Indiana

October 2014

JUST five years ago she was a struggling single mum, scraping a living together for her and her son by working in a T-shirt printing shop.
Her dad had committed suicide, her mum and two sisters had moved away.
Lauren Henson was alone.
One lunchtime, she nipped into a smoothie bar in her home town of Loughborough, and met the man who would turn her life around.
“It sounds cheesy, I know, but it was love at first sight,” says Lauren Henson, better known as rising Nottingham music star Indiana.
“We couldn’t breath, he was dropping things... we couldn’t get out of each other’s heads.”
The 27-year-old is sat in Suede Bar in the Lace Market, co-owned by her boyfriend, who also, coincidentally, runs a T-shirt company.
As well as moving her and her son Harvey, now 6, to Long Eaton, James Alexander encouraged her to pursue her passion for music.
He entered her for the annual Future Sound of Nottingham competition in 2012, the winner of which would open the main stage at Splendour in Wollaton Park.
She made the semi-final, held in the Old Market Square, in April of that year - her first live performance.
Despite obvious nerves, other local musicians, music writers and Splendour boss George Akins, were blown away by her dark electronic pop. To reach the final, Indiana needed votes but as an unknown artist, she didn’t have the fan base to put her there.
No matter, she would play the final at Rock City anyway, as a special guest, such was the belief in this fresh music talent.
Since then she has signed to major record label Sony, played all the major music festivals, including Glastonbury, had her first Top 20 single, Solo Dancing, and played an intimate show at Radio 1’s Live Lounge with Irish chart-toppers The Script - in front of The Queen.
It was a one-song performance, of David Bowie’s Heroes and included her singing the line “and I will be Queen”.
She laughs: “I was told not to look at her when I sang that line. But I was so focussed on not looking at her, my eyes were darting around the room and they hit her a couple of times.”
HRH was on a tour of the BBC’s new Broadcasting House in London and Indiana’s three minutes were screened live on BBC News 24.
“She’s well sweet and little,” says Indiana, who was introduced to her afterwards.
“She reminded me of my grandma Mary.”
That was last year, a year that also saw her make her Glastonbury debut and play the main stage at Splendour, while heavily pregnant with second child, Etta.

This year she has been regularly playlisted and interviewed on Radio 1, had a No. 14 single, played summer festivals such as Reading and Leeds, Bestival and Nottingham’s No Tomorrow in Wollaton Park and finished her debut album, No Romeo, released this month.
So how does she combine motherhood and a music career?
“It’s been hard, this summer especially, because of all the festivals. After Bestival on the Isle of Wight, I got home at 4.30am and had to be up at 7am to prepare for Etta’s first birthday party,” says Indiana, a lean 5 ft 11 with model looks and tattoos snaking down her left arm.
James, who inspired her growing collection of tattoos, isn’t a stay at home dad as he has three businesses to run, including Suede Bar, three smoothie bars and the T-shirt company Some Kind Of Nature, which Indiana often wears for gigs and social media photos.
“He’ll kill me,” she says, realising she’s forgotten to wear a branded T-shirt for today’s photo shoot.
“We’re lucky that my mum has moved in to our house to help out with Harvey and Etta,” she says, returning to the childcare issue.
“She’s retired and she wanted to do it but she’s looking to buy a house so she won’t be there for much longer.”
Her mum and dad separated when she was six.
“I saw him every day and I was extremely close to him but I didn’t find out he was ill until I was 14 or 15,” she admits.
“He was a paranoid schizophrenic. My childhood is a very confusing place because there were two sides to him. He could be very loving and caring and a really fun dad to be around. But then he’d say some really confusing things to me.
“A young girl from our town had been murdered and the last person to see her alive had the same name as my dad. The police told him that they knew it wasn’t him but he invented this whole thing that he had killed this girl. He’d tell me that he was a bad man and a murderer.
“Even when they caught the guy who did it, he’d carry on saying that and I’d scream at him ‘what is wrong with you, you didn’t do it!’ It was very confusing. Very weird.
“He attempted to kill himself six times and I witnessed it. He stabbed himself in the stomach and we had to take him to hospital.
“He eventually killed himself because he thought me and my sisters would get bullied because of him.”
After that her mum moved away. Her older sisters, Joanne and Nicola, had already moved to Hampshire and London.
She became pregnant by a childhood friend.
Indiana admits that she went off the rails after her dad’s death, although she believes she was always off the rails until she found music.
“I was ungrounded, going from job to job, fixating on fitness or partying too hard or yo yo dieting... there was something I always had to focus on. Sometimes bad things. When I found music, I found peace. I have an addictive personality... I’m just glad that I’m addicted to something healthy.”
Early musical favourites included Marilyn Manson.
“I had a poster of him on the wall next to my bed right where my pillow was and I used to kiss it,” she laughs.
“What a weirdo!”

