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.
Exposed Vocals: How did you hear about Exposed Vocals? What made you decide to sign up?
*Kayleigh Angel*: I heard about exposed vocals through twitter after posting about my second song soon to be released.
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
*Kayleigh Angel*: I was born in croydon and moved down south to a little town called Heathfield. I was always surrounded by music by my parents, my dad would play James brown and house music when I was little on the way to nursery. My mum brought me up on George Michael and its a fact when I was born ‘Jesus to a child’ played in the background. I knew I wanted to become an artist after experiencing a great applause at a karaoke night on holiday. From then on I studied music, sang all the time and tried as many instruments as I could.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
*Kayleigh Angel*: My whole name is Kayleigh Angel-Dobbs, I was really lucky with having such an Iconic name. My nan married twice and my dad decided to join both his dad and his step dads surname together, however I am technically an Angel by blood relation.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
*Kayleigh Angel*: I think its important to reach out with people over social networks, especially soundcloud, spotify etc… Ive given out my tracks to close friends and family for free but at the moment I’m focusing on selling and creating an audience and thats why my song is available to buy on iTunes.
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
*Kayleigh Angel*: I think to become a great artist you need to break the barriers where you don’t normally let people in and introduce your audience and fans to who you are.
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
*Kayleigh Angel*: I take the mistakes as a journey and use them to learn and grow, I believe the best way to improve is to judge your performance and then keep on improving it. Its hard to cover up mistakes but if your playing a new song to people, don’t let them see your mistake try and not let your anger and frustration control how the rest of the performance will go.
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
*Kayleigh Angel*: I don’t tour, not yet anyway. Im starting off small but I do have to do gigs a lot especially as alongside my own solo career I am studying popular music performance at university.
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
*Kayleigh Angel*: My usual song writing inspiration comes from experiences I have had and what I see others going through. A lot of my music is personal and also very relatable.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
*Kayleigh Angel*: My main online platform is Facebook where I have a page for people to catch up on what I’m doing and hear my songs. I also constantly put links on twitter and instagram where they can find me like on the Facebook page.
Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
*Kayleigh Angel*: I think the most embarrassing songs on my Mp3 is ‘When i grow up’ by the pussycat dolls, it always reminds me of when I was younger wishing I was a big artist. Probably the whole album by Dappy called ‘Bad intentions’. Some songs from Glee, some people really find glee cringy but I have to admit i admire their vocal abilities.
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
*Kayleigh Angel*: I would probably build my own studio and work on so many tracks and hopefully help other artists along the way.
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
*Kayleigh Angel*: At the moment I’m working with Downtown artists and I worked on a promo video for my second song not long ago and I’m looking forward to working on more songs in the future.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
*Kayleigh Angel*: I think the best way to promote my music is through social networks and having a great promotional team behind me. They help me understand the cycle of becoming a bigger artist and reaching to more people around the world.
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
*Kayleigh Angel*: I would love to perform at the O2 in London where I first saw Lady Gaga, its a special venue that holds many great memories. I would love to perform with Gaga herself and many other artists such as: Amy winehouse, rihanna, eminem, Rita ora, halestorm and many others…
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
*Kayleigh Angel*: Im hopefully up for some performances and my main goal is reaching out to people and getting a great amount of followers.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
*Kayleigh Angel*: If i wasn’t making music i would be a photographer as i really enjoyed how the camera could capture anything like emotions and i really enjoyed using photography to create warnings and expressed day to day problems.
Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?
My first album brought was by Jojo called Leave (get out). I remember the song being played over and over, I knew all the words and probably still do. It was defiantly a big song back at school.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
*Kayleigh Angel*: I tend to have a balance between my music and my responsibilities, I know my music means a lot to me but it wouldn’t be if it was for family support so I always make sure I have time for them and make them feel appreciated for believing in me.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2015?
*Kayleigh Angel*: Fans should look forward to relatable and catchy songs and hopefully look forward to me as an artist progressing and creating more music.
