Susy Thomas

PROLOGUE
“I’ll admit I had to check myself before I went in,” says rising singer-songwriter Susy Thomas of her first encounter at Dave Stewart’s house. “I’d got off the train at Haslemere, armed only with my guitar, and arrived at these big gates. I stood outside for a moment, composed myself and then just thought ‘so what, he’s only a person’ and marched straight in!”

Stewart had come across Susy’s demo through a friend, and, suitably impressed, had invited her to come and write at his home in Surrey. “I went there every day for a week and it so nearly worked out,” she sighs, “but then everything collapsed when the label he was going to sign me to never quite happened.”

And don’t get her started on the deal that fell through with US label Interscope through no fault of her own; or the role in the Canadian soap (‘Risk’) that finished when the bailiffs burst on set to remove the furniture (“I couldn’t act to save my life anyway”, she laughs); or the sessions with legendary producer Michael Kamen at Air Studios. Indeed, after several years performing around both Britain and the US, Susy can rightfully lay claim to learning her trade the hard way. Using this time to master her craft, she has continued to perform her acclaimed material in a variety of venues from her early appearances in Hampshire to London, New York and Los Angeles.

LEATHER

Spending her childhood in Portsmouth, Hampshire, music was always important in the Thomas household, and Susy was raised listening to, among others, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Squeeze, Steely Dan, and Led Zeppelin. Influenced by her music-loving father, she first picked up a guitar as an eight year-old and immediately developed a passion for the instrument, eventually progressing through lessons to an impressive Grade 8.

Early live performances largely consisted of classical recitals, but her passion for pop music was prevalent and by the age of 14, Susy was the only female member of a band called – ahem - ‘Stagefright’, performing Beatles and Rolling Stones covers around the pubs and bars of Portsmouth. “They were all leather-clad fortysomethings!” she says.

However, her determination to produce and perform her own music was dominant even at this age, and buoyed by some newly written material, she graduated within the band from merely playing the electric guitar to singing her own numbers.

USA

It was around this time that Susy decided she had to move to the US. It was in her, something she couldn’t stop thinking about, and so at the age of 16 she took the plunge, continuing to perform whilst completing her High School studies. “It was incredible,” she says. “Being 16 and working away from my family for the first time in my life.” On her return to Portsmouth, Susy continued to make contacts over the next couple of years while developing her style, eventually collaborating with Spike Edney in producing some early demos alongside former White Snake bassist Neil Murray, and session drummer, Graham Ford.

This all helped propel her career ambitions forward and Susy started to make regular trips to perform gigs, both solo and with a newly established band, on the London circuit. With a string of performances over the following couple of years, and after a number of further collaborations with British based producers, she once again headed Stateside, now managed by David Bowie’s former mentor, for what would become an enlightened period in her burgeoning career.

NAMES NAMES NAMES

Despite making a base in London, Susy then spent six months living in New York and more time in Los Angeles, performing gigs while also meeting and working with established industry figures, such as renowned studio mixer Bob Clearmountain and the late Michael Kamen. “He was writing the score for X Men at the time,” she says. “He said he’d love to produce me, so I was very flattered. We hung out for a few days at Air Studios in Hampstead.”

Importantly for Susy, Kamen organised sessions alongside the drummer Andy Newmark and percussionist Thomas Diawani, with the resulting work mixed by Clearmountain back in the US. It was at this time that the deal with Interscope came about, but sadly for Susy, never came through. Back in London she then teamed up with Lestyn Polson (David Gray) and also met Stewart, as well as making her slight detour into acting – but “never again!”

She continued to perform her own music, playing a number of support gigs at the Shepherds Bush Empire for artists such as Paul Young, Roger Taylor, and Tom Robinson, while also providing festival support for Deacon Blue.

IN THE MORNING

It was during the summer of 2003 that Susy found new management who signed her to Surrey-based indie Season Records in November of the same year. She wrote, recorded, and produced her own demo album in March 2004 entitled Home Acoustics, a project that included tracks such as Never Far, Hands and Knees, and Mirror For Me. Since t