She adds: “I was a greb. I went through a bit of a bit of goth stage but reverted back to being a greb. I was into metal, punk and ska. I didn’t used to wash my hair, I’d wear baggy trousers... and I’d stink,” she laughs.
She didn’t make to the trip over the border to Rock City to see gigs though because she had a baby at home, whose dad is still very much a part of his life.
“Harvey’s heard me on the radio and he comes to rehearsals, so he’s getting it,” she says.
“He misses me when I’m away, as does Etta, but sometimes I see them more than the average mum because I can be at home for long periods.”
That won’t be the case this month when the album is released. There’ll be promotional duties to do followed by a UK tour that includes a home coming in November with a date at the Rescue Rooms.
She admits: “I’m the most contented and grounded and happiest I’ve ever been.”


No Romeo is released on October 13. Indiana plays the Rescue Rooms on November 7. Tickets are £10, call 0845 413 4444 or go to alt-tickets.co.uk.

Victoria Gray

July 2014

IT was always meant to be a bit of a giggle; a chance to taste fame, make a few quid and have fun.

But when Bilsthorpe’s Victoria Gray now looks back on the two years with Amore, a classical crossover - or ‘popera’ - group based in London, she knows that her heart lay elsewhere.

“It was great fun, don’t get me wrong,” says the 27-year-old, who now lives in Burton Joyce with her fiance.

“But that showbiz world wasn’t really me. There was a thing I used to call Meerkat syndrome that people used to do at celebrity parties. You’d be talking to them and they’d be constantly bobbing up and down and looking around the room for celebrities.

“I’d couldn’t wait to get back home and get in my onesie,” she adds with a laugh.

Amore were four members of the Royal College of Music, from where Victoria graduated with an MA in Performance, the end of eight years of study.

Her plan was always to be an opera singer but the opportunity for a bit of fun and possible fame came along when they were signed to major record label, Universal.

Highlights over the past two years include performing on a boat on the Thames in front of the Queen as part of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations and singing Abide With Me and the National Anthem at last year’s FA Cup Final between Manchester City and Wigan Athletic, where 82,000 people packed out Wembley Stadium.

Amore also opened shows for Katherine Jenkins and Russell Watson, two of the biggest classical crossover artist in the UK. There has been modelling for GC Watches, that included a starring role in a TV campaign.

“I’m still doing that,” says Victoria.

And various celebrity parties.

“We did a lot with Samuel L Jackson, performing at his events. They were the best parties. He loved classical music and we’d sing before dinner, then join everyone else for the meal. We were on a table with comedian Stephen K Amos at one of them and he was hilarious. And Ron Weasley was on the next table.

“Will Smith was a lovely guy. We did a lot for a charity called WellChild, which is one the Prince Harry’s main charities. We performed at the annual Helping Hands Ball which was star-studded.”

She adds: “I found that the loveliest people were the genuinely talented ones. The reality TV stars were the ones with an ego and attitude.”

All four members of Amore disbanded the group this year to work on solo projects.

“We missed opera and being part of a production,” says Victoria who moved back to Nottinghamshire six months ago with fiance Sam Ogrizovic, the Kimberley Cricket Club captain. The couple will tie the knot in September.

“I haven’t missed London once,” she admits.

Her focus now is to train with the English National Opera, but she needs to raise £2,000 to do so.

