It isn't a conscious image change. What happened was I decided to change my hair colour and through changing the colour of my hair it got damaged and so I ended up having it cut short which wasn't a problem 'cos I'm not... you know I'm not that bothered about my appearance. But the funny think is the media have really read into it and analysed it, like you know I'm breaking away from the way I used to be and I've really changed and I've not. So in some respects they've done me a favour by giving me this whole new image change without me even trying and in another respect it is a little bit annoying. I'm not really trying to break away from anything, I'm just, you know, doing something I want to do. You know the girls... two of the girls got pregnant, went off and had babies, so it was a little bit of down time for the Spice Girls. We're very much still together as a band. In fact we've been in the studio for a month recording our third album which is going really, really well, but you know previous to that we had a few months to ourselves and I thought well it's a good time for me to get my act together and get some music down.

Did you feel you needed the freedom of a solo album to reveal your true musical self?

I think it was just another part of me. I mean it's very nice and very liberating to be on your own, it was exciting, it was nerve-wracking, but no matter what, I'm still Sporty, I'm still Melanie C, I'm still one quarter of the Spice Girls and I'm very much a Spice Girl so people... the media are you know trying to twist things and that but they can go ahead, we're stronger than ever.

There's a variety of musical styles on this album, how did you decide which tracks to put on there, what order to put them in and what do you think holds it all together?

With the tracklisting and also the songs that appear on the album, for me it was just the running order that felt right, you know, it took you... well hopefully it takes a listener where I wanted them to go with the album. Also, there's so many songs that have been left off the album, not because they weren't of a good enough standard because I just had so much material and just what fit best together eventually made the album. So I'm going to have very strong b-sides and you know, hopefully if the appropriate film should come up I'll be on some soundtracks as well. It was such a hard process deciding what was going to go on the album 'cos as I said before I had what I feel such great songs, songs that I really loved and was sad, you know, not to see them on the album, but I'll find a home for them I'm sure. But as for putting them all together... and also because I've used a number of different producers as well, and that was something that I think a lot of artists fear, you know, is like not having an overall sound, it sounded a bit mishmash. But it's something that I'm not afraid of, I like to listen to a lot of compilation albums and you know in America soundtracks are the big thing and so obviously there you've got different artists, you've got different bands, different producers and so on. I think the running theme is that it's all from me, you know, lyrically and melodically it's all things I've been through, it's my experiences. And then the sounds, I mean vocally I've chosen to use my voice in different ways on different tracks but it's still my voice and I think to someone who's familiar with my voice that's quite apparent and then maybe that is the running theme that holds it all together.

How would you describe the Melanie C sound?

I think you'll find on this album there's a variety of styles going on, mainly because I like to listen to all different types of music, I love to perform different types of music as well, you know going back again to the Spice Girls it's something we've always done. But I think with this album it probably does go off more in a rock direction primarily because that's the music I prefer to listen to.

Being a Spice Girl, you must have people queuing up to work with you as well as a ready-made audience...

I'm so lucky and so grateful to have been and still be in the Spice Girls, you know. Through its success it has made people familiar with me, so many fantastic people wanted and were willing to work with me and I was just blown away so... And as well for the fans, we've got very, very supportive fans and they're always right behind us and we haven't had a lot of Spice Girls activities going on since Christmas but we still get inundated with fan mail, they're always... whenever we're attending something they're always there showing their support so we're very lucky. But I don't know, maybe this is going to be a little bit different. I hope that they like it as well, you know I don't want to alienate anybody, this is an album for anybody and everybody.

Which producers did you choose to work with?

