Former Bardot singer Katie Underwood joined forces with the likes of Australian dance music outfit, Disco Montego and that collaboration marks her solo debut as a featured vocalist on ‘Beautiful’.
‘Beautiful’ is of course the singer’s first musical release since leaving Bardot in 2001 to pursue a solo career.
“This song isn’t about me,” she said, speaking to the press. “It’s about the music, and I just want people to enjoy it. It’s that simple! While we were doing the clip I was watching some of the extras dancing to it and thought, ‘this is what it’s all about. Creating music that people can enjoy and that makes people want to dance'”.
Collaborating with Disco Montego is also an opportunity for Katie to tentatively put herself back in the music business spotlight, without having to go at it alone.
“Without actually launching my solo career, I have been writing songs, as usual, but that isn’t to say I’m about to release an album, you see. ‘Beautiful’ is a one-off thing at the moment. It’s a great chance for me to do something that I really enjoy without necessarily being back in the music business full time.”Because it’s not all about me, I can still spend time doing my TV show (Channel 7’s upcoming reality series, Undercover Angels) and have time to do other things, like singing in jazz clubs and that sort of thing, from time to time.”
Disco Montego’s DJ Vega said “The great thing about ‘Beautiful’ is that it really shows off a different side to Katie that people wouldn’t have heard before. We’d already started writing ‘Beautiful’ with her voice in mind when we went to her and gave her the opportunity to write with us.”
“What we wanted was to really make use of the jazz training she’d had in the past, but that she had never had the opportunity to really use as part of Bardot. We knew there was a side to Katie’s voice that people hadn’t heard.”
“From the moment we got together she was great. She came back to us with these fantastic verses she’d written which totally fitted with what we’d already started for her. The end result is an amazing example of what Katie is really capable of as a solo artist.”
Katie agreed “I like the idea that people aren’t going to know it’s me straight away. It certainly doesn’t sound like Bardot, that’s for sure. This is my public return to my club-land roots. It’s where I was and the sort of music I was doing before I did Popstars. In fact, if I’d never been in Bardot, this is probably the sort of stuff I’d still be doing.”
Disco Montego’s debut album, featuring a variety of fresh and well-known guest vocalists and musical collaborators, is tentatively scheduled for release at the end of 2002.