“You work with the best directors and conductors; it’s really exciting.

“I was worried that being from the crossover world they wouldn’t take me seriously because they are two very different worlds. All of us in Amore went into it quite naively thinking we could straddle both worlds but it became increasingly impossible when we had a record company who wanted us to sing songs out of our comfort zone.”

She means mainstream songs given the opera treatment.

She will be doing a few of them as part of her first solo concert tomorrow night, mixed in with more authentic opera songs.

“It’s more nerve-wracking than the FA Cup Final,” she says of the concert at Samworth Church Academy in Mansfield.

“Although there were so many people in Wembley Stadium, you couldn’t see their faces. But singing to people you know, sat right in front of you, is really hard.”

The venue is where Mansfield girls’ choir Cantamus used to rehearse. Victoria joined while still at school and sang with them all over the world.

Another was Lucy Kay, the Notts-raised runner up of this year’s Britain’s Got Talent.

“She’s a lovely girl and she’s done so well,” says Victoria.

“I saw her a couple of weeks ago and we sang together.”

That was at the memorial concert in Mansfield for Cantamus founder Pamela Cook, who died last year.

“I told her that if she needed any advice about the celebrity world then I was there for her. Because it is a shock to the system. It’s not for the faint-hearted. It can be quite brutal.”

She describes the concert as “incredible night.

Says Victoria: “Imagine 400 girls singing Raise Me Up together. It gives me goosebumps thinking about it now.

“Miss Cook was the biggest musical inspiration in my life. I still miss her every day.”

Her long-term ambitions are to sing on all the major opera stages around the world and it’s a journey she’s excited about embarking on once again.

“I want to be part of that buzz again; being part of a production and watching it go from an idea to the stage.

“Amore was amazing. I had two years doing things I never thought I’d do. But now I feel like I’m home and doing the thing I first fell in love with.”

Victoria Gray presents Summer Serenades at Samworth Church Academy in Mansfield tomorrow from 6pm, with guest Natalie Montakhab. Tickets are £12, call 01623 822567 or email maggie.magent@btinternet.com.   

Indiana

April 2014

SINGING for the Queen, appearances on BBC TV, regular plays on Radio 1, Glastonbury... and now Indiana’s had a pizza named after her.
“We were on holiday in France snowboarding and I had a pizza that I haven’t been able to shut up about,” says the 26-year-old, whose boyfriend recently opened a new pizza bar in Hockley.
“He said ‘We’ll make it and call it the Indiana.’”
It’s goat’s cheese, walnuts and honey, which sounds disgusting.
“No, It’s really good!” insists the rising music star who’ll be playing the Rescue Rooms tonight.
Entrepreneur boyfriend James - Long Eaton’s Alan Sugar - opened Suede Bar in Heathcoat Street last month but he’s also heavily involved in Indiana’s career. He was the one who encouraged her to enter the Future Sound of Nottingham competition, which saw her play her debut show in the Old Market Square two years ago.
Since then she’s signed to Sony, had regular support from Radio 1, played Glastonbury and performed for the Queen with The Script.
Of late she’s been on tour with Bipolar Sunshine.
“It was great,” she says.
“There was loads of tour banter. I had my own tour van, which was useful when the venue didn’t have a dressing room.”

She shared the van with three band members, her tour manager and sound engineer.
It was an eight date jaunt around the UK.
“It was really hard,” she says of being away from her seven-month-old daughter, Etta, and five-year-old son Harvey.
“He loves that I have an interesting job but he misses me. Although he won’t miss me too much when we have a massive mansion with horses,” she laughs.
Indiana’s new single, Solo Dancing, released on April 20, has been B-listed on Radio 1.
“Every time it’s played it jumps up on the iTunes chart,” she says.
“It made it into the Top 100, which is really good for pre-orders. Most people buy singles when they’ve been released.”
Those turning out to see Bipolar Sunshine seemed to know the song.
“I had to win over the crowd every night. At the start they were all chatting and thinking ‘who is this girl?’ but by the end... especially when I played Solo Dancing, there’d be cheers; they were probably thinking ‘oh it’s that girl!’
Since the tour finished last weekend she’s been rehearsing for tonight’s home city gig.
“Next week I’ll be back in the studio working on the album and I’ll be doing a session for Radio 1.”
The album she’ll have to finish by the end of the month.
“It’s been hard deciphering which songs will go on it because I’ve got so many now.”
And the new material?
“A little bit more of the same and... I don’t want to say up-beat. You could perhaps move around to a couple of them.”
Surprisingly, she won’t be putting her first few singles on the album, such as Mess Around and Smoking Gun.
“If people have already bought them, then by putting all new material on the album means they get better value for money.”

