Biography

I cannot remember a time when I did not love to sing, even as a child I would sing my big
sister to sleep when we shared a room together as kids. Our family home was often filled
with music and my mum was a talented pianist who spent hours with me at our little upright
piano patiently teaching me, bar by bar, how to play many of the classical pieces she knew.
Even in primary school, I can vividly remember my teacher, Mrs Carter, playing and singing
songs to the class on an acoustic guitar, I loved it. I think I knew then that I wanted to be
able to do that; Mrs Carter totally rocked!

It wasnʼt until I was in my teens that I began to take music more seriously and started learning
to play the guitar. I would regularly pop into the ʻBrees Musicʼ shop in Leicester on my way
home from Sixth Form College where the fantastic fellas who worked there taught me new
chords and finger-picking styles. Before long I began writing my own songs and spent every
spare moment playing, writing and singing.

It was around this time that a close friend at college presented me with a ʻmixed tapeʼ heʼd
painstakingly put together for me. He was a huge fan of Pink Floyd. Thinking about it,
it wasnʼt so much a ʻmixed tapeʼ as his personal Pink Floyd ʻbest ofʼ compilation! Iʼd never
heard anything quite like it before and played it to death. Naturally, Pink Floyd albums
featured heavily on my Christmas lists after that and many hours have since been spent
listening to ʻComfortably Numbʼ, ʻThe Gunnerʼs Dreamʼ and ʻTimeʼ in the dark!

My dream of joining a band was finally fulfilled when I was spotted singing ʻOde to Billie Joeʼ
at a Karaoke night in a local pub. I lived for those band rehearsals and gigs and became welland-
truly hooked; I will be forever grateful for that opportunity. After some time the drummer,
bass player and I split away and I became the front-woman and guitarist of three-piece,
originals, rock outfit, ʻQualmʼ, who went on to play some great gigs in and around Leicester.
Later projects included ʻThe Incurablesʼ and ʻKafkadivaʼ both of which recorded and released
albums. More recently I have discovered an ability to rework well-known covers to make
them sound different – being musically creative makes me tick, I think.

Having been a fan of Pink Floyd for many years, becoming a ʻDark Siderʼ is a fantastic
opportunity for me. Not only will I get to sing on some of the most incredible songs ever
written but I will also get to work with talented musicians who happen to be among the nicest
people I have ever met. In my view, thereʼs no greater buzz than that.