BONNIE TYLER
TYLER
BONNIE TYLER TELLS CLASSIC POP HOW SHE SPENT 2020, THE KEY TO KEEPING HER VOICE IN CHECK AND HER EAGERNESS TO GET BACK ON THE ROAD TO SHARE HER WONDERFULLY ESCAPIST NEW ALBUM
FELIX ROWE
Bonnie Tyler returns with her 18th studio album – complete with nods to her 80s pomp years
All photos ©Tina Korhonen
THE CREATOR
With spare time hardly at a premium, 2020 was the year of the lockdown project.
Seriously, one week, the guy across the road buffed his hubcaps at least eight days in succession. But what does bona fide powerhouse Bonnie Tyler do when 80 gigs and a stonking new album suddenly get put on ice?
“I thoroughly enjoyed the rest, I must say! I was going to be on the road all year… but I haven’t wasted my time,” Bonnie tells us. “I’ve done a lot of sorting out in the house, in the wardrobes, and god knows what, you know?”
Bonnie Tyler probably has a few more gold discs cluttering up the understairs cupboard than most. But as we catch up to discuss her latest plans, the inner diva we might have expected is nowhere to be found. The showbiz anecdotes are aplenty but, delivered with a warm, lilting Welsh cadence that couldn’t be further from the husky tones on record, she’s entirely devoid of flashiness or affectation. Chatting away over the phone, it’s like having a chinwag with a favourite aunt that you haven’t seen for a while. It’s only the casual bombshell dropped here and there – “so, when I was singing for the Pope, right?” – that reminds you you’re, in fact, speaking to a pop legend.