The album is due to be released between July and September, after a string of major summer festival appearances that will be revealed next week.
As a mum of two in her mid-twenties, what was her reaction to the sudden death of Peaches Geldof?
“It broke my heart”, she says.
“I was never a fan and I thought she was quite annoying when she was younger but it seemed like having children was the making of her.
“She looked like she had a good life and on her Instagram photos she looked really happy.
“It breaks my heart that her two beautiful sons don’t have a mum.”
She adds: “It haunted me a little bit. Maybe because I had a baby recently.”

Indiana plays the Rescue Rooms tonight supported by April Towers. 7.30pm to 10pm. £10, alt-tickets.co.uk. There will be an after party at Suede Bar which, says Indiana: “Everyone’s invited to.”

Indiana

November 2013

In just 18 months, Indiana has gone from playing her first gig as an unknown in the Old Market Square, to signing a major label deal and performing for the Queen. This week she released her first single for Sony which has been playlisted by Radio 1. Simon Wilson caught her at home just before she headed off to Los Angeles to start work on her debut album.

IT’S one thing singing for the Queen when she’s sat just eight feet away from you in a small radio studio but to have deliver the line “and I will be Queen”...
“I was told not to look at her when I sang that line,” laughs the 26-year-old at her home in Long Eaton.
“But I was so focussed on not looking at her, my eyes were darting around the room and they hit her a couple of times.”
She was performing a cover David Bowie’s Heroes with Irish band The Script, a random gig that was arranged at the last minute to show HRH the new Live Lounge at the Radio 1 studios at the official opening of the BBC’s new Broadcasting House in London.
After the performance, which was screened live on the BBC News 24 channel, Indiana was introduced to her.
“She's well sweet and little,” says the mother-of-one in her home studio, where she’s been working on tracks for her much anticipated debut album.
“She reminded me of my grandma Mary. I was still proper scared though. I was so glad I didn't mess it up.”
They had a quick chat about Glastonbury where Indiana, real name Lauren Henson, was due to appear on the BBC Introducing Stage, part of which was seen on BBC Three’s coverage.
So there are two obvious highlights of the first 18 months of her career to date but topping both of them was playing the main stage at Splendour in July.
“There was so many people and they all cheered whenever I said anything,” she laughs.
“I was saying thanks and they kept clapping and shouting. I was about to start crying so I played Blind As I Am and messed up the words because I was all emotional.”
Splendour was headlined by Jake Bugg but also appearing on the main stage were indie band Dog Is Dead, managed by Nottingham’s DHP Family, who recently signed up Indiana.
The organisation, which operates Rock City, the Rescue Rooms and other venues, also promotes shows around the UK and they’ve booked her two next month; at Nottingham’s the Bodega and Oslo in Hackney.
“I'd like to start touring more because I love performing,” she says just 18 months after her very first gig. That was in the Old Market Square as part of the Future Sound of Nottingham competition to open Splendour’s main stage. She didn’t even make the final but was booked to play the festival anyway, such was the buzz surrounding her.

