ONTD

Hello Lily, where are you?

I'm in my hotel room in New York.

You had your visa revoked when you visited the States in 2007. It must be nice to get into the country now.

I was really sad when I got my visa taken off me, but at the same time I was really exhausted and it felt a bit of a blessing in disguise. I know it will be a bit hard for people to read that as they bought tickets and I had to cancel shows. But at the same time I did really need to come home. I'd been on the road for a year and I just needed to be home with my friends and family.

So what's different now?

Well, I've completely changed the way I think about playing live. I'm really enjoying it, giving people a show. Before I was just getting drunk, wandering around onstage and moaning, which isn't much fun if you've paid for a ticket. So thank the nice people at immigration for putting me on the path to a rethink.

In other news, you've been talking shit to the papers again saying that you're going to retire from music...

I didn't say that. Someone asked me where I could see myself in 10 year's time and I said that I didn't know - obviously that becomes "Lily Allen Is Retiring From Music". You can't ask me a question like that - who knows? I'm not giving up right now. I'm doing pretty well and I'm enjoying what I'm doing. Just don't trust what you read in the papers...

On that note, can I put an amazing newspaper rumor to you?

(Sigh) Go on...

I read a piece about how you've become a massive diva and have been running a competition for who's going to sit next to you on the plane.

That was a joke. I did a radio interview in Australia, and when you do a promotional tour the record company pay for all the flights. So I always fly business class because I've got to get off and do interviews straight away so I need my sleep, and the record company pays for one person to come up the front with me. I was doing an interview and my tour manager happened to be there, and it came to light that he had been booking himself in that seat. So I made the joke that if people work really well they can come and sit with me. I was never serious about it!

Right, it's 10 years since Napster and all that - where do you stand on illegal downloading?

I don't know. If what the consumer wants is good music then they need to start paying for it, because at the moment there is so little money in the music industry. And as we all know, the music industry is run by a bunch of fucking idiots who have no idea what they are doing, and if you're giving those people less money they are going to invest in bands that aren't very good. The more money there is in the industry, the more they are going to invest in quality bands. It's up to the consumer, really.

Do you not feel that when there was money in the music industry they tended to waste it by signing loads of rubbish bands?

To a certain extent, yeah. But if you're a record company executive and you have a pile of money you're more likely to invest all of it in one act you're sure is going to do well - a Leona Lewis type - than you are in five up-and-coming new bands that you're going to be taking a bit of a punt on. There are people really struggling to make their way. They're getting dropped much quicker, not being given the opportunity to make second albums. The only people responsible for that are those who are downloading music illegally because there is no money going towards those bands anymore.

Do you get pissed off when people download your record illegally then?

No, not really. I would have been pissed off if I was making a lot out of it 10-15 years ago, but I've never made money from records, ever. I make my money from touring as much as I can.

It's almost two years since the smoking ban came to England. Do you miss the good old days?

There are certain places that should have smoking. I went to a jazz club called the Green Mill in Chicago the other night which was absolutely incredible: there was this blind guy playing the organ and an amazing singer and guitarist, and I just wanted to smoke. I mean, it's been there since the Al Capone days, and it was one of the first jazz clubs in the world, and you just felt like you were meant to smoke in there.

Next question - are you loving the Blur reunion?

Yeah, I love Blur.

What's your favorite song?

Maybe Boys and Girls. But I never get the words right.

That's because it's Girls and Boys. Actually, I interviewed Graham Coxon the other day and he said you were a "lovely girl"...

That's nice! Damon and I have had our ups and downs, but we're friends on Facebook and I do really like him. I was a bit dubious about him growing up because my dad was on the Alex James side when they were falling out. I think my dad made it a bit hard for the rest of Blur because he was out getting completely fucked with Alex, and I think that probably annoyed them quite a lot.

I imagine it did. Cheers Lil!

Source: this week's NME

i agree with her on people needing to put more money into music but only if it followed a Bandstocks sort of model where the money goes direct to supporting the artist. i can barely stand to give money to her own record label (EMI) since they're total assholes.