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Read more about me


Bio
Read more about me.

Bio
I was a creative, quiet kid with a head full of music, lyrics and creativity. I knew I wanted to sing and write songs at a young age, but I had no idea how I would do this. I certainly did not come from that type of all-singing and dancing family. I thought it would never happen, but I continued with the dream, reading about artists and dreaming of being in a band.My teen years were difficult and troubled. I’ve been through shades of grief and loss that left me utterly lost, in despair and traumatised when my boyfriend and close friend were killed only a few months apart. I was 16.It took a traumatic near-death experience a week after my 17th birthday when I crashed a motorbike at nearly 100mph, which should have left me dead and paralysed. However, I suffered a broken back and spent 6months recovering. Looking back, this is a harrowing experience; however, it took that crash for me to finally follow my inner call to pursue music.

I studied at a music school called ‘Vocal Tech’ in 1999, where I met Misha Nikolic for the first time (Misha is the producer of my album BLACK SWAN). I threw myself in the deep end and started performing around open mics in London and doing extra film work for extra pennies.

I was living in a shed to make ends meet during this time in my life, and in 2002, I ended up a contestant in a reality TV programme that didn’t exist! Long story short, look up “The Great Reality TV Swindle“. I was offered a place on the new show and £100,000 at the end of it. It wasn’t real, and I thought my creativity streak had ended after the show didn’t happen.
In 2004, after an irrational meeting at the place where I then worked, I put myself back in a music school called Access to Music (now Access Creative). I did end up winning an award at the ATM Awards Ceremony. The recognition was a huge honour as the teachers voted for it. This was the catalyst I needed to carry on with my music career.

Even though I was surviving on pennies and running up credit cards whilst I was unemployable, I began putting bands together, writing my own songs whilst performing, managing and PR. Still, in the end, I was the only member left standing. In the early days, the band’s names were PARANOID RAGE, DIRTY MUNGE, and DRIVER. I loved every band I worked with, but it was not meant to be, and I had to go my own way.

Anything I’ve ever wanted to do, I’ve had to achieve myself. But despite the odds, now it’s 2023. I’ve got two new albums, three upcoming projects, and a thriving music teaching business under my belt (I’m nurturing a future generation of rockstars ““ who says kids can’t have a rockstar education?).

Growing up, I was all about Madonna, the ’50s and ’60s, and dance chart music. For a long time, I wanted to be a dancer. As I got older, my music teachers introduced me to solo artists like Ani DiFranco; I found a love of Patti Smith in my punk days, and later great female artists PJ Harvey, Bork and Tori Amos.

I found a love of heavy rock bands back in 2005 when my then-boyfriend introduced me to Disturbed, Alice in Chains, God Smack, Pantera, and Manson. It’s the dark side that I have come to love as I’ve gotten older.

Through teaching kids guitar, I have been fortunate enough to have been introduced to bands like Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, and Franz Ferdinand, to name a few. These are some great bands from the 2000s.

These days, when I’m not recording or teaching, I’m driving around to Classical FM, switching off to healing yoga frequency sounds and taking long walks in nature parks. This helps keep me calm, creative and focused for the next adventure.

Now, why not give my music a listen to!

– Debbie Leigh Driver