Steps singer Claire Richards admits she's "excited" but "nervous" as she prepares for the release of her second solo album, Euphoria.
The songstress burst onto the scenes in 1995 as one-fifth of the boot scootin' pop group but in 2019, made the move as a solo artist releasing five tracks from her debut album, My Wildest Dreams.
Steps 45, is now preparing to drop her second album, Euphoria, which she has been working on for months, while fans were completely unaware.
Featuring some of her favourite tracks including Loreen's winning Eurovision song Euphoria, No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) and the first single, I Surrender, out now, Claire is once again cementing her status as pop royalty.
"I'm quite excited, I'm a bit nervous, obviously," the mum-of-two said about the news before adding: "You've got to be a little bit, you just never know.
"I'm very excited, it all feels good, it feels like we've made a really good record that people are going to love, it's really exciting."
Discussing covering some of the most famous songs, Claire joked: "When we were compiling the list of songs, I think we didn't quite think through that I would have to sing more than one of them in one go.
"I just knew I wanted bangers and to choose the singers and songs that I've chosen – I've also not picked the most obvious songs, I knew I wanted to do Whitney (Houston), Celine (Dion) and Karen Carpenter so that was the kickoff.
"Like with Song for the Lonely, I think that's a great song, it wasn't one for Cher that was obviously one of the hits at the time."
Claire originally performed her first release, I Surrender (Celine Dion cover) on The Ultimate Tour with Steps back in 2012 but has majorly revamped the track.
"Celine's version is a ballad and I did it as a ballad on tour all those years ago," she said before adding: "I wanted to breathe new life into it and when we were talking about which songs to do for Celine, I was like 'you can make I Surrender a banger, easily'.
"I just sang it, I didn't have anything to do with the production," she joked.
While Claire's fans knew she was working again, they had no idea she was preparing for a full album and despite a leak of "old disco" tracks, she's "glad of" the misdirect.
She said: "I don't think anybody's twigged that this is what it's going to be, I just hope everyone is going to be excited about it."
On the record, Claire teamed up with Aussie icon Delta Goodrem for No More Tears (Enough Is Enough), which she says was surreal.
"Steve Anderson, my producer said 'What about Delta?' and were like 'Well that would be amazing but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't do it', it was a little bit of pie in the sky, he said he'd ask her.
"He did and she said yes, then she had the whole thing with her voice and it was a bit touch and go as to whether she could actually do it, but she said yes straight away, and was really excited and it and loves it, I think it's turned out really good."
I Surrender is available to download/steam here while Euphoria is available to pre-order here.
