Heavies) awarded me the scholarship – I was delighted, it really did change my life in many ways. I spent 3 years in Brighton learning more about myself, my voice, my sound and the music business that I was about to dive head first into. It was also here that I met Ritch, Ian and Will – the future Heartsets!
After many shows and tours of Europe together we found our sound, we knew our direction, we were working every hour, yet we found it extremely difficult in England to make any progress. Country music at that time only had a small niche following, even though today the Americana and Country scene is growing (to my delight), it was difficult for us back then to make any progress. I personally became frustrated and felt at a musical loss. We found ourselves advertising our shows differently in order to draw crowds, any mention of Country and the crowd numbers would be much lower. I always knew, since watching the CMA’s back in 94’ that I would go to Nashville and now felt like the right time.
During my first visit I remember that feeling of no longer looking in from the outside, I was able to speak about artists I loved, watch impeccable musicianship and listen to those musical stories LIVE. I was there for a month, during that time I was invited to some record labels in town, I sat and carefully watched many recording sessions in SONY’s underground recording studio on Music Row and I made friends with some wonderful people, they welcomed me in with open arms. After an intimate audition a record label offered me the chance to stay in Nashville and become a recording artist, but we (the band) were dedicated to our style, our sound and our plan, this was just the beginning!
We returned to Tennessee as a band several times, we showcased over and over and finally met our manager Jonathan Sayles, at the time he was working for Show Dog records and before that Arista and Sony. He’s stuck with us through thick and thin and he is still our manager today, in this industry surrounding yourself with good honest people is truly important. A year later we signed to PLC Records our independent label we’re now into our 2nd year and having a fun time together! Despite the years of hard work, we were lucky to find people willing to take a chance on us and support our career, in today’s music industry finding a team to support your craft is an achievement in itself; it is harder than ever before it seems, we will always be thankful for our teams’ belief. Each year, we made a new goal and somehow achieved it, the year after we signed to Artist Events Inc, our Nashville booking agency.
Our journey sounds incredibly easy when you write it out on paper but to get to this point was a real struggle, but together we all powered through and made it work as a team. We appreciate every working minute here. Before we arrived in Tennessee, we had to work full time jobs and at the same time rehearse, tour our original music in Europe, record albums, write songs and plan visits to America. We always remained committed, we were
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