Helen will be performing as one of the backing vocalists for Darren Hayman’s musical adaptation of William Morris’ “Chants for Socialists”.
Date: Sunday 4th October 2015 at 6.15pm
Venue: Wimbledon Book Fest, William Morris Tent, Wimbledon Common, SW19 5AZ
Tickets: £10 and are available from here.
Helen’s Sirens and Other Mysteries Tour
Helen will be performing at Sunday Night Live as part of the “Sirens and Other Mysteries” tour.
Date: Sunday 27th September 2015 at 7pm
Venue: The Plough Inn, 96 Watling Street, Towcester, NN12 6BT
Tickets: Admission to this event is FREE
For more information, check the Sunday Night Live Towcester website
How I helped to change the life of a 90s pop star…
In 1993, I was 16 (yes do the maths and work out hold I am…) and obsessed with music. There was one particular single that I was desperate to hear. I can remember going to Woolworths in the seaside town where I lived to buy it and then running at full pelt to my friend’s house the other end of town to play it. My friend greeted me at the door with a copy of Smash Hits in her hand (for those of you under 20, this was the magazine you bought to get song lyrics long before Google was ever invented); she showed me an interview with the very same pop star… The interview was sad. This singer was in trouble. It was distressing. Then my friend piped up “we should pray for her!”. Now don’t get me wrong, I knew about the power of prayer but at 16 I thought I was too cool for all of that. However, being young I thought “OK what’s the harm? Let’s go for it.” I had no idea what we had started…
A few years later that same pop star became a Christian and her life changed for the better. I can remember reading an interview at the time and being amazed; I had no idea that the tiny prayer I prayed with my friend would change someone’s life so dramatically. I’m not claiming that we were the only people who prayed for her, I’m sure there were many others, I just didn’t realise how powerful the effect of our actions was.
In 2012 I got to meet this 90s pop star and I decided to pluck up some courage and tell her what my friend and I had done. To be honest, I thought that she would be nonchalant and thank me politely and walk away thinking “Helen is a total looney”. I had no idea what was coming next… She threw her arms around me and burst into tears, shouting “thank you, thank you, I knew someone was praying for me when things were so bad!” I was shocked and so was she; she couldn’t believe that two teenagers cared enough to pray for her. The moral of the story is people always need our prayers no matter how small.
Recently I’ve had some moments where I’ve felt my prayers are ineffective and God isn’t listening. Maybe God is out, maybe his voicemail is on, maybe He thinks I’m insignificant. And when I was moaning at God about this, he reminded me of this story and that He is always listening and interested in what is on our hearts. So be encouraged: prayer changes everything!
When I was 17 I had a dream of how my songwriting career would pan out… I would live in London in a tiny bedsit, just me and my piano and spend my days writing beautiful songs whilst trying not to starve to death from crap pay and late night gigs. My days would be spent thinking up new ways to be bohemian, playing my Carpenters vinyl and reading trendy paperbacks. To some extent my student days were like this: I lived in a damp house with 3 friends and piano, I drank Cinzano and Jack Daniels (not together in the same glass, that would just be weird), listened to Sarah McLachlan and Sophie B Hawkins (showing my age now!) and bought clothes from Camden market.
However my life 20 years on is very different. I’m married with two children and although I lived in London for 11 years, I now live in the Home Counties in a sensible house that hasn’t seen any bohemian, artistic deaths. My songwriting techniques have changed over the years and I’ve learned to adapt as my situation changes particularly with motherhood and the demands of running a business. Nothing ever prepares you for these changes but here are the things that I have found interrupt my songwriting…
And then there are all the other things: accounts, emails, promotion and of course writing blogs! So I’m off to write a song…
Want to hear about how I did something crazy and jacked in my nice, cosy career to go back into music? Back in June David and Laura Higham interviewed me for Flame CCR Radio and asked me all sorts of crazy and interesting questions…Want to know what other people have said about my music? David also interviewed the audience at the Spellow Lane gig in Liverpool. GULP! You can hear the interview here…
It will take as long as it takes…
Last year I embarked on writing the new album; an exciting new adventure filled with lots of creativity. Or so I thought… Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE songwriting and creating new music. However, I couldn’t find my joy with it. Years of having to write to a deadline whilst under the pressure of teaching, running a business and holding a family together were beginning to catch up with me. Previously I had felt that the quality of the music I was producing wasn’t up to standard and that I hadn’t got sufficient time to think and prepare the material.
