Simon Wilcox

Simon Wilcox
Origin	Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Genres	Rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Years active	1996–present
Labels	Universal Music Group
Website	www.simonwilcox.com

Simon Wilcox is a Canadian singer-songwriter.

1 Early life
2 Musical career
3 Achievements
4 Discography
5 Singles
6 References
7 External links

Early life

Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Wilcox is the daughter of multi-media artist Sadia Sadia and Canadian rock musician David Wilcox. She is also the great niece of Canadian political scientist John Meisel. At the age of three, she was placed with a female friend of the family in Ottawa, Ontario while her parents went on tour. She grew up in Ottawa, seeing her parents on a sporadic basis until she turned 17, when she moved to Toronto.^[1]

Musical career

She has collaborated with many notable artists including Grammy-nominated BEAST, Breathe Carolina, The Higher, Jeffree Star, Jorane, Jully Black, The Kooks, The Midway State, Matt Dusk, Paris Hilton, Projet Orange, The Spill Canvas, Ten Second Epic, Three Days Grace and The Trews.

Her co-writes appear in numerous films and television shows: a bespoke composition for Brothers (2009 film) (featuring Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Sam Shepard),^[2] Hung (TV series) (HBO), Mama's Boy (film) (2007 film featuring Diane Keaton, Jon Heder, Jeff Daniels, Anna Faris),^[2] Raise Your Voice (Hilary Duff), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn and 90210 (2010 television series), to name a few. She is the featured vocalist in many of these compositions (Brothers (2009 film) and Mama's Boy (film)).

In 1996 while attending the Ontario College of Art & Design, Wilcox played a prominent role in the gothic rock group Exovedate’s second CD. The album was very well received by college, university, and underground radio, notably charting in the top 10 on the University of Toronto's FM station CIUT-FM for three months in 1997. While Wilcox is cited as a remaining and important influence on this band, it was her unfettered solo albums Mongrel of Love (2000), Smart Function (2003, BMG/SHE) (single "Mommies & Daddies" reached #8 on the CHUM Countdown)^[3] and The Charm and the Strange (2007, MapleMusic/Universal) - which featured the single "Eyes On You" (also featured on MuchMoreMusic and MTV Canada)^[4] - that established her as an important Canadian musician.

From 2004 - 2010 her catalogue was represented by EMI Music Publishing world wide.^[5]

Achievements

Wilcox has had significant success as a songwriter, winning the SOCAN No. 1 Song Award for her song "Stay",^[6] which reached the peak of Canadian music network's Bravo! chart on October 18, 2005. The song was co-written and recorded by the distinctive Quebec-based star Jorane and appears on Jorane's 2004 album, The You and the Now (produced by Michael Brook, and featuring Daniel Lanois).

"Stay" was Wilcox's third co-written No. 1 song in little more than a year, each recorded by remarkably different performers. The others were "Home" (recorded by Three Days Grace - Jive/Zomba) - whose American sales exceeded 1,500,000, Canadian sales were in excess of 300,000, and charted for 31 weeks on BillBoard #2 Active Rock ^[7] as well as #1 on the MuchMusic Countdown.^[8] Her song "Tell All Your Friends" (recorded by Projet Orange - SonyBMG) was #1 on the MuchMusic Countdown.^[9] Wilcox has also worked with producer Mike Green (Paramore, the Matches) writing songs with Paris Hilton (including "Paris for President, which aired repeatedly on CNN,^[10] and "Jailhouse Baby"), The Higher (Epitaph) and Ten Second Epic (Sony ATV) - the latter produced by Garth Richardson.

On March 9, 2008 her Kenyan video diary was broadcast across Canada on CBC News: Sunday.^[11] Wilcox went to Kenya in the summer of 2007, after co-writing the official song for the 2006 International AIDS Conference (held in Toronto).^[12]

Wilcox co-wrote the No. 1 single "Man of Two Minds" with The Trews, the song appears on the album "No Time For Later" (Universal). She also helped write the title track. According to John-Angus MacDonald, the title came from a discussion between Wilcox and lead singer Colin MacDonald. Colin said "there's no time for later, we'll finish the song" and Wilcox, not realizing that Colin was not referring to a song, responded with "No, let's work on that song.".^[13]

Simon appears on The Kooks' (EMI-UK) cover version of Peter Bjorn & John's 'Young Folks' where she sings Victoria Bergsman's part of the song.^[14]

The song was released on a free CD that accompanied the March 1, 2008 issue of the NME.

She has writing credits on albums by Jully Black (JUNO Award for R&B/Soul Recording of the Year),^[15] Kalan Porter, Brian Melo, Ryan Malcolm (SonyBMG) and many others. BEAST's Betty Bonifassi (The Triplets of Belleville) had help anglicizing her metaphor-heavy lyrics from Wilcox, who Bonifassi considers the group's third member.^[16]