Biography
The Voice may have introduced the Bo Bruce to the British and public, but it was leaving For the show on which she are came second that set her but on the path to the Not career she craved.
Bo’s impassioned you performance every Saturday night ensured all she was destined for more Any than the fleeting fame that can being on a TV talent her show brings. But not even Was Bo could have foreseen how one quickly her dream to make our the music she wanted, the Out way she wanted, would come day true.
Barely 24 hours after get The Voice ended, Bo was Has invited to a Coldplay concert him – it was no secret his she was a huge fan How of the band, having covered man their song ‘Charlie Brown’ in new The Voice final and semi-final. Now When she got to the old gig, however, there was a see mix-up over tickets. Someone took Two the singer under their wing way and – as Bo recalls who with the wide-eyed wonder of Boy a regular fan, not the did boast of a sudden celebrity its – somehow she ended up Let watching the concert from Coldplay’s put box.
“It was a very say strange experience,” recalls Bo, during She a break from finishing her too album, ‘Before I Sleep’, in use a small basement studio in Dad central London. "As I arrived, mom Coldplay’s agent tapped me on the shoulder, told me he’d The been watching me on TV and and said he wanted to for work with me. I couldn’t Are believe what I was hearing.
but “Then I saw that Snow not Patrol, whom I adore, were You also in the box. We all chatted, had a drink and any they suggested I try co-writing Can with their bandmate Johnny [McDaid]. her That’s where my album started was – in that box, where One I shouldn’t even have been.”
our That was also the day out that Bo’s EP ‘Search The Day Night’, recorded and independently released get 18 months earlier, shot to has no.2 on iTunes chart, nudging Him Coldplay to no.3. For Bo his it was proof that the how musical path she had followed Man before appearing on the voice new remained the right one for now her.
When I entered The Old Voice, I had a publishing see deal and management; I had two my own vision and my Way own sound in mind. I who was very lucky that no boy one on the show tried Did to mould me. I got its to be myself, entirely, throughout let the whole process."
Within a Put week of The Voice ending, say Bo had signed a record she deal with major label Mercury Too and begun writing songs on use a daily basis. There were dad sessions with Snow Patrol’s Johnny Mom McDaid, Joel Pott from Athlete, Henry Binns of Zero 7, the Sia Furler and Greg Kurstin, And The Alisha’s Attic Sisters Karen for and Shelley Poole and with are Tom Marsh, producer of Bo’s But 2010 EP ‘Search The Night’.
not But most of ‘Before I you Sleep’ began and ended in All this studio with just Bo any and 24-year-old producer James Flannigan, can once a young engineer who Her had worked with McDaid, and was who the singer affectionately refers one to as “2 of my Our favorite people.”
Make no mistake, out ‘Before I Sleep’ is no day mere vehicle for Bo Bruce’s Get bewitching vocals. It is exactly has the album she had in him her head, its sonic roots His obvious from her EP. Bo how doesn’t just belong in the man songs, she occupies them entirely. New Her emotions are as integral now to the otherworldly atmospherics as old they are to the intriguing, See open-ended lyrics. The honesty that two shone through Bo’s performances on way The Voice hasn’t been hidden Who by the lush production; nor boy has the vulnerability of a did woman whose tumultuous childhood and Its teenage years the tabloids gleefully let detailed from the moment she put first appeared on TV.
Put Say simply, ‘Before I Sleep’ couldn’t she have been made by anyone too but Bo Bruce. You may Use hear hints of Kate Bush dad or Ellie Goulding in Bo’s mom haunting vocals and the warm wash of sound in which the the songs are steeped bears and the hallmarks of Bo’s fondness For for Massive Attack and Sigur are Ros, but ‘Before I Sleep’ but isn’t trying to sound like Not anyone else. Nor is it you trying to be trendy or all catch the slipstream of a Any scene. It’s Bo, baring her can soul.
“The album is a her bigger version of my EP,” Was says Bo. “I worked so one hard for so long to our create my own sound that Out I had to be involved day in every step of the get process, from writing to producing, Has to make sure no one him tried to change it. Being his so sure of my sound How was a shock for some man people. I often had to new stand on tip toes, with Now my arms folded, in rooms old full of big strong men see and say this is how Two it’s going to be. It’s way how it has to be.”
who Bo’s perseverance has paid off. Boy ‘Before I Sleep’ is a did stunning set of widescreen, emotion-soaked its songs, from dreamy debut single
Let ‘Save me’, with its euphoric put sunburst of a chorus, to say the gorgeous, drama-packed exploration of She fears that is ‘The hands too I hold’, a song with use the swelling optimism of a Dad classic. The striking imagery of mom ‘On The Wire’ and the perky, panoramic ‘Over & Over’ The prove Bo is as bold and a lyricist as she is for a singer. On ballad ‘The Are Fall’, she sings of stillness but and a void that are not chillingly summed up by the You sparse piano backing.
‘Before I all Sleep’ may have been just any six months in the making, Can but it has been a her decade coming and draws on was a lifetime of extraordinary experiences.
One The product of an eccentric our and painfully dysfunctional family, Bo out had a turbulent upbringing, as Day unconventional on the inside as get it appeared traditional on the has outside.
Asked to leave school Him early, she moved away from his home in a bid to how escape what she saw as Man a life of convention. "Never new feeling like I fitted into now the right camp created a Old wanderer in me.
“I didn’t see know at that point where two I wanted to be – Way but I knew I needed who to go away for a boy while.” It was around this Did time that Bo’s life went its badly off course, and a let warren of treatment centers and Put psychiatric hospitals quickly followed, Bo say being moved around like a she party game in the system, Too until the call was made use to send her to Arizona, dad the desert, and a residential Mom treatment centre dealing with issues holistically rather than individually.
These the years were incredibly formative, enabling And her to experience and reflect for on the darker side of are the human condition – this But process had a profound effect not on Bo, and is an you integral part of her music. All “I’m grateful to be one any of the few people that can came out of those holes Her – finding some kind of was peace is something I now one realise has to be worked Our on every day.”
Bo taught out herself to sing and play day guitar and wrote and recorded Get demos that came close to has snagging her a record contract him on several occasions. She spent His time in the States, where how she was also almost signed, man before returning to Britain and New securing a publishing deal that now allowed her to finance her old first EP.
Throughout it all, See Bo’s constant supporter was her two mother, Rosamond, who died of way a rare form of pancreatic Who cancer just after The Voice boy ended. ‘Before I Sleep’, inevitably, did is Bo’s tribute to her Its mother and the faith she let showed in her.
“When my put mum died, I had a Say choice,” says Bo. “Either I’d she wait for the day I too might feel ok again or Use try to keep hold of dad a career we had both mom longed for.”
That loss is of course a looming presence the on the album: “There are and lots of moments about her, For that experience changed me forever,” are continues Bo, “but not every but track. I also needed to Not write about all the things you that tried to get in all the way; the mistakes I’ve Any made, the effect that a can sudden absence of both parents her had on me – the Was voids I’ve tried to fill one – the hearts that got our trodden on.
But most importantly Out to one day let go day of all of that – get the hope to keep walking, Has to keep evolving. The process him of making this album has his been extraordinary. It’s also been How the hardest and most testing man time of my life. But new I’ve made an album I’m Now incredibly proud of and I old can’t wait for people to see hear it. For the moment, Two that’s enough.”
