SHOWBIZ SPECIAL: Sandi sets the record straight

CHANCES are, six months ago Scots singer Sandi Thom would rather have run a mile than tell me about her worst music business moments, about her unrequited love or how she toilet-trains the men in her life.

But it turns out the performer, who burst onto the music scene two years ago with the song I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers in my Hair), has had something of an epiphany.

"When my career kicked off I took the rough with the smooth early on with the media," she says.

"And that clipped my tongue in interviews. I didn't say what I really felt in case I said something wrong. I shied away from being honest. But then I came to realise that people would never know what sort of character I was if I didn't say what I was really thinking.

"Now, I just say what's in my head. I've learnt that honesty is the best policy. "

It's easy to understand why the lady from the fishing town of Macduff, in Aberdeenshire, battened down the hatches.

No sooner had Punk Rocker hit the No 1 spot than Sandi was accused of dodgy dealings.

It was claimed that, despite what her record label PR had claimed, she hadn't in fact landed a record deal after a series of bedroom internet broadcasts. But true or not, Sandi suffered from the backlash, with a wave of angry critics subsequently labelling her music derivative', pretentious' and her lyrics nonsensical'.

One writer even called her The musical anti-Christ.' "I was really hurt by that," she says. "You can't brush it off. At the time I didn't have a clue how to deal with it. I had no experience of the media or interviews.

"But now I know that when someone calls me the anti-Christ it's not personal, that they're trying to be clever in talking about my music."

At 27, Sandi can now take a positive view of her early life.

"It's fair to say I've suffered my fair share of trials and tribulations," she says, smiling, with some understatement. "Maybe more so than some people my age."

That's true. She didn't grow up in poverty, far from it - her dad was a pilot - and she attended public school in Aberdeen, and her mum was among other things, a property developer. But her parents did divorce, Sandi suffered a cervical cancer scare when she was 19, and she has endured the pain that comes from being in love with someone who is completely oblivious to the fact.

"My current boyfriend Jake and I were friends for years, we lived in a flat together. But I was in love with him from the first minute and he didn't know it.

"I was the loneliest girl in the world because I had just moved to London - and yet I was two feet away from the man whom I knew was The One. But nothing happened."

She adds, grinning: "It took seven years before we went on a date."

"But the thing is, I've loved this whole life journey - you need experiences in life to be able to write songs.

"If I had to the chance to go on X Factor I wouldn't take it, because what I've experienced on my little journey has been so valuable."

The lady with the rock star looks doesn't sound in the least bit precious. When you ask, for example, if her femininity is under threat after being cooped up for days on end with blokes on a tour bus she tells it like it is.

"It's certainly not feminine to get out of your face and wake up with that same face stuck to a bus window," she says, laughing.

"Yet, it can be tough being one of just four girls on a bus with about 20 guys. I have one major rule; the boys have to lift the toilet seat and put it back down again.

"And I get the bus driver to partition off a bit off space so we can get changed and do make-up and stuff. Thankfully, I've mastered the art of getting off the bus looking like I've stepped out of a salon."

However, Sandi loves her red carpet moments, the chance to dress up and put nice shoes on. And the chance to meet her idols.

"I met Paul McCartney," she gushes. "And Annie Lennox. She was really nice, but I went bright red."

And it's nice that Sandi was flustered in the midst of pop royalty. It suggests she's no diva.

"Yes, but even if you're not a diva you can come across as one," she says, grinning.

"For example, I always ask to have water at room temperature - it's better for the voice. But people take it the wrong way."

Yet, describe her as a singer/songwriter and the conversation hits a wrong note.

"That has a folky, dowdy, hippy image attached to it," she says, a little miffed. "I look more to people like Chrissie Hynde. And with my third album I'm keen to push the boundaries."

Sandi wants to be a rock chick. And why not? She's a time-served musician who's had her face stuck to tour bus windows.

"Yes, I have," she says, grinning. "Although in Edinburgh recently the boys were getting really drunk on Canadian whisky while I was a proper girl, though.

"I stuck to Bailey's."