SHARING ROMANTIC MEMORIES - JOSS STONE

ON MARRIAGE, PLANS TO ADOPT AND MOVING BACK TO HER BELOVED DEVON

- RACHEL CORCORAN

It’s been a busy few years for Grammy and Brit award-winning artist Joss Stone.

As well as touring Europe and the US, releasing new material and writing the soundtrack for musical The Time Traveller’s Wife, the 37-year-old has had children Violet, now three, and 19-month-old Shackleton, with Cody DaLuz, 35, whom she married in an impromptu service in their home town of Nashville last year.

Joss, who released her acclaimed debut album The Soul Sessions in 2003 aged just 16, and has been friends with Princes William and Harry for more than a decade, met fellow musician Cody at the end of her Total World Tour in 2014, and her new track Loving You – her first solo single in two years – encapsulates the beginning of their relationship.

“I wrote it while I was in that feeling of: ‘I don’t know if he likes me,’” she tells HELLO! in our exclusive interview. “I feel like it bottled that anticipation.”

Joss, you’re in the middle of a US tour, how’s it going?

“Good! The gigs are so nice; American crowds have amazing ‘woo-offs’, I’ve realised – you don’t really have to do anything. You just walk out there and they’re like: ‘Wooo!’ Screaming. They give me a lot, which is really cool.”

Are your children with you?

“They’re at home in Nashville. I first went without them on my last trip to Europe when I played the Royal Albert Hall so this is the second time and I thought it was going to be really bad. But I can’t sleep when my babies are next to me and if I can’t sleep, I can’t sing.

“So I was like: it’s two weeks, let’s do this. For the first week, I had tears in my eyes chatting to them and was a hormonal nightmare. But after a week, I realised Violet and Shack are having so much fun, they’re fine.