Fleur East: ‘I'd Love Janet Jackson As An X Factor Judge’ - EXCLUSIVE

We don’t know how, but it’s somehow been an entire year since Fleur East burst onto The X Factor stage, making sure we ALL knew she meant business. Time flies, eh?

One year on from the competition, Fleur’s getting ready to release her incredible debut single ‘Sax’ and her debut album ‘Love, Sax and Flashbacks’ and we can’t WAIT.

Catching up with the lovely singer for a chat, we wanted to know her thoughts on this year’s X Factor, which has been shrouded in controversy with the return of Mason Noise and a shake-up of the judging panel.

Revealing she’s watched ‘every single episode’ because she ‘loves it’ (ditto) and is ‘so grateful for the experience’, the ‘Sax’ singer explained she’s definitely a fan of the new line-up.

She exclusively told Yahoo Celeb UK: “I think they all knew each other before and you can tell. Everyone’s very relaxed with each other, there’s good chemistry, Rita [Ora] and Cheryl [Fernandez-Versini] get on really well and I think it’s good to have someone from a different background, like with Nick [Grimshaw] from a radio background. We’ve never had that before and it’s interesting.”

Asked for her thoughts on Grimmy, who’s received criticism for being on the panel, she added: “People will learn after the show that there’s so many people you come in contact with - there’s radio DJs, there’s presenters, there’s A&Rs, there’s managers, so many different tiers and so many different people that are part of your team.

“Someone like Nick is very influential when you get into the real world. Radio is so important when you’ve got a new song and you’re trying to promote it and get it out there, so I think he definitely has an influential and an important opinion.”

However, as much as we’re all loving the new panel, there is a little part of Fleur (and us) that misses a certain Irishman and his quirky catchphrases, as she admitted: “I do [miss him] a little bit yeah, I do miss Louis [Walsh]!

“Just because he’s full of energy and now we haven’t heard his phrases that he comes out with, like ‘you remind of a young…’ or ‘you can sing, you can dance, you’ve got it all’, y’know, all those comments, or ‘you are a star’. All these things, I’m missing them now, I miss hearing them.”

She continued on to say she thought it ‘would be fun’ if he returned, explaining: “I think it would be fun to see him on there again. I wouldn’t replace anyone though, I’d just add him.”

But if Fleur could pick the ULTIMATE judging panel, who would she choose? “That’s an interesting one!”, she said. “I think I’d keep Simon because it is his idea the show, and he has worked for years in the industry and his opinion is very valuable.

“I think I’d like someone like Janet Jackson, like an icon, a real performer to be on there. I think a big voice, someone like Chaka Khan or something like that would be amazing.”

She added that she’s particularly loving Seann Miley Moore and 4th Impact, and if she could mentor a category, it would probably be the groups ‘because they’re bringing a lot of the performance element to the show and it would be interesting to play with that, I think that would be fun’.

Fleur also keeps in contact with the X Factor alumni of 2014 via WhatsApp and Snapchat, and has met a few of the past winners, too.

She revealed: “Little Mix are amazing. I love those girls so much. They’re so genuine, so humble and they’ve done so well. I’ve met Alexandra Burke, she’s really nice, she’s given me a lot of advice just about vocals and how to keep my voice healthy and things like that. I’ve met Matt Cardle, I really really like Matt, he’s really nice.”

Having been the process herself, she shared some advice for this year’s hopefuls, exclusively telling us: “Stay focused, don’t pay attention to the competition, do not read anything online, in the papers, just stay focused and never ever be complacent.”

A year after her own X Factor experience, Fleur is ‘so excited’ to unleash ‘Sax’ on the the world, and from what we’ve heard, it’s going to be amazing.

Describing the single as ‘fun, energetic, vibrant, sassy and cheeky’, Fleur told us she was ‘really nervous’ about the reaction to her track, but now ‘can’t wait’ for everyone to hear the finished product.

Explaining why she went for a song that’s so full of energy, she said: “I think that was one of the main reasons I decided to do ‘Uptown Funk’ at the semi-finals, because as soon as I heard it, I just thought this is exactly the type of song I’d want to do as an artist, it’s right up my street, it’s everything I’d want in a song, so it was impossible for me to ignore that and I’ve definitely taken some influence from that song in my album.”

Speaking of the album, Fleur teased what we can expect, revealing that one of her favourite tracks is called ‘Paris’ and that: “A lot of the songs have a little salute to old school hip hop, funk, disco, lots of old school stuff that I grew up listening to, I’ve kinda weaved that through the music but it’s got a modern stamp on it, so I’m excited.

“‘Sax’ is a little teaser of what’s to come but there’s a lot more variation on the album.”

Don’t expect any ballads just yet though, with Fleur adding: “I decided not to put any ballads on the album.

“I waited until the end of the writing process and decided whether it felt right to add a ballad to the album and I just felt like this is my first stamp that I make on the music scene and I want people to know where I’m coming from and what my lane is and that I’m here to entertain people. A ballad is something I can explore later on but I just want people to feel the first impact from ‘Sax’.”

That’s not to say we’ll never get a ballad from Fleur, as she said: “I’ve said for a long time that I would love to sing with Alicia Keys. I think because I haven’t necessarily got a ballad on the album, I think it would be nice to work with someone like her and do something different. I would love that.”

She explained that she was like a sponge during the recording process for the album, ‘soaking up all the knowledge’ and ‘learning how to approach songwriting really differently’, having been writing songs since the age of nine.

Fleur gets her songwriting inspiration from many places, from life experiences to scenarios she might have seen during a film, where she’ll ‘take on the role and write from that other person’s point of view’.

It’s Michael Jackson who is her number one inspiration for making music though, as she exclusively told us: “I know a lot of people say that but he genuinely is.

“My parents played music on my mum’s stomach before I was born and they played a lot of Michael, and growing up that’s all we used to listen to in the house, along with others. But Michael, I don’t know, I was always mesmerised when I watched his videos growing up. No-one beats him for me so he’s definitely inspired me a lot.”

Being ‘very visual’ as an artist, we can expect big things from the ‘Sax’ video, with Fleur revealing: “A lot of dancing! High energy choreography. It was very important to me to get that across in the video because I love performing and I didn’t want it to be a video where you see a second of the choreography and then there’s a lot of other things dominating what you see. I wanted to make that the main thing.”

Oh, and of course, we had to revisit THAT infamous ‘Uptown Funk’ performance that actually saw the single’s release date being moved.

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Fleur said: “I couldn’t believe that, that was so surreal. Even now, I still can’t believe that that happened, and it’s funny because the song plays such a big part in my career so far, in the UK anyway, and then outside of the UK, Uptown Funk is just Uptown Funk to everybody else, so it has different meaning in this country that no-one will ever understand.”

It’s safe to say we can’t wait to hear all of Fleur’s new music.

‘Sax’ is available to download from tomorrow (Friday November 6th), with Fleur set to perform on The X Factor this Sunday. Her album is released on December 4th.