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| Rachel has been involved in music
from an early age, through Performing Arts classes and various
school and university choirs, but it wasn’t until 1999
that she joined her first band. Having been discovered while
monopolising the local karaoke bar, she began working with the
boys from ‘Baxter’ as their lead vocalist and main
top-line writer. After two years of playing local Adelaide pubs, |
clubs and
parties, Rachel came to London (mainly because if you’re
Australian, it’s the done thing).
She took a job as a singing waitress. Through this
she met Richard Holley (A & R at Peer Music Publishing)
and Chris Parles (was A & R at Innocent Records,
now A & R at Mercury) who, at the time, were creating
a girl band. Rachel was chosen to write top-lines for
the band with Peer’s in-house producer (Paul Boddy),
as well as with Mike Spencer (produced ‘Spinning
Around’ for Kylie).
Soon after she was asked to join the group to lend some
credibility as the primary writer, and performed showcases
for Hugh Goldsmith (MD Innocent Records, now connected
with BMG) and Ricardo Fernandez (A & R Sony) in
March of 2002. Though a contract meeting with Innocent
fell through, Hugh had previously seen potential in
her song ‘Close Your Eyes’ and put it on
hold for Atomic Kitten in December 2002 – After
10 months on hold, Innocent decided to go in a different
direction and passed on the song. However Hugh Goldsmith
says, "Rachel has clear and strong song writing
abilities and it's only a matter of time before she
starts having hits."
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Since this time,
her song writing has much progressed by collaborating
with a range of producers and musicians including: Brad
Carter (Ruff Driverz member and producer for Sash and
Shanks & Bigfoot), Giles Palmer (session and tour
musician for All Saints, Kylie, and Kym Marsh and Dido’s
guitar teacher), Nick Arnold (wrote ‘Shooting Star’
for Flipp and Fill), CCR Media (produced for a John Malkovich
short and toured with Sia Furler), Matt Walters (of Quince
Productions and ex-engineer at Rollover Studios) and
Tim
Kellet (former member of Simply Red). She has also provided
session vocals for most of the above, as well as for
others.
She has also been teaming up with a range of house and
dance music producers (including DJ Kaya, aka Adi Leff,
and Suj Joshi) with a view to white labelling some of
the tracks.
Rachel has also worked on an album project with Brad
Carter, contributing her own vocal on three co-writes
(working title ‘Pylons & Palm Trees’ under
the pseudonym Miko). The album promo-ed over summer 2003
in Ibiza to very positive responses. In addition to this,
she has co-written with CCR Media for Welsh girl band
TNT by request of Me, Me, Me Management
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Whilst focussed primarily on song
writing, Rachel occasionally performs as a singer in her own
right. A series of lunchtime performances at Mezzo in Soho,
London during December 2003 blended a variety of originals,
covers and bootlegs with a DJ mixing, and was well received.
Rachel also provides backing vocals for ‘Broken Angel’,
a soul/funk band that has had numerous gigs throughout 2004/2005.
September 2004 saw the release of Rachel’s track “No
More DJs” on 11c Recordings to positive feedback. The
soulful house track made the Music Week Club Breakers chart
repeatedly on the strength of 200 promos alone, and has been
charted by DJs such as Shanks & Bigfoot.
To pay the rent, Rachel continues to work as a waitress (including
previous work as a singing waitress), as well as doing regular
extras work for film and TV, and the occasional karaoke hosting.
She is looking for management and/or a publishing deal, as
well as new people to collaborate with.
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Some useful links:
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