Transcript from an Interview with Rebecca Thorn
"I wanted to be Peggy Lee when I grew up.. but she was busy being Peggy Lee so I had to look elsewhere. So I listened to all different types of music, lots of female singers in particular, and then kept going back to jazz. The result was that I ended up trying to sound like a mixture of Peggy Lee, Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, Donald Fagen, David Bowie, Chet Baker and somehow add to that the tone of Coltrane and the phrasing of Errol Garner. I still aspire to that sound and probably will for the rest of my days. ..
I've played piano since I was small and didn’t really start singing properly until I was in my 20's. Before then I sang in the school choir, in amateur musicals and in the bath.
I wrote the odd songs in my teens and they were hugely styled on Carole King and her album Tapestry, piano phrases and all.
They were about unrequited love and heartbreak. Some things never change.
I went to drama school and would play piano for hours in the lunchbreaks. Odd, angular improvised pieces of confusion and desire that bounced back of the ballet room mirrors and hung in the air.
I still listen to lots and lots of music. All different types. I'm still hugely influenced by certain musicians, from PJ Harvey to the Arcade Fire to the Basquiat Strings as well as my die-hard favourites Joni Mitchell, John Coltrane and Peggy Lee.
I made my first independent album "This Is Why"’ last year and I am currently working on new material and am looking to record an album of my own songs sometime this year.
I gig all around the country and hope to do a small album tour.
I also hope to launch the album this summer.
I live in North London with Dudley and Sean. I drink red wine, Jack Daniels and Guinness. I like the poetry of Blake and Coleridge and I follow West Ham United football team. I’m always throwing things away by mistake... Really you "This Is Why",
Influences:
"Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Miles Davis, Peggy Lee, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Blossom Dearie, Dory Previn, PJ Harvey, Martha Wainwright, Steely Dan, Kate Bush, Arcade Fire, David Bowie, Nick Drake, The Zombies, Dolly Parton, The Band, Radiohead, Aimee Mann, Charles Aznavour, Brahms, Simon and Garfunkel, John Zorn, Roxy Music,Sounds Like"