Tina Cousins
Tina Cousins, singer, song writer, performer, former model and super talented is heading to Australia on the Vengaboys tour juggernaut. Tina has had some monster hits with Mysterious Times, Killin’ Time, Just Around The Hill and Pray. Now there’s some new material in the pipeline and Aussie audiences are in for a real treat and she promises a few teasers. Across The Ocean had a lovely chat with Tina about the upcoming tour including her love of Australia and new material she has been working on. Tina even promised a gin and tea to talk Australian lingo before the show.
Are you looking forward to spending the best part of three weeks on tour in Australia with the Vengaboys?
Yes, it is going to be good with all the guys and everybody else it will be a bit a jamboree and good times. It’s seriously going to be non-stop and I am hitting the gym so my usual six pack is in place! It’s really good and I will have new material out when I come over. Australia does feel like a second home and I have so many friends there. I actually miss it when I come back to the UK, I have a little Aussie accent that goes in place. Fingers crossed that the single that comes out when I am there.
Have you got the Aussie slang down pat?
Seriously, I’ll be putting a burger on the barbie! How about good on you mate?
Do you get time in your set to play any of your newer material?
I’m going to try and give a small teaser of my new songs. My new song is called My Space and I’m really chuffed about it. Fingers crossed everything will work right and every time I go to Australia the audiences have been amazing. The fact that I actually do this live and none of this miming I think makes a lot of difference.
At this point in your career is this the most satisfied you’ve been given how much everything changes?
It changes so much and to be honest a lot of it if you do it live I think you connect with the audience and makes a big difference. I can be in front of an audience like fifty thousand and the ones that mean the most are the littler audiences in front of four or five hundred people and you can literally look directly at the their faces while your singing. It actually means something to be able to look at someone’s face while you’re singing, it makes a really big difference.
Is it a huge buzz when fans sing back the lyrics to songs such as Mysterious Times and Killin’ Time?
Yeah, yeah, yeah! This is actually weird, I was in Spain two weeks ago and I had someone who was sixteen years old come up to me going all ballistic saying Pray then asking for autographs and photos and she must have been a little tyke when this track actually came out. It is really weird how songs can actually carry on and I honestly did think even with dance music, where most people think like whatever, the lyrical content when you take it off and write it on a piece of paper and read it back actually means something. I would say Pray would definitely do that, so fingers crossed with the next one.
Does it feel like trying to win the lottery when writing a single?
This is going to sound really sentimental but it is all about the things that happen in life that you write about. This song My Space is very poignant to how I felt at the time and the opening line is “it’s been a long time since I saw your face”. So it is a very poignant thing for me but yeah I’m not going to say any more otherwise I’ll ruin in. The most amazing thing is when someone says something about something that you’ve written about, when I was little I was asked what I was going to do when I was grown up I would say that I was going to sing and everyone laughed. The day that Mysterious Times went in at number two on the charts in the UK it was like haha to those that laughed. I count every single day that I have that I get to do what I absolutely adore and be able to pay the bills.
Is it hard being judged against Mysterious Times all the time and having to try and replicate that single over and over?
A little bit but it is very easy to think I’m going to put out a carbon copy of what I’ve already done because it was a hit. I think may someone who is a little bit of a cop out who do that. Everything for me is about lyrical content and those things I said that can be taken off and stuck on a dance track or anything. It’s about what you say not carbon copy what you’ve done before and that is difficult. I would always try and reinvent something.
Whether it is rummaging through vinyl at record stores such as Clarity and Title finding hidden gems to scouring the internet to find that album by the next big thing or chasing bands to get that elusive autograph and photo his passion is music all the way.
- Aversions Crown - January 27, 2017
- Sick Of It All - January 19, 2017
- Refused - January 11, 2017