A year later she was on the main stage.
“Sometimes it feels like ages ago,” she reflects.
“So much has happened. I want to say I never dreamt I'd get this far... or some other corny line, but the truth is, as soon as I realised this was what I wanted to do I dreamt big.”
But she admits: “I’ve still got a long way to go.”
This week her debut single for Sony, Mess Around, was released and was placed on the Radio 1 playlist, a station that has supported her for months.
“I hope I never get used to being on the radio. It's such a buzz. I have a voice mail off my mum and my sister singing (screaming actually) along to Mess Around because it came on the radio when they were out in the car together.
“I’ve met a few of them. Phil Taggart is such a cool guy. Sara Cox is my favourite though and she waved at me when I visited the studios. And I met Scott Mills. He follows me on Twitter, you know,” she grins.
“Zane Lowe has really got behind me just recently. He interviewed Dave Grohl with the drum loop on Mess Around going on in the background. It was an awesome feeling listening to it all.”
Her music has been compared to everything from Portishead to Sinead O’Connor and The Cranberries. It’s electro-based and lyrically dark, which is surprising for an apparently happy and warm personality.
“People often say I'm not what they expected after listening to my music but I am drawn to darker things. I wanted to be a forensic scientist growing up.
“A lot of the time it’s just the way it comes out when I'm writing. Last week I set out to write an Arabian love story but I ended up with a song about a zombie army. It’s called Sleeping Nation. Here are a couple of lines from it: ‘And legion corpses creep, emerging from their sleep, I set my people free...’
“I'm a weirdo,” she laughs.
“And that’s not a line from the song, just a statement.”
As well meeting the Queen, Indiana has had a chat with the daughter of the King: Lisa Marie Presley.
“It was at a party for the launch of her album. Yeah she was chatting away to me and I said 'I’m sorry, I've not taken any of that in. I can't stop thinking you're Elvis' daughter and that you were married to Michael Jackson!'.

She’s now landed in LA where she’ll be spending a couple of weeks staying in Hollywood and working with producers on songs for her debut album. That will likely be released by the spring.
“When I come back there’ll be a new single and I’ll be making a video for that before Christmas.”
Joining her in Los Angeles is the boyfriend (the reason she moved here from Loughborough) and their two month old daughter, Etta.
“I'm under strict instructions that this trip is not a holiday,” she says.
“And I've only got one day off. I’ll be spending that with Etta and her dad. Etta comes everywhere with me. Well, I am her food after all,” she laughs, then adds: “Everyone has been really supportive and as long as you have that support network around you, there's no reason why a mum should have to decide between a career and a family.
“I'm doing both and I hope my situation empowers and inspires other women.”

Mess Around is out now on iTunes. Indiana plays The Bodega on December 4. Tickets are £6.50 from alt-tickets.co.uk. For more about her go to facebook.com/indianathegirl or follow her on Twitter @indianathegirl

Victoria Gray

August 2013

WHEN you are going to sing for the Queen, it’s a given that you’d want to look your best. And she did. Until the rain came.

Victoria Gray and the other members of the opera group Amore, were on a boat on the Thames gearing up for the performance of a lifetime at last summer’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

“We got on the boat thinking this will be a nice day out,” says Victoria, 26, who grew up in Bilsthorpe.

They’d boarded the boat at nine o’clock that morning.

“When it started raining we had ponchos and umbrellas but they said to us ‘you do realise that when you are singing for the Queen you can’t have them. don’t you?’

“It didn’t matter anyway because the rain was coming from the side, from underneath... and it was hailing at one point. It was just ridiculous.

“We were all a bit hysterical because we were so cold and so wet. We were laughing so much... until the boat turned around and lined up opposite her boat.

“Then we realised the enormity of it.”

They had already sang Land of Hope and Glory and Jerusalem for the crowds but for the Queen it was to be the National Anthem.

Says Victoria: “By that time we were completely drenched and looking like drowned rats. Mascara was running down my face. And there was Kate Middleton just a few feet away looking gorgeous and pristine... and dry.

“It was one of those moments where you have to pinch yourself and think ‘Oh my God, I’m singing to the Queen.

“We were close enough that we could see her facial expressions. It was really amazing.”

But it’s not the biggest audience she and the group, who perform popular songs in an opera style, have performed to.

That was 82,000 people at Wembley Stadium earlier this year at the FA Cup Final between Manchester City and Wigan Athletic, where they sang Abide With Me and the National Anthem with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

“There is nothing like it; stepping out on to that pitch and all those people are cheering and singing along and having a good time.”

