to find someone who can make a great looking video for that."

And what can you tell us about the album?
Style wise it's very eclectic. It's got loads of different styles on there, it's not just R 'n' B which is probably what people will have heard from me. I those those songs would be the best representation of my vocal sound, and now I can show people a lot more of my versatility. On the album there are dance tracks, full-on guitar rock tracks, there's hip hop on there and some full-on Pop songs - not cheesy, teenybopper songs like Steps or anything like that - songs that are catchy you can sing along to and feel good to. A lot of vibes on there that are good.

To find out more visit Taio Cruz's MySpace.

written by on 30/08/2007 16:18:00