Little Boots puts comparisons behind her

Little Boots before her concert at Liverpool's O2 Academy; YouTube: Video for Remedy

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Little Boots took time out from her UK tour this week to talk to JMU Journalism about being hailed as Blackpool's answer to Kylie and being voted the sound of 2009. The singer, whose debut album 'Hands' reached number five in the charts, believes she can now put all the hype behind her and concentrate on her live shows.

The Remedy singer broke into the top 40 with New in Town and immediately caused the music press to compare her to a long list of pop icons - past and present. But now Victoria 'Little Boots' Hesketh is coming to terms with life as an artist in demand, something she admits has both its high and low points.

"It's just a bunch of people in London, no one else cares," she said on being compared with chart-toppers Lily Allen and La Roux. "There are similiarities so if they want to join the dots they can but we’re all really different."

Little Boots has only been in the pop consciousness for a year and a half, yet paparazzi are lurking by the venue back doors, and the newspapers still want to know more about Britain's latest synth-pop export. After arriving in Liverpool on the tour bus usually occupied by 80s synth icon Gary Numan, she told JMU Journalism about the pressures her recent fame has placed her under.

"Sometimes its fine, its fun and you meet really nice people and they ask some really interesting questions. Sometimes its so boring you want to shoot yourself in the head and you just feel like a parrot," she said. "It's mainly when you’re on a really crackly line in somewhere like Poland and they’re asking ‘so why are you a little boots?’ and I'm just like 'oh my god'... it totally varies."

Little Boots is no stranger to the music industry after touring the country as one quarter of minor Leeds indie band, Dead Disco. She doesn't miss life with her old band mates and despite the work, says she loves where she is right now.

"I’ve got my band so all the bits that I would miss like playing on stage with people and being on tour with all the banter, I have. I don’t have all the politics of being in a band and all the stuff that comes with it. Everyone knows what they’re here for and we have a great time."

But things are not always so great in the Little Boots camp. She recently posted a picture of Alice falling down the rabbit hole as her day's blog entry after a show in Japan. "I was just feeling really screwed up," she confessed. "There are just days when I absolutely freak out. I work really hard and get really tired since it's been a relentless year."

In total, Hesketh has played 33 festivals this year including SXSW in Texas and Summer Sonic in Japan, as well appearances on Live With Jools Holland, Friday Night With Jonathan Ross and Never Mind The Buzzcocks.

"I'm kind of surprised how fast things have gone, in a way. I’m in the middle of this huge tour and its been a mad, mad year but if it hadn’t have been I would have been disappointed," she said.

The third single, Earthquake, has just been released from her debut album. It's as catchy and unashamedly poppy as her previous efforts so she just might have to get used to those media tags.

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