Exposed Vocals interviews Kayleigh Angel
The first time I performed in front of an audience was in a choir at St Richards church, my nan would take me every Sunday and after a while I was asked if I wanted to join the choir. At this point I didn’t know much about music and didn’t know I had a good voice. I was taught how to sing correctly and to read music, it didn’t take long before I was performing solos and singing descant. I first new music was the way of life for me when I was in secondary school during my GCSE’s, I took Music as an option and slowly built the confidence to sing in front of an audience for a cabaret. I received an amazing response from the audience and this pushed me further.
This then followed by a gift from my mum to push me with singing. She brought me a recording experience at The Charter House studio in Portsmouth, I covered the famous song Lego House by Ed sheeran and You Know I’m No Good by Amy Winehouse, artists who both have really inspired me. I brought a street cube speaker and took my music to the streets of Brighton, I enjoyed the response and getting some experience of not only singing a song but performing it. I continued to study Music in A levels and really enjoyed composing my own song and learning the theory behind music. I was at home reviewing through the internet researching jobs to do with music and came across Downtown Artists. The experience I have had at Downtown has improved me not just vocally but has improved my understanding of how a piece is created and mixed. Following another recording experience at Appleyard studios in Etchingham, I realised how much I had leant as I was quick to pick up my surroundings and recorded two songs very easily.
When deciding what course to do at University, I was automatically drawn to carry on with music and explore working with other artists and creating bands. As I was growing up my mum listened to her favourite singer George Michael and my dad would listen to James Brown and many dance/house CD’s. It is an interesting fact that when I was born the song playing in the background was Jesus to a Child by George Michael, I guess you could say its a coincidence but more fate really. During GCSE’s when I started to look into music as a career, I came upon influences such as the amazing artists Lady Gaga and Jessie J. I’ve got every album and single and followed them and my aim is to be followed by as passionate fans as they have.
Over the last few years I have started to expand the varieties of genre and listened to rock bands such as Halestorm, The Pretty Reckless and Dayseeker. These bands were not massive in the UK and I really got a feel for the emotion and pure passion of performing in smaller venues. This made me look into performing at open mic venues to learn how to perform and grow the confidence to sing in front of audiences. I wouldn’t define myself within a genre, I’m very open to trying different styles to test my strengths and weaknesses.
When I wrote my first song for Downtown, it didn’t take long to create a catchy melody line and to think of interesting lyrics. The song is about feeling like you have or did have everything under control but really someone else had you under control and you now are left incomplete when they leave. I felt like the song built which gave me the idea to write for the first and second verse about having the control and then it breaks down in the middle 8 to show the change and having a punchy double chorus to represent the struggle.
My second song is catchy and very uplifting, I decided to write positive and caring lyrics to hopefully help others. I have listened to many songs which helped me through the lyrics and I wanted to persue this in my song writing.
