If India.Arie has done anything for music, she’s proven a singer doesn’t have to be “the average girl from your video” in order to be famous.
On her first headlining tour to promote her sophomore album “Voyage to India,” Arie has already been put through a hero’s trial, suffering sound check problems and a back-up singer’s injury but maintains a positive attitude about the shows themselves.
“The shows have been great,” she said. “Every time we get on stage, it’s always great.”
Arie will bring her tour, which includes British duo Floetry as the opening act, into the Palace Theatre Saturday.
Arie said she got hooked up with Floetry when both were making music in Philadelphia and is happy to have the group on tour. She said Floetry’s original sound blends well with her own.
“They have bold points of view and they’re just talented and different,” she said. “We just match for a lot of different reasons. I think we’re just cut from the same cloth in a lot of ways.”
Named after Mahatma Gandhi and the Hebrew word for lion, Arie certainly knows how to be original. She told VH1 she added the dot in between her names for “an aesthetic flow.”
Following up her Grammy-nominated sleeper smash “Acoustic Soul,” Arie said she was unfazed by her new-found stardom when making “Voyage to India.”
“I couldn’t help but wonder how (the album) was going to be received, but I didn’t worry about it at all,” she said. “I just wrote what I wanted to write and said what I wanted to say. I was actually more comfortable on this one than I was on my first one — a lot more.”
“Last time I was kind of stressed out, like ‘What am I going to do?’ and I didn’t know how to do an album,” she said.
Arie said the new album was shaped in part thanks to the perks brought about by success. She said much of her new album was influenced by the other artists she’s met and the conversations she’s had.
“As a musician, everything I’ve heard influences me by varying degrees,” she said.
Arie listed Elton John, Santana, Stevie Wonder and John Melloncamp — with whom she dueted on Melloncamp’s “Peaceful World” — as major influences.
Avoiding the path gone by many other musicians, Arie said she doesn’t want to leap from music to new entertainment mediums available to her after her success.
“There are things that I’ve always done like making jewelry, drawing, writing — I will continue to do that stuff,” she said. “It might look like I’m making a leap, but I’ve never really thought about doing something different.”
Arie actually studied jewelry making at Savannah College of Art and Design before beginning her musical career.
With the success of “American Idol” sparking a big interest in the music industry, Arie recommends only those who are really committed should stick with it.
“You have to have a mission statement — know why you’re doing it,” she said. “If you know why you have an interest in it, you get so much more out of it.”
Creating her own unparalleled style of music (she has complete artistic control), Arie said she has no plans to change her technique in the future.
“I’m still myself — I will always be myself,” she said.
India.Arie and Floetry will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Palace Theatre. Tickets range from $34.50-42.50 and can be ordered through the theater’s box office or Ticketmaster.
