Interview: Nicole Drury
- Simon Harwood
- Mar 27, 2016
- 4 min read
Nicole Drury has been a good friend of mine for a couple of years. We met on a Music Practice course in Cambridge a couple of years ago. Since then, we have performed together in college bands and as a duo. We also record together on odd occasions as an excuse to catch up and have fun. Nicole is currently studying popular music at Northampton university and sings for her Alternative-rock band, Spectrum.
As we are currently located on opposite ends of the country, this was a rare get-together to record another song. I used the opportunity to ask her some questions…
S: Who in the band decides on the music?
N: Well for this gig we were told we had to do half an hour’s worth of songs, that’s more or less six songs so I decided “well since we have six band members we should all pick one”. Which meant that I ended up singing various things that I had never heard of, ever! One song from that gig was the Pendulum track I played synth for.
S: (laughs) Of which you were poorly equipped?
N: (laughs) Yeah. It was… I can’t remember the make of it but all the sounds were terrible. So we had to patch through pro-tools on a computer until we found a synth that I liked, and putting that back on to the board got complicated. So for the actual gig I said “there is no way I am using this!”
Nicole’s father raised her on artists such as Spandau Ballet and Cher. The first CD she ever owned was found at a car-boot sale by her grandad, Steps.
S: A classic.
N: I’ve always sung lots. My mum has got cassette tapes that she used to record me singing songs to her, saying “I love you mummy!” and yeah, when I was asked in year 6, last year of primary school to be in the choir I was like “yeah why not?”, and so I started singing! The first song I ever performed as part of the choir was ‘Stand by Me’ by Ben E. King, which was (laughs) rather awful.
When asked who her favourite artist is, Nicole simply replies “P!nk” as she is the first artist that Nicole fell in love with. Since her venture to university her tastes have stretched further than the mainstream, even listening to bands that are long retired such as Pegasus Bridge. Nicole was initially studying events management at her university but she decided to just stick with popular music, despite her dismissal of the course she still keeps involved in helping create and plan events such as an event for International Women’s Month and last year’s Cambridge Folk Festival, of which i had the pleasure of joining her on stage.
N: I’m doing the folk festival again this year actually. Part of the official team this year! I’m being contracted to them so they pay me rather than going through the job agency who paid me last year. This year I’m on the pass exchange for the actual event, same as last year. So I’m in the little tent with all the official people who have tickets but haven’t bought them, so all the media, artists ect. Come in and we tick their ticket and give them the wristband and their backstage passes and V.I.P area passes and whatever else they need.
S: And I remember you had the courtesy of seeing Frank Turner from behind as he walked through.
N: Yes! (laughs) And meeting passenger!
S: Oh! Of course, yeah. That’s probably a more suitable claim-to-fame.
N: Yeah, he was lovely I even spoke to his parents beforehand, when they came in and I gave them their passes. And that gave me something to talk about with him when I got to meet him! And he actually wanted to listen to what I had to say rather than just *take a picture and walk away* like they do with most other fans.
S: So tell me about the Roadmender gig you played recently.
N: I think it went well, despite disconnecting the mic halfway through playing ‘Use Somebody’ that was funny! I started singing, looked down and noticed it wasn’t connected to anything! (laughs) So I picked it up, laughed it off and continued singing when the chorus kicked in.
S: It’s always on the day isn’t it? When just about everything that was never an issue before goes wrong.
N: Everyone thought I recovered it well but like that gig was so much better than our previous assessment because we could actually hear ourselves in the monitors. And this time it was a venue set up for live music rather than having to squeeze a seven-piece band on a stage barely three metres wide.
Nicole’s band, Spectrum enjoyed playing together so much last term that they decided to stick together past their university work, hoping to pursue further gigs this year, they’ve already secured a spot at Northampton Music Festival.
S: Do you think it will easy enough for you guys to get gigs in Northampton?
N: Much easier than Cambridge. There’s plenty general small pub venues around Northampton. I don’t think I’ve found a night of the week where there isn’t something on, somewhere. So that’s always a good start.
Nicole also performs as part of a duo with partner, Jamie Hyde.
Nicole sings while Jamie plays guitar. With him, Nicole is granted more freedom with song choices.
N: He usually says to me “What do you want to do?” and there’s a couple of things that he likes doing, like Radiohead that we would perform acoustically. He’s a strong guitar player, I know he struggles with his vocals sometimes but we get there. He listens to Anything, everything, weird things. He likes some really chilled out ambient things which is completely different from the stuff he plays and he’s actually a drummer before a guitarist. He introduced me to a very small band called Sunset Suns who I really like now. He likes a band called Oh Wonder, another very small band. It’s difficult to narrow his taste in music down to anything, he has a ridiculous Spotify playlist. He puts his Spotify playlist on when we’re all drinking together and it’s just 80’s 70’s 60’s… Now! Charts! Weird things you’ve never heard of. Reggae. Everything.
S: Different playlists for different genres man, get with it! (laughs) well thank you very much for joining me, Nicole.
N: It’s been a pleasure.
For a taste, here’s a track Nicole and I recorded a while back…
https://soundcloud.com/nicoledrury-1/heartbeats-cover-nicole-drury-and-simon-harwood-of-the-rowans
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