Charlotte Church: 'I still haven't done the music which is mine yet, which is quite exciting'

Speaking over Zoom, the 36-year-old's enthusiasm for a show in which the songs of En Vogue and David Bowie rub shoulders with the likes of Kate Bush and Nine Inch Nails, is certainly infectious.

She explains the Late Night Pop Dungeon was first conceived for an All Tomorrow's Parties bill curated by the comedian Stewart Lee. "It was quite an indie-boy, beard-strokey festival in which he was putting a load of complex improvisational jazz on. (Stewart) had seen me sing God Only Knows at (one of Robin Ince and Brian Cox's) live Infinite Monkey Cage shows and he said 'I'd love you to do something in this All Tomorrow's Parties I'm curating'. I was thinking it doesn't make sense for me to do the live show that I've been doing with my EPs because we were a couple of years away from that, so I was like, let's do the best ever covers band which was really musical and that really delved into the depths of all of the best music that's ever existed."

Hence she set about creating a "really interesting collage piece which mashed up the likes of Nelly and Black Sabbath and Edwin Starr and Destiny's Child", that took influence from "so many different areas and genres" but also included "things which were on the peripheral, songs which are right on the edge of consciousness, not songs which are in the mainstream but ones where you go, 'I haven't heard that for ages but it's amazing’”.

The multiple genres represented in the set are indicative of Church's own tastes. "I'm into pretty much everything," she says. "There's some metal and jungle that is a bit much for me, but I'm into everything else pretty much, whether that's 1,000-year-old polyphonic Georgian folk music or nu soul or gospel or everything in between. I am a huge lover of music and it really helps me move through life."

She decided to end the Pop Dungeon now to stop it going stale. "Music is such a precious gem, it's such a beautiful thing, we on stage all love it," she says. "We're all great friends and we have such an amazing time performing together and watching what it does to audiences, so it's been such a joy and a privilege to be a part of it and we just want to leave it to be this amazing thing that is like a brief moment in time and if you were there you were there and you understand what it is.

"People absolutely adore it and I just wanted it to stay this little nugget of gorgeousness. There is a natural progression to things and if you do it for too long a period of time then it loses that magic, and I don't want it to lose the magic."

This tour affords her the opportunity to revisit the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds, a venue of which she speaks highly. "It's got so much character to it, it's always a pleasure to come and play at the Brudenell," she says. "I'm looking forward to playing in Manchester as well because the gigs we've done there have always been amazing. The North and Wales have a lot in common, I think."

It's now eight years since Church released the last of a series of four EPs which showcased an interest in alternative rock that was a far cry from the classical music of her childhood. She says she has been too much of a "busy bee in other areas" to write new material. "It was difficult," she says. "I loved the EP project, I'm so proud of them, but it was almost like future music, it was a bit too blended. People didn't quite understand, they need something a bit more linear, it was like 'Well, what are you? Are you indie, are you R&B, are you prog, are you folk?' You can't smash them all together in a large Hadron collider like particles and I'm like, 'Why not?'

"There were times when there were shows that we did where there was hardly anybody there, then the Daily Mail would write some scathing article which was supposed to be shaming me for not being as popular as I have been. It was a humbling process of trying to branch out of this box that I'd been put in by a number of people and experiences, and just wanting to be more creative and more of an artist, but I still haven't done the music that is mine yet, which is quite exciting, really, that I've still got that to pull out of me. I think that's what will happen over the next decade musically for me."

Uppermost in Church's thoughts at the moment is The Dreaming, her wellness retreat at Rhydoldog House, the former home of designer Laura Ashley, in Powys, Wales. "I'm going to be a sound healer," she says. "I'm really fascinated with how we used sound and how we use the voice in terms of connecting people with themselves, with their grief, their joy, again which is something that Pop Dungeon does but to do it from my own soul, rather than somebody else's magic. I'm going to be concentrating on what is my magic over the next couple of years."

It's a project in which she has reportedly invested £1.5m, and has been the subject of a television series, Charlotte Church's Dream Build, on the Really channel.

After years of political activism, Church feels she has reconnected with her own voice in recent times. "Part of that was, I suppose, just growing up and starting to sort my s*** out, which I think your thirties is all about, in a way," she says. "Your twenties are chaotic and you're trying to figure it all out and then your thirties are all, ‘ooh, that's dark’ and you start to realise you're a bit f***ed.

"So it's understanding how we heal trauma but also I think it's been a shift from being quite a vocal, out-there political activist and realising that wasn't getting me very far. It still think that it's worthwhile, we need those people who will put their head above the parapet and all of that stuff, but I wanted to put my money where my mouth was and I wanted to live my values and that meant setting things up, whether it was the Awen Project which is an education charity I've set up which is about setting up small, free-to-attend democratic learning communities in woodland settings, or whether it's about Pop Dungeon or whether it's about The Dreaming and developing as a sound healer.

“I see a lot of suffering within my community and this country, and the human race at large, and I wanted to do something which felt meaningful and which was helping, that's in part what all of my work is about now. In a way I've been soothing people with my voice since I was a little girl – that whole idea of Voice of an Angel. I used to get so many letters and people waiting for me after shows saying 'When my grandmother had Alzheimer's we would play her your music and she would remember'. Loads of lovely stories like that, so in a way I feel it's what I've always provided, but now I'm really conscious of it, so now I really want to be intentional and harness that.”

Among Church’s television projects of recent years was Inside My Brain, a documentary for the BBC about research into mental health. The issues covered in it seem to have only been amplified by the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis.

“There’s a lack of knowledge around it and I don’t know why, because mental health is talked about so much,” she reflects. “We just don’t go into the science of it.

“There’s so much information now about neuroscience and how the brain works, things which are good for our mental health, things which are good for neuroplasticity, and I think in a way because lots of broadcasters and the guardians and gatekeepers of media perceive people as stupid, they’re constantly aiming for lowest common denominator stuff, when actually people need this really useful information about alternative therapies which are out there, about how little SSRIs (antidepresant drugs) actually work.

“I’m passionate about healing and wellbeing. I suppose it’s just letting the veil drop of understanding. There’s so much given by the media that we take in, even if that’s watching YouTubers or whatever, it’s all through this lens of consumerist capitalism and lowest common denominator bull**** because people think the general public is thick, and it’s just not true.

“I’m passionate about empowering people, there’s loads of stuff they can do to help their quality of life and loads of it is free – stuff like breathing. There are so many simple breathing techniques which don’t require an app or a teacher, it just requires you knowing the benefits of breathing through your nose and elongating your out-breath – three seconds in, six seconds out – it does wonders for anxiety and depression, different physical illnesses. It’s really simple and it’s totally free.”

On a lighter note, Church also took part in ITV’s Masked Singer earlier this year, finishing as runner-up. She says it appealed because she could “have a play with my voice and see if I could sing in a different way”. “They also said I could design my own costume,” she adds. “So I worked with the amazing designers and costume makers at The Masked Singer to make (her character) Mushroom. I’m really passionate about the mycelial network and fungi and how it supports all life on Earth. Again, it’s just a connection with nature that I’m really passionate about, so I thought ‘why not?’”

Charlotte Church's Late Night Pop Dungeon is at Brudenell Social Club, Leeds on December 8. https://linktr.ee/therealcharlottechurch