Interview With Ricki-Lee Coulter on The Voice, Working With Seal and Do It Like That Video Clip

by Jessica Chandra 2

Ricki-Lee Coulter’s career is on fire right now. She returned to the Australian music scene a few months ago with her (now platinum) single “Raining Diamonds,” and she has just released “Do It Like That,” the second single from her upcoming third album. As someone who has seen the ups and downs of the industry, she’s also sharing her experiences with some of the contestants on The Voice, acting as mentor on Team Seal. We caught up with Ricki-Lee at the opening party of Marquee on Friday night, where she talked about working with Seal and her hot new video clip, which was released today.

How did you find your mentoring gig on The Voice?
That was a really amazing experience. It’s not often enough that you get to help out other artists with your experience, [especially] up-and-coming artists, to be able to put my experience into words that are gonna help these guys be more comfortable on stage and help them be better artists — if there’s one thing I could’ve said to them that made a difference, then that’s kind of my job done. And to be able to see the results of that advice and help actually happen in front of my eyes was a really incredible experience.

Are you involved beyond the battle rounds?
It was just for the battle rounds. It was just to whip his [Seal’s] team into shape. That’s what the mentors are for, to get [the contestants] confident to go out on that stage and to be the best that they can be.

More from Ricki-Lee, as well as her new video clip, when you keep reading.

What’s it been like to work with Seal?
He is such a lovely man. One word: he’s a gentleman. He’s the perfect gentleman. He’s so lovely, he’s so genuine, he’s so caring. You would think someone as legendary and iconic as him, you expect a little bit of ego, but he’s so lovely and down-to-earth.

And focusing on you, you have your music video for “Do It Like That” coming out on Monday. What was that like to shoot and what can we expect?
With this clip, I came up with the concept, I styled the entire thing. The creative direction for the entire thing came from me, so it’s really exciting for me. I handpicked the team that I wanted to work with that were gonna bring my vision to life, from the director, to the hair and makeup people, to the styling assistants, to the dancers. I spent five months working collaboratively with my choreographer, Marko Panzic, to put together choreography that was going to suit the song, and really bring out the cheekiness of it. I’m really proud of it. I just spent the last week in the edit suite pulling it altogether to get everything looking as amazing as it does. I want to be proud of it at the end of the day. This is completely, entirely me.