Among the Brit Award nominees for Best Female Artist, Nerina Pallot is the least known. Though part of the new wave of female singer-songwriters who owe their success in part to the internet, this classically trained pianist never achieved the high profile of her fellow nominee, Lily Allen. Most people would struggle even to pronounce her name. The “t” in Pallot is silent – as in, to borrow an old Hollywood quip, Jean Harlow.
“I’m beyond pleased, quite shocked really,” Pallot says of her nomination. “In fact, I refused to do the interviews and photo call they set up before the ceremony because I thought that I’d look a right lemon when I wasn’t nominated.”
If Pallot is shy of the limelight, that’s because she has been bitten before. In 2001 she had a major-label deal and a critically acclaimed debut album, Dear Frustrated Superstar. With no idea how to market her sophisticated lyrics and folky singing, her label consigned her to a cattle-call of children’s TV pop programmes. She came down to earth with a bump, literally, when a member of Steps pushed her, live on national television, off the interview sofa and on to the floor. The record company dropped her shortly after.
She made her current album, Fires (named after a collection of stories by Raymond Carver, her favourite author), without a label, only a publishing deal. When the money ran out, she remortgaged her house to finish it.
Her determination has been rewarded. She sold thousands of copies of the resulting album through word of mouth, scoring a belated record deal and winning over audiences while supporting James Blunt.
Advertisement
A particular favourite was her Iraq war-inspired debut single, Everybody’s Gone to War. In her teens, Pallot won a scholarship to a feeder school for Sandhurst. Recently, she was chilled when she met one of the lovely boys she had known back then. “I love the army life, it’s great,” he told her. “The only problem is, I’m a completely trained killer.”
Pallot owes her dark eyes and elfin beauty to an Indian mother — though she grew up in Jersey, she also spent some time in a convent school in India. She has four siblings. And though a tangled and often unhappy love-life bleeds into her songs – her most recent significant other proposed to her on Valentine’s Day last year, but the relationship foundered — she says that she has found happiness with a new beau. “And very beau he is, too.”
On Valentine’s Day this year, she will be sipping champagne and waiting to see if her name emerges from the Brit Awards envelope. It may not be too fanciful to think that she could win over the judges’ hearts as well.