Hailing from Bradford, the ‘Kisses for Breakfast’ singer, Melissa Steel, has taken the UK music scene by storm, charting at number 3 and featuring on lots of hit singles. With her brand new single ‘Love Me’ coming out, we caught up with the artist to discuss her journey thus far, being a mum to her ‘Steelers’ and collaborating with Wretch 32.
PMB: So you’re really hot right now, and have kind of hit the ground running with kisses for breakfast and now you’re everywhere. What was the build up to that before this? What were you doing to put yourself out there?
Melissa Steel: It’s been a very long process. I’ve been doing this for a while. I’m still only young, you know, the first time I performed and started getting in the studio was when I was 11 so I’ve been doing this for like a few years. That’s when I started getting comfortable on stage and then at 14/15 I started doing YouTube videos because that’s when that was the hype and people started uploading their covers on the internet, so I started doing that. And then, I started generating quite a lot of hits and I kind of just did it for fun to be honest – but then I started doing it monthly because that’s basically where I got my first ever fan base. The core of my fans built from there. And then one day, my A&R, the person who is my A&R now at Atlantic approached me, for a meeting and I met him and we were playing music to each other and he played me Kisses for Breakfast, and I just said to him, I want this song, don’t let anyone else have it, and the rest is history.
So you are from Bradford, did you ever feel like you were at a disadvantage to get into the mainstream music being up North?
Yes, because, obviously I’m proud of where I’m from but, having a dream like mine, I mean I’m quite an ambitious person, and realistically, what I want to do is not there. So you know, from the age of 15, that’s when I started coming down to London, I mean I have family here so I used to stay with them and I’d just work with friends that I made and would make music with them and that’s kind of how I got to know London. And then over time I spent more and more time here. And I obviously now, have to be here because my entire teams here and everything I do is here so, yeah definitely feel like I belong here more than I do up there to be honest.
Up there, you went to school with Zayn Malik which must be crazy seeing both of you now with your success. Did you ever consider taking the talent show route into industry?
No, I mean I feel like it is a really huge platform for people, like you said they were very successful from that show which is amazing, but me personally, that was never really the route I wanted to go down. I always had in my mind that I’m going to do this, I’m going to build on it and I’m going to do this on my own. I remember one time though one of my aunties tried signing me up for The X Factor and I just refused. I was like, ‘I’m not going there, I’m doing this on my own’. It’s just not something I really considered to be honest.
So you do call your fans Steelers, but I’ve seen on a social network, a lot of them refer to you as ‘mama’ or ‘mum’ and I’m like, erm…
OHHH MY GODDDD I KNOWWWW!!.
Is this a thing because you must get a little freaked out as you are only 22 and you now have like 20,000 kids. It’s probably not how you saw your life going.
YESSSS, I know. Yeah it’s like, I don’t know, I just don’t know. I don’t know why they call me that but I think it’s cute. I just don’t know honestly but I love my fans they’re just so cute. They’re my little babies – probably because I call them my little babies so they’re just like ‘aw, adopt me’
Well I’m glad we cleared that up. So your sound is very much a combination of R&B and Reggae intwined. So what or rather who has inspired that sound?
Well the fact that I’m half Jamaican inspired the reggae side, because that’s what I would listen to in my household growing up. And my R&B sound, I was born in the 90’s so you know, the first ever album I remember hearing was Mariah Carey’s… was it Fantasy album? I think it was called Fantasy, that’s like the first ever song I remember hearing as a baby so she was an inspiration. Aaliyah, she’s one of my main inspirations. I love Destiny’s Child, I love Mya. Yeah they’re probably the main people that inspired me.
So you’ve made or been part of loads of great songs and Kisses for Breakfast charted at number 3, your first single! Do you feel some type of pressure to maintain that bar with this follow up single Love me and other singles to avoid just being essentially a one-hit-wonder?
Yeah, I mean yeah naturally because I care about what I do and this is what I want to do so much and obviously I want to be the best at what I do. And no one expected KFB to do so well because it was my first single and it was a different kind of track to what was in the charts at the time. So, because of that now, naturally yeah I do feel like I need to keep bettering myself and I need to keep doing well. But at the same time, when the song actually comes out, it’s out of your control so there’s really no point in putting yourself under that much pressure but you still have to be very serious about what you’re doing but I don’t think it’s good to overthink and over worry because it will just have a negative effect. You just have to believe in what you’re do I think. And I just want to be excited about the songs I’m putting out and hopefully everyone else catches on.
You mentioned earlier there was a story behind each collaboration, how did the Wretch team up come about?
Well with the new single You Love Me with Wretch 32, I asked him to be on that because I kind of just wanted some UK coolness to the song and I know Wretch is really talented. I know him personally so I just asked him to write a verse and he obviously pulled through and it was amazing. A lot of the time, I’ll sit down with my team and we’ll think about who the best person would be for the song and then, they agree or they don’t and luckily I’ve had some really good features and some really good collaborations so far.
So for those who haven’t heard it yet, tell us about it
It basically tells the story of someone professing their love for the other person, well he’s scared of professing his love for the other person. I feel like a lot of people could relate to. And yeah, it’s produced by the legendary Rodney Jerkins which is amazing for me to have done a song with him because he basically made a lot of the songs that inspired me to want to sing. So that alone is amazing. So the song is just me basically trying to tell my love interest to admit that he loves me, and that you don’t have to be scared.
So off screen, do you have a love interest?
No love interest at the moment.
Well your fans and some men will be happy I’m sure. So the Love Me video, I see your in the habit of going international with the vids. First Jamaica and then the U.S. is it?
Yeah we were in LA which was fun. That was my first time there and we shot in a place called the Pink Motel. And as you can see in the video it’s just a fully pink building which was amazing. Because pinks my favourite colour. Yeah and it just felt like it was just a really good summer video, with the outfits in there, obviously Wretch was there, that was fun having him there as well, and yeah, it was just a really good vibe. I got a lovely video out of the country which I didn’t plan to do but I mean these things just happen.
So your song with Wretch is coming out in September, are you releasing an album at any point to accompany the single.
I am! Yeah I am I’m finishing off that album right now. I’m almost done, I’m just basically continuing because I can and I want to get as many songs as possible. So hopefully that will be out at the beginning of next year and you know, it has a lot of different vibes in their and it’s basically just everybody getting to know me and to know that I do a lot and I’m quite a versatile artist so yeah! That’s basically the time to get to know Melissa Steel with this album so I’m excited for everyone to hear it. I have so many songs to share and it’s just really hard keeping them all a secret.
Where can we find the single?
You can pre-order on iTunes and it’s out on the 11th September. You can YouTube the video. I have a dancehall remix on soundcloud. We’re going to have a little viral video coming out for that soon, so watch out.
Well lastly before you go, breakfast of choice: Bacon and pancakes or kisses?
Kisses of course!
