Emma Bunton is all grown up. You can hear that loud and clear on her new solo disc Free Me (19 Recordings/UMVD) in which the former Baby Spice trades in the baby talk for some more adult subject matters on songs such as the title track, “Lay Your Love On Me” and “Who The Hell Are You”. Bunton wears her new image – part glamour girl, part sex kitten – like she was born for it, and her fans will have the chance to experience it in more intimate settings when she crosses the Atlantic for a series live dates in 2005.

Gay & Lesbian Times: Free Me sounds like the perfect title for an album that goes a long way in allowing you to distance yourself from your Baby Spice (Spice Girls) image. Was that title chosen intentionally?

Emma Bunton: I think that in the back of my mind, this album has given me an opportunity to move forward. There’s a track on the album called “Free Me”, and it’s actually about being able to be yourself with somebody, as in a partner relationship, and just letting down all the barriers and just opening yourself. I think that’s kind of what I’ve done on this album anyway. I wanted to be very honest with my fans. I want people to get to know me again as Emma Bunton.

EB: Yes [laughs].

EB: Yeah, very much so. I’ve become a much more confident woman now. I love fashion. I love to be able to have fun with it. I love High Street fashion as well, but I love designers. I love to mix and match. I also love vintage clothes. I make sure that I have fun. Sometimes I’m all in black and a bit sophisticated. Other times, I love to be a real girl. So, I just go mad with it, really.

EB: I love Dianne Von Furstenberg. And I love Marc Jacobs’s shoes. And I love Missoni.

GLT: The style of music on Free Me signals a maturity for both you and your fans who have come of age with you. How has the response been to the music so far?

EB: It’s been amazing. When I went in to write the album, I did feel a lot more confident being in the studio on my own. At first, it was very daunting and I was really nervous. But I worked with some amazing producers. I had lots of input and I knew how I wanted this album to sound. I’m like, “Turn the bass up, turn the drums [up].” I’m very much involved in it all. My fans have been incredible. They’ve grown with me. I wrote all the lyrics and I’ve opened myself up. I think when you listen to this album you get to know me a little bit more.

GLT: I’m glad that you mentioned writing the lyrics, because I wanted to ask you about your role as co-writer of most of the songs on Free Me. So, your contribution was the lyrics?

EB: Yes, lyrics, and some melodies as well.

EB: I’m a huge fan of Motown. My mother and father constantly played it when I was young. My mom was a huge Diana Ross and The Supremes fan, and my dad loved Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. It’s something that I’ve been brought up with. I love Dusty Springfield. I’m a huge fan of all those. I listened to lots of things and I wanted to bring an element of it back with melodies. The other thing I did was have all the musicians come into the studio and we did everything live. I think that’s what captured the whole sound for me, because that’s what they did in the ’60s. We don’t do that anymore. Everything’s piled with production. I wanted this to be a raw-sounding album, to capture the realness of it again. I feel that we did that.

EB: Oh, really? [laughs]

EB: I love Olivia Newton John! I was a big fan when I was younger. One of my favorite films is Grease. I’ve got her album. She’s adorable. I would say that she was an influence in the way that I was a big fan. But, musically, it’s more ’60s.

EB: Cathy Dennis has been a friend for years. We had so much fun. In fact, the first day we kind of didn’t do much, because we ended up chatting [laughs] and drinking a bottle of wine and getting Chinese [laughs]. The thing is with Cathy is that she brings out the cheekiness in me; she brings out that side. We definitely had lots of fun writing the track. It’s a little bit cheeky and a bit naughty, but we had fun with it.

EB: I love it. The reason that I got into it is that I had the opportunity to go to Rio to do my first video, “Free Me”. I was lucky enough to go into a couple of bars and I heard some amazing music. I wanted to get some albums of some of the ’60s music that they did. I came across “Crickets Sing” and I thought it was perfect for the album. It’s just influenced me so much. I’m actually in the studio at the moment recording my third album and it’s definitely influencing quite a lot of the songs [laughs].

EB: “Amazing” is actually one of my favorite tracks because I think it takes it back a bit with that whole female and male doing a duet. It goes so beautifully on the album. I love to sing it because there was something different about it. It has a really beautiful melody. And I loved the way he did it, because he brought out the Latin essence in it for me.

EB: My dream people are Stevie Wonder and Lionel Richie. I’m also a huge fan of Lenny Kravitz. I’ve met him quite a few times and I think he’s a great writer as well. At the moment, I just want people to get to know me as a solo artist. In the U.K., people have watched me grow up in the press and they’ve seen things that I’ve been doing. That’s why I’m really looking forward to coming over to the U.S. and letting people know about me.

EB: I always felt very flattered with my gay fans. They know about fashion, they know about music. I always get very excited because I do a lot of [London club] G-A-Y here and a lot of gigs. I did Gay Day Out in London. I feel very lucky. It’s brilliant. I’m a bit of a drama queen at heart and I love dressing up and I love dancing and my next video, for “Maybe”, I took ideas from old movies – the old Shirley MacLaine films and Chicago – and I put a lot of that influence in that video. I love having fun with music. I think sometimes people get a bit bogged down with everything. I want to do music that I love. I love putting on a show.