Being in the final 50 on The X Factor and then suddenly getting to sing with Akon & Snoop Dogg on an upbeat track, Redd is the next big thing to look out for. 

We got to have a chat with Redd about her new single 'Rogue', her inspirations and her experience being on a track with Akon & Snoop Dogg. 

Redd! How are you? What have you been up to?

I'm great thank you! So, recently I've been doing a lot of writing which has been fun because I have been working with numerous songwriters up and down the UK, which has been quite surreal really. I like to try and connect with new talent in the industry because I think it's really important that we're in a time where the music industry has evolved so much and with the global pandemic everything's remote working, so you've got more room to kind of really branch and reach out to these connections. I've been really lucky that I've managed to start a really good relationship with them. I do still work a day job, funnily enough I try and avoid this conversation but I think people need to understand that I have fans that see the stuff I do and I don't think they realise that I'm just a normal person. I work as a quantity surveyor, so it's the complete opposite end of the spectrum but it brings the pennies home and lots of room on evenings and weekends to do what I love doing which is music.  

So, how was it working with Akon & Snoop Dogg on the track ‘I’m a Day Dreaming’?

So this is really interesting right? This was quite sometime ago now. When I left The X Factor in 2010, I got to the final fifty so I didn't make the judges houses. Not long after that, it was a sad time for me, broke my heart not going to lie, it was kind of my first taste of a real No! in the industry. So not long after that, I had a moment when I was very sad, I didn't do anything and I sort of picked myself back up again. I actually put myself on Star Now and it was from there I was approached by a gentlemen who wanted to discuss my music in more detail. It turned out it was an American label that wanted to sign me as an artist. 

From that came the 'I'm a Day Dreaming' single with Akon and Snoop Dogg but the funny thing is they kind of wanted to keep costs down. So we recorded in Manchester, while they did what they did over there. We never actually met! It was still amazing and surreal. When it got released, it came out and I was like, "That's me!" I couldn't believe it. We were watching the iTunes Chart and it climbed the top 10 in Japan and then it went to number 2. The press jumped on it and they would write "X factor reject, is big in Japan". It was mental! I really enjoyed it! 

In May you released a track called ‘Robot Love’ with Xamplify. What was the reaction like?

To be fair there wasn't much of one but, we got the analytics with how it's gone because it was signed over in the Philippines. There wasn't really a push of it this side of the world with Xamplify being based in Australia, he is an amazing artist and we worked on some bounce music many years ago and that took off in Australia. All my friends love it! It has really good vibes and very 'festival' but again as I've been doing this for many years, I'm still new to the industry as an artist. There are talks of official remix of the song which will bring it back to life!

Who inspires you?

I grew up listening to the likes of Avril Lavigne, P!nk, System of a Down and Muse but P!nk absolutely. I just watched her documentary recently and she's just incredible. If you don't feel inspired after watching that then I don't know how anybody can get inspired [laughs]. 

She's just incredible, she's an example of being able to do anything you want to do whilst having a family. If she can do it, there's no reason I can't! I sing a lot of P!nk songs still and people normally tell me I sing like her and ask me "Is that why your name is Redd?" and I say no it's from my maiden name which was Aldred, so I just use the end of that name which is Red. If you go back to the Day Dreaming time, someone asked me, "Do you have an artist name?" cause at the time I didn't want it to be Amy (which is my real name) and I was like "Yep I do, it's Redd". 

Where do you get your fashion inspirations from?

I see all the trends and stuff but I just do what I do! I do things that I feel comfortable in and I just own it. As long as I'm happy in myself, it's absolutely irrelevant, it's not my business what other people think. 

You’ve got a new single called 'Rogue'. Can you please tell us the message behind the song? 

When I was with the label I signed with many years ago we did music, we did some big releases. They actually never fulfilled their end of the deal and where royalties were concerned, they didn't pay and they left me broke. Essentially we went through a bit of a battle and it just got out of hand and in the end, it just died down cause we couldn't get anywhere, they couldn't get anywhere and the jurisdiction wasn't UK law anyway. They ended up shelving me for a long time, I still went on and signed with smaller independent labels cause they weren't stopping me. These words have been written in the bag for quite sometime and when I heard this instrumental from a producer, I explained what I wanted because I'm completely free from everything and any kind of tie now I reached out to an old friend, he came back with this beat and I was like that's the one! I met Caroline and she helped me on this, let's get a melody together first and then we can try and get the story in to this track. I wanted to make sure the listeners would listen and engage from it and realise that I've been through something and I've come out the other side. My friends listened to it and said that's it a track that motivates them and that's what I wanted. When we finally got it, I could finally get it off my chest!

Lastly, have you got any new projects coming out that you would like to tell our readers?

So I recently collaborated with a band that's set to blow next year. They are a rock band called 'State of Romance' and we did this tune, it was so good to do. We've got a baseline track coming out too and we've got loads of support from DJ Eazy as well as more collaborated stuff coming out soon!