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Lauren Fownes
At 19 I had my first record deal with Atlantic Records in the US. Yeah - I'd made it!! Wrong. After a year I'd been shelved with a lot of personal debt from financing half the record whilst waiting for the other half to arrive from US - big lesson! After 2 hellish years looking for someone to buy off my label Mercury Records took me on and invited me to America to record.
I was 23 when I arrived in Los Angeles in 1991. As soon as I stepped from the plane I knew I was 'home'. It felt like a giant Bush Davies - creativity everywhere. If you can't keep up, get out!
I made 2 albums: had 3 semi-hits and 1 big one, The Colour of the Night (See Page 1 and 2nd Link Page 4). I also received a nomination as Best New Artist from an American music award. All good but not the kind of success I had dreamed about whilst sitting at studio pianos at Bush! With lots of great reviews I had no security to show for it. And at 30 I realised that I was done as a performer when a record company, about to sign me changed their mind, but asked if they could have one of my songs for Natalie Imbruglia.
Forget trying to be a star, it was time to go to work and make some money!
With no record deal, living in a rented apartment with my husband Graham, companies signing artists aged between 16 and 21, I was depressed. Then I'm listening to my upstairs neighbour, a rising actress 20 years old, singing along to the radio. 'Ok, if I can't be the singer because I'm too old, someone else can sings my songs, which I'm now writing with Graham. We would write and produce. Taking the idea to our brilliant studio wizard/songwriter friend, Scott Spock, who loved the idea, THE MATRIX was born in September 1999.
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