Fiona Bevan

Fiona Bevan is a multi-platinum selling English singer-songwriter from Suffolk, who lives in Hackney, London.^[1] She wrote, with Ed Sheeran, the song "Little Things" which became a number-one single for English-Irish boy band One Direction.^[2] She also co-wrote "Voodoo Doll" with Australian band 5 Seconds Of Summer for their debut studio album 5 Seconds of Summer, released by Capitol Records, and performed on Gwyneth Herbert's 2013 album The Sea Cabinet, sharing writing credits on two of the songs. Her debut solo studio album Talk to Strangers (April 2014) was released on Navigator Records.

She has toured as support to Nick Mulvey, Ryan Keen, Ed Sheeran, Gwyneth Herbert and Bill Bailey. Bevan also runs a residency night at Servant Jazz Quarters, Dalston, London called "Fiona Bevan Presents" which has so far featured acts including Mercury Prize-nominated Sam Lee and Ed Harcourt, who also remixed her first single, "The Machine".

Early life and education

Bevan is of British and Canadian parentage.^[1] She was brought up in Suffolk and went to secondary school in Colchester.^[3]

Recording career

In 2011 she released her debut EP, Us and the Darkness, co-produced with Grammy award winning engineer Robin Baynton.^[4] It features Bevan on lead vocals and guitar accompanied by Rosalie Bevan on bass and James Crichlow on violin.^[5] One of the songs on the EP, "Dial D for Denial", was a semi-finalist at the 2011 International Songwriting Competition.^[1] The song "Pirates and Diamonds" was included on the OneTaste Collective Album Vol. 2, released on 14 June 2010, while she also appeared on Winter Hunter Remixes by The Living Graham Bond released on 26 July 2010 on the Fat label.^[6]

Her song "Love in a Cold Climate" was included on the For Folk's Sake Christmas 2011 compilation album.^[7]

Fiona Bevan's debut studio album Talk To Strangers was released on Navigator Records in 2014.^[8] The album's twelve songs were written by Fiona Bevan, arranged and played by Fiona Bevan and Shawn Lee produced by Shawn Lee and engineered by Pierre Duplan in Bloomsbury, London and mastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios, San Francisco.

The first single "The Machine" was remixed by Ed Harcourt and featured Fem Fel and received airplay on BBC Radio 1 and BBC London. The next single, "Rebel Without A Cause", was released in May 2014, with remixes by Anushka, who are signed to Gilles Peterson's Brownswood label, and Mr Hudson.

Collaborations

Poussez Posse

For several months in 2011, Bevan was joint lead guitarist in the Poussez Posse, a band fronted by Georgina Baillie and mentored by Adam Ant. Fellow members included other lead guitarist Danie Cox, bassist Molly Spiers MacLeod (daughter of Spizzenergi) and drummer Rachael Smith, all three of whom later left to form self-styled "flock rock" band The Featherz. This version of the Posse played several support slots for Ant in 2011 and recorded tracks for a planned album. It was replaced by a new line-up, still fronted by Baillie, which continued to support Ant on UK and Australian tours until the end of 2012. Rehearsal footage from 2011 of Bevan's lineup of the Poussez Posse is included in The Blueblack Hussar, a documentary about Ant directed by Jack Bond.

Last Wane Days

With Neil Luck she co-composed music for, and performed alongside the avant-garde string ensemble ARCO on Last Wane Days (squib-box), a two-act monodrama for voice and ensemble,^[9] which was released on 12 March 2012. In a review, Tim Rutherford-Johnson said: "Bevan in particular can turn her voice on a dime. As co-composers, Luck and Bevan use sound and recurring motifs cleverly, so that the rampant dislocations achieve an unexpected coherence and continuity. Serious artistry".^[10]

"Little Things"

Bevan co-wrote the song "Little Things", a mid-tempo pop and folk ballad about the insistence that flaws are what make a person unique. It appeared on One Direction's album, also called Take Me Home, and was released by Syco Music on 12 November 2012 as a single. The song was written by Ed Sheeran and Fiona Bevan, and produced by Jake Gosling.^[2] In October 2012, Sheeran acknowledged Bevan's songwriting credit in an interview with British radio network Capital FM: "The great thing about it is I wrote that song with a girl called Fiona Bevan when I was 17 and we lost the song. I've kept in touch with Fiona, we've done gigs and stuff and about two months ago she sent me the tune and was like, 'Oh, do you remember this?' I was like, 'Yeah, I do remember that', and I was in the studio with the One Direction boys at the time and I was playing it and they were like, 'We really like that'. It's got one of my favourite lines that I've ever written in a song."^[11]

With Ed Sheeran and Terrius Nash she performed "Sight of You" on The Party Machines' album 2013 Party Jams.^[12]

The Sea Cabinet

Bevan co-wrote, with Gwyneth Herbert, two songs on Herbert's 2013 album The Sea Cabinet – "I Still Hear the Bells" and "The King's Shilling" – and performed with Herbert on the album and at its London launch at Wilton's Music Hall in May 2013.^[13]

Voodoo Doll

Beevan co-wrote, with Adam Argyle, Calum Hood and Ashton Irwin from the band 5 Seconds of Summer for debute album from this band.

Discography

References and footnotes

External links

• Fiona Bevan: official website