Betsy in Brighton on back of debut album

Shirley Bassey, Annie Lennox, Cher and Tina Turner are the singers Betsy looks up to as she launches into her own career.
BetsyBetsy
Betsy

“I am really, really pleased with my debut album”, says Betsy who plays The Haunt in Brighton on November 28. “I think it sounds really lush. We have got strings on there which sound absolutely phenomenal.”

So how would she describe the sound overall?

“I would say it is epic diva pop. I like those big-voice singers, the singers that are really proud of singing big pop songs with their big voices and are very glamorous about it! There is nothing cool about me, I am afraid! But that doesn’t matter too much. I just like the singers that really go for it, people like Tina Turner – wonderful big songs with wonderful big voices and lots of personality.”

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It’s great to get the album out there now, says Betsy. “I think the whole process from start to finish was something like two years in all. The whole shebang is that I come from Wales. A goose farm in Wales, just to add to the glamour of it all!

“I had always wanted to be a musician right from when I was tiny, tiny. I can’t remember I was so small, but where I am from we are six hours away from London and we are right in the middle of nowhere. I thought I would study fashion as a way to get to London and maybe also to meet some musicians, but while I was studying at St Martin’s, I got offered a job in Paris as part of Gucci, one of the biggest fashion houses in the world. I was there for about a year and then halfway through my degree, I thought that if I am ever going to make a go of music, I should get on and do it straight away.

“I came back and made a three-track demo and sent it off to everyone in the world. I am sure you got one! But nobody ever replied.”

But one thing led to another and she was given some money to go away to write: “I went and lived in my brother’s caravan in his backyard and I wrote a lot of the songs that are on the album now and certainly the songs that got me the record deal – all written in this stinking old caravan!”

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Now Betsy knows she’s got to make the most of the debut album: “I have just got to get out there and play it to everybody which is what this tour is all about, and it would also be great to be part of a few TV shows. And I have already started on the second album. I am very quick!”

For the tour, Betsy is backed by an all-girl band: “They are extremely talented musicians, each of them at the top of their game in what they are doing, and they are also very entertaining. I have got a violinist, a cellist, keyboardist and a drummer and occasionally backing singers depending on the size of the venue. It is a really fun set-up.”