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Lauren Fownes
With our actress neighbour and her friend we started recording demos. All good except they were not the best of singers though we did get lots of attention for the songs and production. Our manager, Sandy Robertson, hit every door in town selling THE MATRIX as the best thing ever!! It worked and we found ourselves working with Christina Aguilera, Sugar Babes, Ronan Keating and others who included our songs on their albums or we wrote with them. An English girl, Scottish guy and an American seemed to have an international appeal and it sure didn't hurt when The Matrix movie was released - our name was carried along on the huge publicity although we had no association with it. We worked solidly, sleeping in the studio. We borrowed to buy the best equipment which could travel anywhere in the world. We were unstoppable. I also had my first child, Georgia Christy Edwards in 2000.
The only problem was that we hadn't had a hit until a young girl walked in carrying a handful of country-song demos, scowling and saying how much she disliked them. Her name, Avril Lavigne. We wrote most of her 1st album, Let Go while I was pregnant with Sophie Skye. We followed this with three #1 hits in 2002: received a Grammy nomination for Complicated in 2003: Ivor Novello Award in 2002: and in 2004, two more Grammy nominations for I'm With You and Producer of the year.
Ten years on we still work as a team every day - some good, some bad: we write truly great songs which never see the light of day and some indifferent which become hits. There's no telling what the public want. Every day though is exciting and we cannot believe our dream has come true. One day we found ourselves in the studio with Britney Spears on mike singing a vocal, Graham in an adjoining room talking with Ricky Martin and in the control room, watching on TV, the launch of our new single performed by Shakira. We have just finished producing six songs for the German band, Tokio Hotel. In a throw-back to the days when the students would gather in the TV room at Bush to watch the series Fame each week
and my appearance on the Russell Harty Show, The Matrix have just produced a good chunk of the new Fame movie for MGM, in theatres now.
Life is good. Even our daughters are beginning to think us 'cool'! Yet there is a price for success. Although we remain best friends and business partners, Graham and I have separated. Working with the man you love can dramatically change the way in which he sees you.
Bush Davies played a big part in preparing me for the life I chose and I cherish every memory. I will always be thankful for my time there. Incidentally, the St Trinian movies had nothing on Bush Davies! Who can recall the food fights at meal times, having a face full of mashed potatoes thrown across the room or the black-market trading of Galaxy chocolate at exorbitant mark-ups. It was me. I'm still a chocoholic!
Love
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