She watched the game with her brother, George, a law graduate now working for an IT company, who’d replaced her fiance because he was too busy playing cricket for Kimberley.

“Would you believe it? He turned down a free ticket to the FA Cup Final to play cricket. And I think the match was rained off anyway.”

She and Sam Ogrizovic, the Kimberley Cricket Club captain, live in London.

“His uncle won the FA Cup with Coventry City the year I was born,” she says.

“So performing at Wembley gave me a bit of street cred with the future in-laws.”

They plan to marry next September.

“I had my heart set on Thoresby Hall but I love the idea of getting married in Bilsthrope Church where my mum and dad did. Nothing too flambouyant. Although there’ll be some good music. I’ll pull in a few favours for that.”

Sam regularly returns to Notts in order to play cricket.

“He loves that club,” she laughs.

“I don’t mind because I couldn’t do what I do without his support. I’m here there and everywhere with the group and Sam is such a rock.”

Victoria knows as much about cricket as she does football, although she saw a few games at the City Ground when she was younger as her dad is an avid Forest fan.

Dad is an ex-boxer who also worked as court usher, while mum works for the NHS. Her musical gift comes more from her grandparents.

“Both my parents are tone deaf,” she laughs. “The voice comes from my grandma. She did music at university. My grandad was one of the first members of the Salvation Army band and played trombone with the Edwinstowe Colliery Band.

“And my mum’s cousin is a trumpeter for the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It was because of him I saw my very first opera as he gave us free tickets.”

It was while at Minster School in Southwell that she joined Cantamus, the all-girl choir based in Mansfield, whose founder Pamela Cook died last month after suffering a stroke, aged 76.

“That was very tough,” admits Victoria, who was with the choir for ten years.

“She was the most incredible woman I’ve ever known. She changed so many girls’ lives. I think it’s 408 who passed through Cantamus and I certainly wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now if it wasn’t for Miss Cooke.

“I was so glad that I got to see her not too long before she passed away.”

That was the day after the FA Cup Final in May when she presented awards at the Mansfield Music and Drama Festival.

“I won it about 13 years ago. I got to speak about the incredible journey I had with Cantamus and how grateful I was.”

She travelling with the choir to Germany, Italy and China, where, in 2007, they were crowned World Choir Olympic Champions.

“My gran was a very close friend of hers and I knew she’d not been well for a few weeks but she’s one of those people you expect to be there forever.

“I used to go back to see her for what I called an MoT. I’d sing for her to make sure I was still doing it right. You could always trust her opinion.”

Victoria was the first singer to win The Nottingham Young Musician Competition, in 2005.

At 18 she went to the Royal College of Music in London and six years later graduated with a degree in music and an MA in performance.

She paid her way by working as a singing waitress in a restaurant called Bel Canto.

“People would be eating their dinner, the piano would start up and one of us would sing opera while walking around the tables,” she laughs.

“It was such a funny concept but it seemed to work.”

While still studying, she formed Amore with three fellow music students after two record company managers were overheard in Starbucks talking about their struggle finding a new opera group.

They signed a six album deal and have since appeared on This Morning, The National Lottery, Sky News, BBC Breakfast, Songs of Praise and at Chelsea Flower Show. There’s even been a shoot for OK! Magazine.

“Apart from the FA Cup Final and the Jubilee, one of my proudest moments was performing at the Royal Albert Hall for the Festival of Remebrance in front of the forces families,” she says.

“It gave us goosebumps. And I use to steward there when I was a student.”

This summer Amore have been busy performing at outdoor concerts, including a concert with Katherine Jenkins last month.

“She couldn’t have been nicer,” says Victoria, who’ll be with Amore supporting Russell Watson at Clumber Park next weekend.

“We supported him last summer and learned a lot from him; he’s such a showman.”

In recent weeks she’s been blogging about her attempt to get in shape for a half-marathon in October.

“I’m the most unfit, allergic-to-exercise person I know,” she laughs.