I was also becoming entangled in the machine… Constant promotion, constant reinvention, constant campaigns were getting in the way of writing and in 2013 when I went on maternity leave I made a vow that things would be different when I returned to work nine months later. I’m not decrying that these elements aren’t important, but they were beginning to supersede what I was meant to be doing. The pressure to continually produce something new was becoming immense, and in my mind this way of working doesn’t always mean quality. I’m not driven my money (if I was I wouldn’t be making music!), I’m driven by artistry and the desire to create, and represent life as I see it through music. With everything that was going on, I didn’t feel that I had done my best. Something had to give.
The journey of artistry and creativity over a lifetime is varied. Sometimes the path of creativity is exciting and sometimes it is downright boring, other times it is full of joy and then it can be excruciating. It’s messy, outrageous, quiet, dormant, unrelenting and possessive all in one go. It changes all the time, it’s never the same. For me, the only thing that stays constant is the goal to produce something of beauty that helps others.
The upshot of taking my time is that I am finally writing the songs I’ve always wanted to! I’ve got time to go deeper into the subjects that intrigue me and compose in the styles that aren’t necessarily commercial but suit the topics on my heart. I have a group of trusted colleagues that listen to my work during the writing process and give me feedback, so far their reaction has been great and they are loving the new direction that things are moving in, which means the world!
So please excuse me while I take my time, lie in a field, staring at the sky and be excessively artistic for the next few months. This will mean many trips to Starbucks while I ponder on the issues of the day and will lead to huge piles of manuscript paper being left all over my house (this really winds my family up!). I like doing my best; I want to do my best, so the new album is going to take as long as it takes… Hhhmmm that sounds like a good album title!
Helen’s 2015 Tour
Helen will be performing at Spellow Lane Church, Liverpool as part of her 2015 tour.
Date: Sunday 21st June 2015 at 6.30pm
Venue: Spellow Lane Church, Spellow Lane, Liverpool, L4 4DE http://www.spellowlanechurch.org/
Tickets: Admission to this event is FREE
InstaHope
Helen will be performing at InstaHope at Headington Baptist Church, High St, Headington, Oxford on Saturday 13th June at 7.30pm. Check the Church website for more details for more details.
Never, Never, Never Give Up…
Winston Churchill was right, never, never, never give up! The last few years have been a tough ride musically and I have wondered whether I should actually stay in music. I know that may come as a surprise to some of you as I’m not someone who publicly moans or talks about what’s going on behind the scenes. But finding work has been hard. It actually been difficult for about eight years since the recession started; my husband’s four redundancies in five years did not ease the problem either! I’ve put up with people telling me that my songs are irrelevant, that no-one wants to hear “a bird with a piano” and that singers like me are “two a-penny” and therefore I should work and perform for free. On top of that for every project that is successful, I have approximately four projects that fail. I don’t usually talk about that, but believe it or not everything works out with a fairytale ending. A lot of projects do just go “tits up” taking a large amount of money with them.
Fortunately I’ve had some solidarity from other music colleagues who have had exactly the same problem and we’ve kept each other going. At this point I would publicly like to thank a number of people who have listened to me whinge! Thanks to Nikki, Rachel, and Anya! LOVE YOU GUYS!
What people haven’t realised though is that I’m a feisty old bird and NOTHING keeps me down! If anything it only makes me more determined and drives me to keep going. The thought of leaving music behind killed me and especially as it I feel that it is something that God called me to; I left a very nice, secure career in HR fourteen years ago to do this full time. So I made a decision: the decision is that I’m never, never, never going to give up! As fans, your job is to hold me to that statement…
So what have I been doing over the last few months? I know many of you have been keen to hear news about new music… Well I can confirm that I have been writing a new album! It’s been lovely to have space to return to my first love: songwriting. The last EP (Sirens and Other Mysteries) was written in a bit of a rush, so I wanted to take my time with the next project and I’m currently still writing. It may take forever – Sorry!
Earlier this week I headed down to Resound Media’s new studio in Gloucestershire to record a new single “Close That Door”that will be released later this year. Andy Baker is producing again and we had a great time working on the track. I can’t wait for you to hear it! I also got to a have cup of tea with the gorgeous Penny Lyon from Out of the Ashes afterwards – so that was a bonus!
So if you’re on the verge of giving up – DON’T! Keep going and don’t stop. It can only get better – right?!!! So to encourage you, here’s a photo of me recording me new single; it’s the stuff that dreams are made of…
Helen will be performing as one of the backing vocalists for Darren Hayman’s musical adaptation of William Morris’ “Chants for Socialists”.
Date: Friday 24th April 2015 at 7.30pm
Venue: St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Rd, London, NW1 1UL
Tickets: £12 and are available from here.
Helen Sanderson White 