The first person who I wanted... at first I wanted William Orbit to produce the album but he actually approached me before I started writing and he'd read in an interview that you know I'd listened to a lot of his music and that I was a fan of his and so he was interested in us working together. Now in the end it worked out he was so busy and I've been so busy we only got together at the last minute and 'Go!', the first song on the album, ironically was the last song that was written and is the only one that was co-written and produced by William Orbit. But you know we hope to work together again in the future. And then other than that, Rick Rubin who's also a producer on the album, since meeting him a year ago with the Spice Girls he's become a really good friend and you know I really wanted him to work on the album. I love all the stuff he's done before and he heard the tracks and he was really into it so we had a great time doing some stuff together. And then there was Marius De Vries as well, I love his work, he's done the last two Madonna albums and also he's just produced a new band called The Lucy Nation (?) which is great. So I got in touch with him, he heard the stuff and he wanted to be a part of it so we did some stuff together, that was cool. And then Rhett Lawrence is the other producer on there and we just done a couple of tracks together, one of them is on the album, and he knows Left Eye from TLC and that's how that came about 'cos I wanted a rap on the song in that style actually. It was funny 'cos they said 'oh I can hear like a TLC kind of rap' and then he goes 'oh I know Left Eye.' And it was like 'uhh?' So that all came together and that was great 'cos she's my favourite out of TLC. In fact most of the people I've worked with on the album I've worked with them because I really like them as people, and then the Left Eye thing because I just admire her so much I think she's fantastic, she's such a great personality you know and she has got such an individual style of rapping, so I'm lucky to have her on there. But I've not got her on as like you know a token TLC rap in it, it's not that at all it's because I really like her.

You've been very involved with the songwriting for this album, who did you write with?

I've done a lot of the writing... well I done some of the writing here in England, in London, and some in Dublin as well. I worked... at first when I started it was like Spice Girls collaborations, it's friends of mine, people who I'm comfortable with, and we got some great tracks. I worked with Elliot Kennedy who done a lot of work on 'Spice' the first album and Matt and Biff who you know we work with all the time and then I wanted to look further afield, I wanted to experiment, I wanted to work with new people. So Rick Nowels was interested in working with me so I met him and we got on very well and then that has become quite a dream collaboration actually, we worked really, really well together and we wrote not only the songs on the album but we've written a lot of songs together. Also Phil Thornally, the Spice Girls worked with him quite a few years ago, about four years ago, we done some work together and I enjoyed working with him. I met him again through Bryan Adams actually and I really loved his work he'd done with Natalie Imbruglia and so we got together and wrote some great songs. It was all quite coincidental, all the people who I worked with it just sort of fell into place and like I say there's people who I want to work with and people who've approached me and hopefully I'll work with them in the future.

You say LA suits you - what is it about the city that you really love?

It's just the way of life there you know, you're so close to the beach and then you've got the mountains and it's a very exciting place. There's so many stars there, there's always something going on, I think it's a bit like... it's a bit of a fairy tale for me. You know, I come from up north in England from a very working class background and to be staying in Hollywood, you know, I used to go out running and I'd see the Hollywood sign in the Hollywood Hills and it just makes me go 'cor, I can't believe it' you know. There's a lot more privacy for celebrities out there which is nice and also being away from the British tabloid press is always nice because when you're far away from it and it's not shoved in your face every day and everyone on radio and TV's talking about you or, you know, the lies that have been printed about you, if you don't see it and hear it you don't really care so that's a welcome relief.

Did you do much mixing with the stars while you were in LA?

When I was in America I was working with Rick Rubin and through that collaboration I got one of my songs on the Big Daddy soundtrack so one of the events that I went to is the Big Daddy premiere and I met Adam Sandler there. Gosh, who else did I meet? I went to the Nickelodeon Kid's Choice awards and there was people like Drew Barrymore, Monica, all kinds of people, it's quite hard to remember now. Another premiere I went to with Melanie G, her song 'Word Up's' on the Austin Powers, the second Austin Powers movie - I won't say the title of that one! Yes, we went along to that so that was quite cool and Mike Myers was there. So it's pretty cool, it's an exciting place, so if you ever get the opportunity to be there it is a good place to be.

Is Madonna still a great idol of yours?

You know Madonna's a great inspiration of mine, I've always looked up to her, and the funny thing is I never, in the early days, I never really thought her music was that great, it's just her as a persona you know. And now I've been lucky enough... I've met her quite a few times and she is such a great woman, she's so intelligent and she's just got this aura, you know. It's like 'cos whenever I go... whenever I know she's going to be around and I want to see her I get so nervous and then as soon as she arrives she's just got this air about her that you just feel comfortable in her presence. You know she's got nothing to prove and just when you look back... I love watching things, you know when they have like the little things on TV like on VH1 or whatever about looking over the years, all what she's done and all what she's achieved, it's absolutely amazing. And you know if I can look back on my life when I'm 40, as old as she is - 'cos she's 41 now - if I can have achieved half as much as she has over the years then I'll be happy.