Born and raised in Cheltenham in 1990, I always wanted to sing from a very young age. It was when I was around four years old when I started listening to music. I was born in the 90’s Pop Era and was mainly drawn to the Pop Divas such as Whitney Houston, Celine Dion and Mariah Carey. I grew up listening to a variety of music and raided my father’s music collection everyday dreaming of becoming a popstar! I was heavily listening to Belinda Carlisle, Gloria Estefan, George Michael, ABBA, Phil Collins, Queen, Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Aretha Franklin and . I also loved the Spice Girls, Steps, S Club 7,Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys and Britney Spears. I discovered music from, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Dinah Washington, Imelda May, The Shangri Las, Nancy Sinatra, Dolly Parton, Joss Stone and Amy Winehouse in my later years.
At the age of 9, my mother was bought the ‘Cats’ Musical on video cassette. I fell in love with Elaine Paige’s song ‘Memory’ and began learning it. My first live singing performance was on a family holiday in Cyprus. I didn’t know anything in the karaoke book so I decided to sing this song acapella. I believe this was a prominent moment of where my singing journey began. I started singing constantly from this point on a karaoke machine I was bought for Christmas. I then began classical singing lessons with a local teacher Karen Gillespie. I also joined a local dance group called the ‘CoadyCrew’ ran by Nikki Coady in Cheltenham. This is where I met Nathan Sykes (The Wanted) and Tahliah Barnett (A.K.A Twigs). We became friends and they recommended me to my next singing coach Michael Clifton. He was more of a technical coach which I believe was more suited to the direction I wanted to go. Michael taught me everything I know today and he has always played a huge part in my career. I was also taking acting lessons at The Playhouse Theatre in Cheltenham but I had to pick between Acting, Singing or Dancing. My ultimate passion was to sing!
At the age of 12 I auditioned for S Club Juniors in Wales and a 2nd audition in London, meeting Nicky Chapman (19 Management) and The BBC. This was my first audition. I auditioned for Sylvia Young Stage School in the same year but felt at this time musical theatre wasn’t my path.
Throughout my teens, I continued singing lessons with Michael and I attended as many auditions I could for different opportunities in London. To fund this, I worked as a waitress in an Italian restaurant in Cheltenham and I had a part time job on perfumery in House Of Fraser. I was 16 at the time, just started sixth form and soon left. I was desperate to fulfil my dream to be a Singer. At 17, I enrolled at The Academy Of Contemporary Music in Guildford and started my Diploma in Vocals & Performance. I was there for only one year but already knew I was ready to jump in to the music industry at the deep end. One of my teachers, Katie Hector, found me my first function band gig with a 12 piece band. I was terrified but excited. This was another turning point for me, as I have been fronting and managing live bands ever since.
I came out of the academy and started searching for gigs. I went through multiple part time and full time jobs, from insurance to bar work to waitressing and Sales. I joined a local original band called ‘The Bushy Tail’, a six piece reggae/ska band, half Polish, half British. I made little money out of this band but I enjoyed being creative. This is where I started song writing. I did not enjoy the midnight rehearsals in Lansdown Rehearsal Studios in Cheltenham. We all had full time jobs, and most of the guys in the band finished late.
In 2010 I was booked for my first gig abroad which led to a series of international gigs. I joined an all female collective called ‘High On Heels’ singing mainly Club House Music. We performed in many countries including, Luxembourg, St Tropez, Italy, Croatia, Dubai, Egypt, Austria, Germany and Central London. This also led me to perform for the Harley Davidson Festivals in Europe which is where I met the likes of Dave Colwell (Bad Company), Kenney Jones ( Small Faces) and Jim Stapley who I became really good friends with. We then started to work together on his album ‘Long Time Coming’ which was recorded by Tony Visconti at Dean Street Studios in London. At this point in my life I started to write my own material.
In 2013 I joined a band called ‘The Fuse’ and joined them in China for a 4 month contract. I continued working with them for 2 more contracts in the Middle East, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain. This was where my journey in the Middle East started. I heard about a song writing competition in Dubai for the Holiday Inn Express and decided to give it a go. I was inspired to write ‘Biker Boy’ because of my experience at the Harley Davidson Festivals and was fascinated with the environment. I recorded the song in a friends hotel room in the Intercontinental Hotel in Bahrain, sent it off to Dubai and to my surprise came 2nd in the Songwriting Competition.
I went back to Abu Dhabi in 2016 where I formed a rock band and continued my career as a freelance singer and vocal coach. I started my own vocal coaching business in Abu Dhabi renting rooms to teach in several music schools. I started working for The Barcoe Studio as a vocal coach and helped in artist development as well as song writing for local artists on the music scene which went on to release their music.
In 2017 I moved to Dubai to challenge myself in a bigger more thriving city. I was busy working between the two cities performing in 5 star hotel venues, performing at high profile corporate events and launched my vocal coaching business in Jumeriah Lakes Towers. I left the rock band in 2018 and formed another band called ‘The Cherry Bomb Gang’, the first ever rockabilly band in Dubai. I had a strong vision to bring something completely unique to Dubai. Classic well known hits with a twist of 1950s rock and roll, swing and jazz. I was frustrated with the same generic music I was singing along to and I wanted to put my passion into something where I could be creative and still make good money.
In 2020 the pandemic hit which forced me to go back to the UK. I spent most of 2020 in the my hometown Cheltenham where I got really busy songwriting. I created a home studio and taught myself how to produce music on Logic Pro. I wrote and recorded the song ‘Higher Than The Clouds’ to help raise money for a local charity called Winston’s Wish. In the month of July 2020, I flew to Spain to visit my friends and ended up spending a few months performing in the local bars and venues in Marbella waiting for Dubai to open up for entertainment in November in which I then flew back for the Christmas & New Year season. At this moment I met Charlie Mullins and we became great friends. He offered to give me some career advice and he quickly became a business mentor to me. I told him my ultimate dream was to release my own music and that I had songs sitting there waiting to be worked on. Charlie was at this time doing a fundraising campaign at Pimlico Plumbers to help raise money for Chloe Balloqui, a 10 year old girl with a form of cancer called Neuroblastoma. £400,000 was needed for two treatments, one in Barcelona and one in New York.This is where I came in to help Chloe by writing a song for her called ‘Glitter’ which was launched at Proud Cabaret in London in August. It was received well and picked up by The Daily Mail, London Live., James Whale at Talk Radio, Great British Radio and the media in Marbella. I raised £3000 through the TV, Radio and live performances.
Previous to this, Charlie had watched me in Dubai performing live at Lucky Voice and quoted he was impressed with performance . He put me in touch with Ray Santilli to talk about my future as an original artist. Ray and I first spoke in January 2021 over Zoom. I sent him a bunch of my songs for him listen to, one song being ‘Biker Boy’ which he described as ‘genius’. In April, I flew to London to meet Ray in Soho where set in stone to re-record the track and create an official music video. Ray introduced me to Tom Vaughan, a music producer, video producer and actor who helped me produce ‘Biker Boy’ and the music video. The newly mastered ‘Biker Boy’ is now set to release in November!