“It was David (Webb of Amore) who challenged me. He was banging on about all the exercise he was doing while I was tucking into Big Macs. He’d been writing a column for OK! Magazine and said he’d get me fit in 30 days.”

She admits: “I’m suffering, although I am feeling the benefit. I’ve been doing a class called Body Pump, which sounds rude to me. And anti-gravity yoga which is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever done. You’re hanging from a rope and doing weird positions. I got in trouble for laughing too much. The teacher shouted at me and said: ‘You’re obviously not at peace with yourself!’”

Next month they’ll be in Italy filming an advert for the Swiss watch manufacturer GC, that’ll be screened in the UK and Europe. She’s had two free watches so far.

“My dad teases me that I’m a wrist model. He says: ‘They don’t want your ugly mug on the telly, Victoria’”.

Amore, with a new member Harry Thatcher replacing Peter Brathwaite (CORR), will be recording a second album for release around Christmas, which may well include a version of Rihanna’s We Found Love.

“We’re playing around a lot more,” she says.

And there is talk of her and Sam moving back to Notts, because she misses it.

“We’ve been to all these ridiculous swanky parties and launches of various things over the past year but I’d much rather be at home with a takeaway watching a DVD or out with friends in Mansfield or Nottingham.

“I really miss my family and friends.”

Amore will support Russell Watson at Clumber Park on Sunday, August 18. For tickets, priced at £29.95 and £22 concs, call 0845 075 6101 or visit www.ukevents.neatticketing.co.uk.

Read Victoria’s blog at diaryofalazygirl87.blogspot.co.uk.

Indiana

July 19, 2013

THE fastest rising Nottingham music star of recent times is Indiana, a 25-year-old from Long Eaton who only played her first gig just over a year ago.

That was in the Future Sound of Nottingham competition to open the main stage at Splendour. She didn’t even come close but tomorrow she’ll be lining up with Jake Bugg, Squeeze and KT Tunstall on her own merit.

In the past 12 months she’s been signed to the Epic label, played on Radio 1, appeared at Glastonbury and sang for the Queen.

The latter was in the Radio 1 Live Lounge with Irish band The Script for a version of David Bowie’s Heroes, with her singing to the line “I will be Queen” to the Queen sitting just six feet away.

“Buckingham Palace requested The Script and the guys at Radio 1 wanted to showcase BBC Introducing,” she says of the initiative that has seen a lot of new artists getting played on national radio.

“And I was their favourite,” she beams.

She rehearsed with the band for a couple of hours the night before.

“I was nervous going into their space but they were really welcoming and a laugh. I was elated after that and not nervous at all but just before the Queen walked in I thought I was going to faint.”

The performance was screened live on BBC News 24.

“My family and friends found it really bizarre. They were messaging me saying ‘Did I just see you on the news?’”

After the performance she spoke to the Queen.

“It was quite annoying because the papers said she only clapped once – ‘one was not impressed!’ – but afterwards she was all smiles and chatting away.

“She spoke to me about Glastonbury. A guy from Radio 1 explained to her what BBC Introducing was and how I’d gone from writing music in my bedroom to performing at Glastonbury. And she said ‘Is that where it gets ever so muddy?’

“But the papers said she spoke to Danny (O’Donoghue, The Script singer) about Glastonbury and they weren’t even performing there, so I was annoyed that my claim to fame was taken away from me,” she laughs.

“Afterward, I walked out of the BBC and they were replaying everything on the big screen outside. I was stood in the middle of this crowd wearing exactly the same clothes but no one noticed me,” she continues, giggling.

Although she signed an autograph.

“Yes, just one. A girl asked for it and I got a pen out of my bag and started practising it before doing one for her.”

It was while at Glastonbury that she revealed to the crowd in the BBC Introducing tent that she was pregnant.

Etta, named after jazz singer Etta James, is due on September 7.

Is she worried about the timing?

“No, I’m embracing it. My label said I couldn’t have picked a better time because that’s the quietest month.”

Her boyfriend, James, will be a stay-at-home dad while she returns to her music career, with her first official single, Mess Around, due out in October.

She laughs: “I’ll have hopefully worked the baby weight off by then.”