"We met through mutual friends who helped set it up last year," she said. "I like that it wasn't forced. We just met and wrote a song, and it was a great experience."

"Stevie is one of my favourite artists of all time," she said.

He's a mainstay on her playlist, as is a lot of old Motown music, but Lott revealed that she had musical guilty pleasures as well.

"Punk rock. Oh, and High School Musical," she said, laughing. "You've always got to have some High School Musical on your playlist."

No worries about her veering too far in either of these directions though.

"I think as I get older, I'll just keep doing soul ballads," she said.

Lott has also been hard at work rehearsing for the festivals she'll be performing at this summer, including the V Festival and Chester Rocks, both in the UK.

Between work and her long-term relationship with UK model Oliver Cheshire, Lott has had no time to continue her dabbling in fashion and movies.

In 2010, she starred in indie flick Fred: The Movie, and last year, she completed her fourth and final collection for fashion brand Lipsy.

"I wish I had the time to do more acting and more designing, but there isn't much space for it right now," she said.

Eventually, though, she'd like to have her own fashion line.

"I'd love it to be my own range, my own work, but it takes up a lot of time," she said. "When I was doing the (Lipsy) ranges, I had a sketchbook with me all the time, and I was putting together fabrics and things like that.

"It's a lot of fun. I'd have to be able to concentrate on it properly to do it again."

Is she also busy plotting how to ride the British pop wave currently crashing the shores of America? "I would certainly love to, but it would have to be the right time," she said.

Giggling when we mention boy band du jour One Direction, she described them as "basically five Justin Biebers".

"I can see why the girls are into them," she said, laughing.

When LOUD wondered whether there were any hard feelings over seeing other British bands making it big across the pond, Lott said: "I'm so proud of them. They're flying the flag for British music, and it opens doors for other British musicians to do something similar."

This article was first published in The New Paper.